A Confederate Girl's Diary

Sarah Morgan Dawson (1842-1909) was a Louisiana diarist who chronicled her experience of the Civil War. Her brothers in service and her father newly dead, Morgan witnessed the early capture of Baton Rouge, and the Confederate failure to retake the city in the summer of 1862. Morgan endured the uncertainty and disruption of occupation and martial law, all while demonstrating her Confederate loyalties to the Union soldiers camped beside her neighborhood, but left her Baton Rouge home permanently after the August battle, only returning briefly to find most of their possessions stolen or spoiled by contrabands and vengeful Union soldiers.

Morgan's diary is certainly one of the best primary sources illustrating the experience of Southern civilians during the War. Her hopes and opinions concerning events and characters in the struggle enliven the narrative and the mounting disasters of the Confederates create a devastating pathos in the text. Morgan's delightful opinions on literature, politics, slavery, war policies, and the sexes are distributed throughout the text and serve as an insight into the conventions of a lady in that time and place, and serve to humanize a class of people far removed from modern fashions.

This book has been re-published from the original text by Tall Men Press. It is not a facsimile reprint.