Mary Ann Webster Loughborough

Born in Phelps, New York, Mary Ann Webster Loughborough is remembered chiefly for My Cave Life in Vicksburg (1864), her account of surviving the 1863 siege with her child while taking shelter in caves as the city was bombarded. The Library of Congress describes the book as the most celebrated in-person account of the siege, and later reference sources also note its lasting reputation.

She was married to James Moore Loughborough, who joined the Confederate army, and her wartime experiences gave her writing an unusual immediacy. After the Civil War, she lived in Arkansas and became the publisher of the Southern Ladies’ Journal in Little Rock, adding journalism and editing to her literary work.

Some biographical details vary across sources, including the exact year and day of her birth, but the sources reviewed agree that she lived from the 1830s into 1887 and that her writing remains an important personal record of civilian life during the Civil War.