Judith W. McGuire (1813–1867)

Judith White Brockenborough was born in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Judge William Brockenbrough of the Virginia Supreme Court. She married Rev. John McGuire, a minister and principal of the Episcopalian High School near Alexandria, and had two sons who served with the Confederate Army in the U.S. Civil War. Mrs. McGuire kept a diary covering the period May 1861 to May 1865, which was published anonymously a few years later as the Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War, by a Lady of Virginia (1867). The literate and newsy diary is one of the best surviving civilian records of the conflict. It permits historians and readers a valuable look at wartime Richmond society and meetings with General and Mrs. Robert E. Lee.