People

Cornelia Peake McDonald

Winchester Resident

June 14, 1822 - January 11, 1909

Cornelia Peake McDonald was an American diarist who lived in Winchester during the Civil War. Originally intended to fulfill her husband’s (Angus W. McDonald III,) request to document current events, her diary was published as the book A Woman’s Civil War: A Diary With Reminiscences of The War From March 1862. Her writings were significant as it recorded life in Winchester, a frequently re-occupied town, from a woman’s point of view. Addressing both the war outside her door and its effect on her, her family, and their survival, she filled her diary’s pages with war reports, domestic history, women’s struggles, the state of the African-Americans, and social issues (i.e. finding enough food, income, and shelter.)

Known as one of the “Devil Diarists of Winchester,” Cornelia and other “Secesh” women were the fire in the city’s resistance to the Federal occupation.

The original diary is located in the James G. Leyburn Library Special Collections and Archives at Washington and Lee University. Cornelia McDonald died in 1909 and is buried next to her husband in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA.