Southern Beauty (20 page)

Author’s Note

Southern Beauty is based on a loose interpretation of history.  I spent many years researching the end of the antebellum era and the beginning of the civil war.   

Robert E. Lee did have family that fled to
Paris, France, because of financial ruin, although they did not have a daughter named Johanna. 

Mary Custiss-Lee
left Arlington and fled to Ravensworth but it wasn’t until after her husband accepted the commission as a major general of the Confederate Army.  For the story I needed her to have left much earlier.  General Lee did not have a place in South Carolina, and there is no record of him ever visiting the South before his resignation.

General P.G.T. Beauregard was stationed at
Ft. Sumter and did have a son, Rene.  Rene was about 19 when the Civil War broke out.  He did not have a twin sister. 

The Beauregard
family was from New Orleans where at the time lived the famous Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau, and her daughter.  Marie was a hairdresser to the elite.  It is believed by listening to her patron’s gossip and instilling fear in their servants is how she became so powerful.  You have to think, if she knew everyone in town, then I am sure she did know the Beauregard family.

As for the cigar box, t
here was actually Lee’s battle plans found wrapped around cigars by a private in the Union before the battle of Antietam at an abandoned Confederate campsite. 

If you are still curious about other
historical facts in Southern Beauty, I suggest the following;

Nationalcivilwarmuseum.org

Civilwar-online.com (Mary Jeffreys Bethel diary)

Confederatemuseum.com

Bkhouse.org (Beauregard-Keyes House)

Civiwarwomenblog.com

Nps.gov/fosu/index.htm