Emilie Davis’s Civil War Diaries
Historians wishing to study the American Civil War can draw on numerous accounts penned by soldiers, and in particular officers and politicians, for their research. However, the diary of Emilie Davis offers another, equally important, perspective on the conflict that tore the nation in two. The pages of the diary, written by a free black woman, feature some of the most important events in American history. Plus, they also give a unique insight into American society at the time, including the underlying threat of violence and the prevalence of racism.
Born in 1838, Emilie Davis was a free, African American woman who worked as a seamstress in the city of Philadelphia. As with many of her peers, her life revolved around work, family and the church, while she also worked to improve her prospects by attending the Institute for Colored Youth. The diary she kept from 1863 to 1865 cover all of these subjects, giving an unrivalled insight into the freed black community of Philadelphia at the time. However, the diaries are perhaps most notable for Davis’ observations on the Civil War that was raging around her.
Davis lived through some momentous events, including the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Battle of Gettysburg and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. All of these are mentioned in her diary. However, rather than being simple historical records, they are more personal. Davis used her diary to record her own community’s reactions to such important events, giving a fascinating alternative to the usual Civil War histories. In between the horrors of the war and the major political developments of the time, Davis also recorded the mundane, everyday experiences of the wider community, making them essential reading for anyone wanting a proper understanding of 1860s America.
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania purchased the diaries – small books, no more than 10 centimetres in length – in 1999. They were carefully transcribed and annotated and, since then, they have been made publicly available in a number of publications and have been widely welcomed as a valuable addition to the wider understanding of the Civil War. Indeed, as the historian Karsonya Wise Whitehead notes, Davis, while not unique in her insights, was still important. She was of the “middling sort” of “regular folk” who experienced the Civil War, either directly or indirectly, and whose stories deserve to be told just as much as those of generals and presidents.