Many, many ladies, North, South and inbetween were forced to leave their homes and take to the road to find refuge.  Some ladies were able to prepare ahead of time, sending wagon loads of household items to a safer area to live.  Others were caught almost unaware that the Armys were approaching.  They were given little time to evacuate.  They hastily grabbed what precious items that they could.  Some went into hiding while others followed the Armys, seeking safe travel away from harm.  Many wrote ahead to family or friends hoping to find a safe haven.  The word refugee generally inspires a vision of total destitution.  Through diaries and journals we are finding out that there were different stages or status of being away from home.  As Lady Reenactresses, we can present all forms of refugees.  We can read the journals, present the images and show our fellow citizens what molded our country.  Our Lady ancestors kept a decorum of home life where ever they were.  We are a product of their endurance and their stories need to be told.
    I have been searching out items to help you present this image at reenactments.  This page will have diaries for you to study up on what they went through.  It will have items to help you visually show the public what was important to them.  But most of all it will help you feel more at home at reenactments and be better prepared to talk to the public.

                                    Historians have long recognized the refugees’
                                   importance and writers of fiction their appeal, but
                                   Mary Elizabeth Massey’s Refugee Life in the
                                   Confederacy—originally published in 1964—marks
                                   the first full telling of their story. Massey explores in
                                   vivid detail all aspects of southern refugee life. Thrilling
                                   tales of displaced people scrambling for trains or
                                   making river crossings recapture the poignancy of
                                   civilians trapped between advancing and retreating
                                   armies. Massey also examines the psychological
                                   effects of the war on the homeless, the humor they
                                   found in their difficulties, their activities in adopted
                                   communities, private and public aid for the refugees,
                                   and legislation concerning them.

                                   With a new introduction by George C. Rable,
                                   Massey’s comprehensive study depicts the texture of
                                   refugee life like no other book before it and is essential
                                   to any thorough understanding of the Civil War.

                       The Civil War wrought cataclysmic changes in the lives of American
                        Women on both sides of the conflict. Women in the Civil War
                        demonstrates their enterprise, fortitude, and fierceness. In
                        this revealing social history, Massey focuses on many famous
                        women, including nurses Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, and
                        Mother Bickerdyke; spies Pauline Cushman and Belle Boyd;
                        writers Louisa May Alcott, Julia Ward Howe, and Mary
                        Chestnut; pamphleteer and military strategist Anna Ella
                        Carroll; black abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Sojourner
                        Truth; feminists Susan B. Anthony and Jane Grey Swisshelm;
                        and political wives Varina Davis and Mary Todd Lincoln. The
                        anonymous women who maintained farms and plantations are
                        described, as are camp followers, businesswomen,
                        entertainers, activists, and socialites in Charleston and
                        Washington.  One Chapter titled "Teaming with Women"
                        is devoted to stories about women in camp with the soldiers.

    Mary Elizabeth Massey's seminal work carefully documents the ingenuity
    of the Confederates as they coped with shortages of manufactured goods
    and essential commodities—including grain, coffee, sugar, and
    butter—that previously had been imported from the northern states or
    from England. Creative Southerners substituted sawdust for soap, pigs'
    tails and ears for Christmas tree ornaments, leaves for mattress stuffing,
    okra seeds for coffee beans, and gourds for cups. Women made clothing
    from scraps of material, blankets from carpets, shoes from leather saddles
    and furniture, and battle flags from wedding dresses.

    Despite the Confederates' penchant for "making do" and "doing without,"
    Massey's research reveals the devastating impact of war's shortages on
    the South's civilian population. Overly optimistic that they could easily
    transform a rural economy into a self-sufficient manufacturing power,
    Southerners suffered from both disappointment and hardship as it became
    clear that their expectations were unrealistic. Ersatz in the
    Confederacy's lasting significance lies in Masseys clearly documented
    conclusion that despite the resourcefulness of the Southern people, the
    Confederate cause was lost not at Gettysburg nor in any other military
    engagement but much earlier and more decisively in the homefront battle
    against scarcity and deprivation.