"Death is nothing in comparison to dishonor": Sarah Morgan’s diary and women’s roles in southern honor

In their studies of the code of honor in the Old South, historians such as Bertram Wyatt-Brown and Edward L. Ayers consider women incapable of possessing honor. However, the diary of Sarah Morgan, a young woman living in Baton Rouge and New Orleans during the Civil War, reveals the many ways that women actively engaged in the code of honor and even considered themselves to be honorable. In her diary, Sarah Morgan described her own reverence for any honorable gentleman and the ways in which women like her preached the ideologies of the code of honor to men. Women reinforced the code of honor by urging men to die rather than dishonor their family names, punished dishonorable men with their disdain while they celebrated their honorable heroes, and even adopted a feminized version of the code so that they too could possess honor.