The papers of diarist Betty Herndon Maury Maury (1835-1903) consist of a diary kept by Maury from June 3, 1861, to February 18, 1863. The two-volume diary was scanned from one reel of microfilm. Maury wrote the diary primarily in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and it contains detailed comments on the progress of the American Civil War, especially in the local area; contributions by women to the Confederate war effort; hardships suffered by Confederate soldiers; and military activities of Betty Maury's father, naval officer and oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873), her cousin, Dabney Herndon Maury (1822-1900), and other members of the Maury family. Betty Maury also discusses the professional impact of the war on her husband (and second cousin), lawyer William A. Maury (1832-1918), the emotional impact of the conflict on her young daughter Nannie Belle Maury (1858-1939), and Maury's concerns about finding accommodations while a refugee in Fredericksburg and Richmond, Virginia.

Maury's diary was donated to the Library of Congress in 1928 by her daughter, Alice Maury Parmelee (1863-1940), the child with whom Betty Maury was pregnant when the diary ends in February 1863.

All or selected parts of this collection were transcribed by volunteers participating in the By the People crowdsourcing transcription project of the Library of Congress. Crowdsourced text associated with the specific image from which it was transcribed can be viewed by clicking on the “Image w/Text” option above the image itself, or by selecting the “Text” option in the dropdown menu below the image. Selecting “Text (all pages)” opens a document containing the available transcribed text for all the images in the respective object record.

A transcription dataset for this collection is available online as part of Transcription dataset from "'Such Eventful Times': Women and the American Civil War", Manuscript Division. For general information on transcription datasets at the Library of Congress and their uses, see “Datasets at the Library of Congress: A Research Guide.”