Woman of the Century/Cornelia Jane M. Jordan

JORDAN, Mrs. Cornelia Jane Matthews, poet, born in Lynchburg, Va., in 1830. Her parents were Edwin Matthews and Emily Goggin Matthews. She was born to wealth, and received all the advantages of liberal education and polished society. Her mother died in 1834. and Cornelia and two younger sisters were sent to the home of their grand- mother in Bedford county. In 1842 she was placed in the school of the Sisters of the Visitation, in Georgetown, D. C In school she led her mates in all literary exercises Her poetical productions were numerous and excellent. In 1851 she became the wife of F. H. Jordan, a lawyer of Luray, Va., where she made her home. During the first years of her married life she wrote a great deal. A collection of her poems was published in Richmond, Va., in 1860, with the title. "Flowers of Hope and Memory. During the Civil War she wrote many stirring lyrics. A volume of these, entitled "Corinth, and Other Poems," was published after the surrender. The little volume was seized by the military commander in Richmond and suppressed as seditious. In 1867 she published "Richmond: Her Glory and Her Graves," in ft volume with some shorter lyrics. She has contributed many poems to magazines and newspapers. Her best-known war poems are CORNELIA JANE MATTHEWS JORDAN. "The Battle of Manassas," "The Death of Jackson" and "An Appeal for Jefferson Davis."