Civil War in the First Person

By Jeff Burns

The Civil War was a major departure from previous wars in a number of ways, new technologies, strategies, and tactics made it a truly modern war.  It was also unique in that so many participants wrote about their experiences, both on the battlefield and on the homefront.  There are so many first person primary sources that one could spend years reading them.

Among the most famous examples is the diary of Mary Chesnut. “One of the most compelling personal narratives of the Civil War, Mary Chesnut's Diary was written between 1861 and 1865. As the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner and the wife of an aide to the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, Chesnut was well acquainted with the Confederacy's prominent players and-from the very first shots in Charleston, South Carolina-diligently recorded her impressions of the conflict's most significant moments. One of the most frequently cited memoirs of the war, Mary Chesnut's Diary captures the urgency and nuance of the period in an epic rich with commentary on race, status, and power within a nation divided.” (Amazon.com description)

Another phenomenal diary has just been published. LeRoy Gresham was a young teen boy in Macon Georgia, the son of a wealthy planter.  Because of an injury and chronic illness, he was mostly incapacitated during the war, but he kept very insightful journals that have just been edited.  LeRoy displays a poise and intelligence well beyond his years as he recounts the parallel deteriorations of his own body and of the Confederacy; he is able to see things about both subjects that the adults around him can’t, or refuse, to see.  Many reviewers compare this diary to Anne Frank’s, and I don’t think that’s necessarily hyperbole.

Also recently published is Barracoon, by novelist, anthropologist, and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. It is basically the annotated transcript of months of interviews Hurston had with Cudjo Lewis in 1927 and 1928. Why Lewis? He was the last surviving person brought to the United States as a slave, after the importation of slaves was outlawed in 1808. Cudjo Lewis was one about 130 Africans sold to American slavers and brought to America on board the Clothilde, the last ship known to bring enslaved Africans to the U.S. Lewis’ story is thoroughly engrossing. He has rich recollections of his life and culture in Africa and of his life as a slave.  It is an incredible story.

Civil War soldiers were, on the whole, very literate compared to soldiers of past conflicts. Many letters, written by and to soldiers, have survived. Ken Burns practically launched his filmmaking career based on that fact.  From Fields of Fire and Glory is an interesting collection, done in the “museum in a book” style.  The letters are reprinted and annotated, but they also appear as facsimiles of the originals that the reader can pull out, unfold, and handle, becoming an archivist as well as a reader.

Diaries and Letterbooks: A Personal Look into History

By Nina Kendall

Are you looking for a more intimate glimpse into history? Diaries and Letterbooks are unique entries into the historical record. Diaries are running accounts of individual lives while letterbooks are running accounts of enterprises or businesses. These records, often created for personal not public reasons, reveal the experience of ordinary people in different periods of time. Stories of individuals unfold against the backdrop of state and national events engaging the reader with new, relatable detail. The Diary of Young Girl by Anne Frank is the most famous of these published works. Many other diaries and letterbooks are available to readers of history.


One interesting book to consider is the Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1739-1762: Intriguing Letters by One of Colonial America's Most Accomplished Women. Her letters offer interesting insight into the colonial frontier and life on a plantation. The struggles of the new colony of Georgia and the challenges with Native Americans in the region are revealed with engaging detail in her entries.

Another work to consider is Camping with the Sioux: The Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher.  This online of edition of her diary of living with and studying the Sioux is available from the National Museum of Natural History. Her work reveals as much about her life, and 19^th century attitudes toward Native Americans. A more extensive version of her work was recently published in Life Among the Indians: First Fieldwork among the Sioux and Omahas.

The Princes of Cotton: Four Diaries of Young Men in the South, 1848-1860 compiled by Stephen Berry provides a separate view of the Antebellum Era. The diaries of four young men of the South reveal more depth and variety in the experience of men. These accounts offer a look into the private thoughts of men who would go on to fight in the Civil War.

Want to read unpublished historical diaries? Check out the online collection available at Women Working, 1800-1930 from Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. These works give you the opportunity to look into the life of working women in the 19^th and 20^th century. Among the works, you will find the diary of Josephine Sherwood Hull. Hull was an actress who starred in the film Harvey with Jimmy Stewart.  Read Hull’s thoughts and gain insight into the life of women in film in the early 20^th century.

Interested in a different era? Look for a diary or letterbook in an era that interests you. These works offer the combination of private thoughts and public events that draw readers and have sparked epistolary fiction.