The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
§ 16. Emily V. Mason
In the following year Miss Emily V. Mason of Virginia edited The Southern Poems of the Civil War. She had from the beginning of the war conceived the design of “collecting and preserving the various war poems which (born of the excited state of the public mind) then inundated our public newspapers.” With her collection, supplemented by those of her friends, she made an edition of 247 poems, not only as a memorial to the lost cause, but “to aid the education of the daughters of our desolate land” and especially to fit a certain number to be teachers. The volume proved popular, for by 1869 a third and enlarged edition was published, consisting of 288 poems. The first edition is notable for the large number of women writers selected from, 71 in all, the only noteworthy one being Mrs. Preston. There are thirteen poems on Stonewall Jackson, only two poems by Timrod, an indiscriminate list by Randall, and many anonymous poems. In the third edition we have eight by Timrod, four by Father Ryan, and good, though not the best, selections by Lucas, McCabe, Flash, and others.