Sarah Morgan: The Civil War Diary Of A Southern Woman

Wow! It's Scarlett O'Hara in the flesh! As much as I have read about the Civil War over the years, this book, above all the others, made it seem real to me, made it much more intimate than any of the other books I have read. Sarah Morgan allows us to see a real person through the pages of her diary. I want to say "This is a great little book", but of course it's not little at 650+ pages, and the topics of the War and the Confederacy are very imposing, but the flow of the writing and the girl herself (she is 19 when she starts the diary) make it appear very close and personal.I recently re-read Gone With The Wind and I was surprised that Sarah Morgan was so much like the fictional Scarlett O'Hara. They both were spunky as well as helpless in the face of battle, yet retained their "fiddle-dee-dee" attitude of youth. One big difference in these two ladies is that Sarah Morgan loved book-learning and educated herself to the point where she quoted Shakespeare and other poets as well as the bible on a daily basis in the diary and she used a lot of French language which I suppose wasn't that unusual in Louisiana, though it surprised and impressed me continually.I really enjoyed this book, though it had two major drawbacks which could be corrected in future editions. One problem is something I should have learned years ago, and that is to be careful of a lengthy Introduction, and this book has a very long one that gives all the facts of Sarah's life including the fate of the family home and where they lived during the war, who lived, who died, etc. -- basically the entire "plot" of the book. What's the point of reading it when Charles East tells all there is to know about Sarah Morgan in his Introduction, up to and including details of her death? And then I was constantly having to flip back through the pages to check on the day, date, year, etc. since it is not noted anyplace other than the first diary entry of Book I, Book II, etc. and I would lose the sense of time during the days I was reading this long book.Editorial complaints aside, how exciting it is to read the epic events of history through preserved diaries and journals, letters, etc. that were written with no thought about publication but just as a way of preserving memories. We are fortunate to have these first-hand accounts.

After reading "Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868" I was looking forward to "Sarah Morgan: The Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman". I have a combined interest in the Civil War era and women studies so I thought this would be a perfect selection. My other motive for selecting this book to read is that I, as an author/editor, am seeking new, interesting ways to format a second set of an ancestor's diaries for publication.I have a personal rule to always finish a book that I have started reading. I must admit that this is the first time I have broken that rule. I made it to page 275 and just gave up. I found that it was becoming a dreaded task to continue reading the book, rather than a pleasurable experience.Part of my problem was the editing that had been done. Reading along and finding a (p.6) in the middle of a sentence broke my concentration and left me wondering why it was there. Was I suppose to turn to that page or was that what page it was on in the original diary? The same goes for footnotes such as " 77. What Sarah must mean is an Acadian - a Cajun....". How does the editor know after more than a hundred years what Sarah meant? If it isn't something that is a fact...should it be a footnote made in a non-fiction book? These type of footnotes appear repeatedly throughout the material I read "72. Probably the meeting... 135. Sarah could be referring to either....".On the other hand I found the footnoting of definitions of colloquiums or no longer used terms very helpful and something I might add to the presentation of the diaries I am working on.I assumed -incorrectly - that a book entitled "The Civil Diaries of a Southern Woman" would pertain mainly to the Civil War. I found that the book mainly addressed Sarah Morgan, as a young woman and the society to which she belonged. While much of the descriptions of the households, social gatherings, wearing apparel were interesting, I had not chosen this book to read page after page of a young girl dissecting her own every move, thought or gesture. I was looking for her thoughts and descriptions of the Civil War. And these were little and few between. Her comments on herself and her family seemed over-dramatic, much like many teenage girls of today.

Sarah Morgan wrote this diary when she was about 16 during the War of Northern Aggression. She lived in Baton Rouge from which she and her family had to flee as refugees. After numerous false alarms, packings and unpackings, they eventually have to leave their home behind and see it occupied by Yankees. Sarah Morgan's voice comes across so wonderfully in her writing and her expression is delightful to read. It gives the reader a real sense of what it was like for the good people of the South, driven from their homes while their menfolk were fighting the war. When the author is forced to take refuge in New Orleans, which was already occupied by the Yankees, and stay with her brother who was a Unionist, it is heart-wrenching to hear this young woman wrestling with her love of her country and her principles. Books like this show how much more there is to the Civil War than is usually taught from the Northern point of view. It was not all about slavery, and the people of the South were just ordinary people, as concerned with the welfare of their servants as the rest of their family. One cannot generalize, I suppose, but this diary will be an eye-opener if you have never considered the plight of Southern women under attack by and enemy American army.