First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920

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The First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920, collection is aptly suited to the needs of researchers and historians. The diaries, memoirs, and journals that comprise the bulk of the collection's materials allow for exploration of major historical themes through intimate, personal accounts. Projects that benefit from the collection's rare perspectives include those that take into account change over time as well as those involving issue and/or object analysis.

Chronological Thinking: The Civil War

The collection contains a wealth of diaries, letters, and memoirs pertaining to the Civil War. These materials present events of the war from personal perspectives and provide a valuable opportunity to examine the evolution of southerners' attitudes and sentiments over the course of the conflict. Readers may use indices and tables of content to correlate the major events of the war to individuals' lives. A search on diaries yields a broad selection of documents including Leon Louis' Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier, Sarah Morgan Dawson's A Confederate Girl's Diary, and the Journal of Meta Morris Grimball.

Grimball's diary is of particular value due to the author's copious and insightful observations of the war as she experienced it from her South Carolina home. The journal's vivid narrative begins with the flush of excitement and hope felt throughout the new Confederacy and ends with the somber desperation of a doomed cause and a worried mind. For instance, Grimball's entry on May 12, 1862, reflects the heightened sense of emergency in the region as a Union blockade of the coast, and Federal victories to the West, bring the war close to home:

• How did non-combatants first feel the effects of the war?
• How would you describe Grimball's attitude toward the refugee population?
• What things does Grimball name as the most important necessities of refugees?
• How would you expect this entry to differ from entries that were written earlier in the war?
• What value does this piece hold for a historian?

By the following year, the full scope of the war had come home as Confederate defeats in the field tested the resolve of its citizens. Grimball's entry on August 4, 1863, reflects the upheaval that the war's turmoil brought to the ordinarily serene domestic life:

Vicksburg has fallen, Port Hudson followed of course, the Mississippi is in possession of our foe, Charleston is beseiged with a large force, Naval and land. Lees advance was not a success, he has returned after a direful battle at Gettysburg Pennsylvania, in which we lost 15 thousand & retreated. There have been riots in New York opposing the draft. And now we are to have a fast day on the 30th and in the mean time Charleston holds out. Lee is ready to fight, Johnston is some where in the West with his Army, and people generally feel very much depressed. This in the public state of affairs.

Page 94, Journal of Meta Morris Grimball

• How does this entry compare with that of May 12, 1862? How would you describe the difference, if any, in the tone of each entry?
• What do you think were some of Grimball's sources for information on the war?
• Why do you think that Grimball included information about New York in this entry?
  

Near the end of the war, Grimball relates the despair and devastation that gripped the region and expresses her fears for the safety of surviving family members. The following entry, dated March 6, 1865, is the last entry she makes before Lee's surrender at Appamatox a little more than a month later:

I have no heart to write a journal now. The war goes on but so much distress and suffering. Charleston evacuated, Columbia sacked & burned, Cheraw[?] , Winnsborough, Camden, Society Hill & other places visited by the Army of Sherman & sacked and burned. Our Army now under Johnston following Sherman and all things in gloom & trouble. Arthur & Berkley are with the troops from the Coast in Raleigh & Hillsborough. Lewis was with us for 10 days, looking quite well, he is now with the Army in North Carolina. Harry received an appointment from the Gov, for the Arsenal, & to day left us for Greenville where they are to be located. This has been a great trial to me for he is the youngest and not yet sixteen. I fear all the fatigue & hardship he will not be able to stand; and my heart yearns over this child. He left a very good school for this appointment and they have no books to educate the Cadets. - My only comfort is in prayer. Pages 111-12, Journal of Meta Morris Grimball

Sixteen-Year-Old Soldier, David Johnston. Illustration from The Story of a Confederate Boy in the Civil War.

• How does this entry compare with the two entries previously discussed?
• What are Grimball's two main concerns for her youngest brother?
• How do Grimball's descriptions of the military situation and her own situation compare?
• How would you characterize Grimball's tone in this late entry?

By comparing several documents from chroniclers of varying social status, readers will come to appreciate the manner in which the evolution of the region's ideology, morale, and resolve was influenced by popular sentiment.

Historical Comprehension: Women's Rights

The social customs in the southern states before and after the Civil War dictated a secondary role for women. Although women filled many positions during the war years that they would not otherwise have held, traditional roles reasserted themselves at war's end.

"'Crying, sister?' he asked coolly." Illustration from A Slaveholder's Daughter.

When southern women spoke out against their status, it was considered at best scandalous, and at worse treasonous, to the spirit of their region by many of the elite class. The collection contains several documents written by relatively progressive women decrying their status as social inferiors. Browse under the Subject Index heading Women's Rights-Southern States for Old Times in Dixie Land by Caroline Elizabeth Merrick and A Slaveholder's Daughter by Belle Kearney. Both of these texts contain a wealth of material defending the rights of women in the late nineteenth-century United States.

• How might progressive women have pitched their arguments to appeal to their mostly conservative audience?
• How might the relatively low-profile issue of women's rights have been viewed by Reconstruction-era southerners?

A search on women's suffrage yields the autobiography of educator and suffragette, Rebecca Latimer Felton, Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth. The text also includes several of her persuasive speeches and writings. In her 1915 essay, "Why I Am A Suffragist," Felton condemns the sluggishness of the southern states in giving women the right to vote: Shall the men of the South be less generous, less chivalrous? They have given the Southern women more praise than the man of the West - but judged by their actions Southern men have been less sincere. Honeyed phrases are pleasant to listen to, but the sensible women of our country would prefer more substantial gifts. Pages 251-52, "Why I Am A Suffragist"

Rebecca Latimer Felton. Illustration from Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth.

• To whom does Felton address her argument?
• What differentiates the assumptions made by Felton and Leigh concerning the place of women in society?
• Do you think that this passage convincingly defends the issue of women's rights in the South?
• What classes of people might have wanted to avoid open discussion of women's rights? Why?

By accessing the Documenting the American South collection, readers can view two selected works from Thomas Dixon, Jr., the conservative novelist, preacher, and lawyer whose works dealt with themes such as the need for racial purity and the maintenance of traditional women's roles. In The Leopard's Spots (1902), Dixon's lead female character Sallie, described as "A daughter of the old fashioned South," engages in a series of observations concerning romance with a friend visiting from the North. Commenting on the differences between men from the two regions, her Yankee friend remarks:

• What does the northern friend identify as the "meaning of life"?
• How do Dixon's idealized women differ from those suggested by Felton's argument?
• What implicit argument against women's rights does Dixon's narrative offer?
• What do you think Dixon considers the proper relationship between men and women? Women and society?
• How do Dixon and Felton each depict the differences between northern and southern society and women's roles in each?

Historical Analysis and Interpretation: Religion and Slavery

Although many southerners recognized that slavery was unsustainable as an economic system even before the Civil War decided the question for them, the morality of slavery was hotly debated. Many southern clergymen defended slavery as an institution sanctioned by the Bible and their arguments found their way into the diaries and memoirs of laymen, who, even after the close of the war, continued to extol slavery's virtues. A close reading and analysis of these sermons is a valuable exercise for anyone interested in the rhetorical underpinnings of cultural ideology. The didactic, meticulously constructed arguments for the Biblical support of slavery reveals the degree to which southern clergymen actively furthered the Confederacy's cause.

The Old Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C. Illustration from A Diary from Dixie.

From the cover of Ezra's Dilemma.

One such clergyman was Stephen Elliott. On August 21, 1863, Elliott preached a sermon entitled Ezra's Dilemma to a sympathetic Savannah audience. Accessible through the Documenting the American South collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Elliott argues that northerners profited by selling slaves to southerners and then persecuted the buyers for engaging in slavery. Further, Elliott contends that southerners, doing their best to Christianize African Americans, had been martyred for their efforts. Why might pro-slavery documents appeal more to a reader's sense of reason than emotion? How differently might a historian and a modern clergyman view the pro-slavery sermons?

Also available through the Chapel Hill site is Joseph Ruggles Wilson's sermon, Mutual Relation of Masters and Slaves as Taught in the Bible (delivered January 6, 1861, in Augusta, Georgia). Wilson begins his sermon with a thorough explication of the Biblical use of the word "servants", which he proves to mean "slaves."

There are several words, conveying different shades of thought, which Grecians were accustomed to employ in speaking of servants, inasmuch as there are several kinds and degrees of servitude. But no one of them does so emphatically set forth the true and simple idea of domestic slavery as understood in these Southern States, as the word ????? --the word whose plural form opens our text . . .

Continuing, Wilson supports his pro-slavery argument with a scripture lesson from Ephesians that deals with the relationship between masters and servants.

. . . Now, we have already seen that the Holy Spirit employs words which He has intended to be understood as distinctly enunciating the existence of domestic servitude--that He has sent to all the world a volume of truth, which is indisputably addressed to men who hold slaves and to the slaves who possess masters--and that, from the connections in which these highly suggestive words occur, He has included slavery as an organizing element in that family order which lies at the very foundation of Church and State. Pages 6-7, Mutual Relation of Masters and Slaves as Taught in the Bible

Detail of an Illustration from Tupelo.

• Why would it be important to base a pro-slavery argument on religious texts?
• What role does Wilson assert that the Bible gives to slavery?
• How might an abolitionist attack Wilson's reasoning?
• Does Wilson leave any possibility for doubting the truth of his assertions?
• What conclusions can readers draw regarding the character of Wilson's audience?

John G. Fee. Illustration from Autobiography of John G. Fee.

For reasons manifest my audiences were small. Many whose sympathies were with the principles of justice and liberty were afraid to be seen listening to me in public audiences. I saw I must try and reach the people at their homes, at their firesides; and I decided I would write and publish an anti-slavery manual, a hand-book showing the testimony of God's Word against slavery, - the evil consequences of slavery upon society, and with these show the unity of the human race - that verily "God hath made of one blood all nations of men." The matter for this manual I prepared, and, for best effect, decided to publish in Kentucky, - in Maysville, a city near by. Page 49, Autobiography of John G. Fee

• What arguments does Fee propose to include in his manual?
• Why would Fee's anti-slavery manual be more effective if published in Kentucky?
• Do you think that Fee's use of a quotation from the Bible is effective or appropriate?
• How might a pro-slavery clergyman have responded to Fee's manual?
  

Historical Issue-Analysis and Decision-Making: Slavery and Freedom

The First Person Narratives of the American South collection includes several slave narratives, many produced before the Emancipation Proclamation. During this time, abolitionists published numerous slave accounts to arouse public sentiment and to refute the claims of pro-slavery activists. Firsthand accounts are valuable to contemporary researchers because, whether transcribed by a sympathetic mediator, or written by the fugitive's own hand, they offer a rich emotional sensibility that personalizes an issue all too often treated as an abstract, or essentially political issue by histories of the era.

Illustration from The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina.

A search on slavery yields dozens of documents including Harriet Ann Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slavegirl (1861). For seven years, Jacobs hid from her cruel master and mistress in a cramped attic until a chance to escape to the North presented itself. In the following passage, she describes her feelings upon learning that her freedom had been purchased by abolitionist benefactors in New York:

My brain reeled as I read these lines. A gentleman near me said, "It's true; I have seen the bill of sale." "The bill of sale!" Those words struck me like a blow. So I was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of New York! The bill of sale is on record, and future generations will learn from it that women were articles of traffic in New York, late in the nineteenth century of the Christian religion. It may hereafter prove a useful document to antiquaries, who are seeking to measure the progress of civilization in the United States. I well know the value of that bit of paper; but much as I love freedom, I do not like to look upon it. I am deeply grateful to the generous friend who procured it, but I despise the miscreant who demanded payment for what never rightfully belonged to him or his.

Pages 300-01, Incidents in the Life of a Slavegirl

• What conflicting feelings does Jacobs have regarding her manumission papers? Why?
• What can a researcher learn from this passage that would not be available simply by looking at Davis' manumission papers?
• What can a researcher learn from this narrative that would not be available in secondary source materials written about slavery?
• How might fugitive slave accounts differ from one another? How might they differ from accounts written by African Americans who never fled the South?

"Arrival home, and first meeting with his wife and children." Illustration from Twelve Years a Slave.

