Samuel Mattox to Ann Mattox, March 17, 1863:
"I am getting to be very thrifty. I have learnt how to take care of myself…. I do all my washing and am getting to be a pretty good cook. So you see, if I ever get home I will be a pretty good female."[1]
[1] Samuel Mattox to Ann Mattox, March 17, 1863, Diary and Civil War Letters and Diary of Samuel H. Mattox, typescript (Vigo County Public Library, Terre Haute, Ind.), cited from Thomas E. Rodgers, "Hoosier Women and the Civil War Home Front," Indiana Magazine of History, 2 (June 2001): 107.