"In Julia's view, the Dent slaves were all "very happy. At least they were in mamma's time, though the young ones became somewhat demoralized about the beginning of the Rebellion, when all the comforts of slavery passed away forever."49 It is not surprising that Julia Dent grew up seeing her girlhood in these storybook terms. It is surprising that when she wrote her memoirs as an elderly woman, the Civil War and Reconstruction had done so little to temper these retrograde views."