The slave narratives in this collection vary according to the circumstances of their authors. In Fifty Years in Chains (1859), Charles Ball relates his experiences as a slave, his escape, and his situation as a fugitive hiding in Philadelphia. Solomon Northup, on the other hand, was born a freeman in New York City, but in 1841, he was kidnapped by slave traders and sold into bondage in Louisiana. In 1853, Northup was rescued from his misery and published his story, Twelve Years a Slave. Northup's account is particularly valuable in that he begins life as a free person and, as such, is able to offer a rare perspective on the South's peculiar institution. Southern planters believed that African Americans born freemen made poor workers and generally avoided using them as slaves for lack of a clear, legal hold on their person. In the following passage, Northup has accidentally informed a prospective buyer that he has spent time in New York, although he does not reveal his status as a freeman. When the kidnapper threatens death if such a mistake is repeated, Northrup observes:

I doubt not he understood then better than I did, the danger and the penalty of selling a free man into slavery. He felt the necessity of closing my mouth against the crime he knew he was committing. Of course, my life would not have weighed a feather, in any emergency requiring such a sacrifice. Undoubtedly, he meant precisely what he said.

Page 61, Twelve Years a Slave

• How does Northup characterize his value to his kidnapper?
• How do you think that Northup's perspective differed from that of African Americans that were born into slavery? How does the passage reflect this?
• What reasons might explain the necessity of kidnapping free African Americans?
• What assumptions about freedom are shared by Jacobs and Northup?
  

Historical Research Capabilities: The Confederate States of America

The First Person Narratives of the American South collection affords an excellent opportunity to study the short-lived Confederate States of America. A search on Confederate States of America provides researchers with dozens of documents that trace the rise and fall of that rebel nation. For a political perspective, researchers will want to explore Louise Wigfall Wright's A Southern Girl in '61: The War-Time Memories of a Confederate Senator's Daughter. Wright's memoir, liberally sown with correspondence between her father and high-ranking confederate politicians, is a wonderful example of how the collection's wealth of subaltern perspectives allows readers to research large historical events at the level of intimate, firsthand experiences. One such series of letters details a falling out in relations between Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and Wright's father, who had made accusations against a general whom Davis favored for command. This letter is followed by a note from General Longstreet that requests the senator to not allow personal feelings to interfere with the operation of the Confederacy.

Confederate Monument. Illustration from The Old South.

• How might a researcher benefit from a document such as Wright's?
• What disciplines of study would be enriched by considering such documents?
  

"Jefferson Davis, President C.S.A. and Mrs. Davis." Illustration from Autobiographical Sketch and Narrative of the War Between the States.

Mary Boykin Chesnut's A Diary From Dixie, details her experiences as the wife of a U.S. senator from South Carolina who resigned his post in order to become an aide to Jefferson Davis. Chesnut's diary is strewn with stories of dinner parties, social engagements, and meetings with prominent Confederate figures. Of particular value is the insider's perspective which she is able to offer on the workings of the fledgling country's government: Mr. Chesnut has three distinct manias. The Maryland scheme is one, and he rushes off to Jeff Davis, who, I dare say, has fifty men every day come to him with infallible plans to save the country. If only he can keep his temper. Mrs. Davis says he answers all advisers in softly modulated, dulcet accents. Page 55, A Diary From Dixie How does Chesnut characterize the workings of the Confederacy? What is her tone? What problems, limitations, and biases would researchers have to consider when using first-person narratives? What other sorts of documents would complement first-person narratives?

Given that the Confederate States of America was born and died in conflict, it's not surprising that accounts of military life abound in the collection. Exemplary documents in this vein include: A Soldier's Recollections by Randolph H. McKim, which offers the reminisces of the then young private's battle experiences; the Diary of Brigadier-General Marcus J. Wright, C.S.A., which contains a plethora of bibliographic footnotes; and Memoir and memorials by Elisha Franklin Paxton whose letters relate an intimate understanding of life as an officer under the famous Confederate general "Stonewall" Jackson. Finally, The memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby offers that redoubtable Confederate commander's perspective on both the politics and military operations of the war. Mosby, who led rebel troops in operations past the point of Lee's surrender, is uncompromising in his attacks not only upon the enemy, but the reputation of his fellow Confederates. One of the most passionate defenders of the C.S.A., Mosby's journal entries surprise in their depth of feeling.

"High tide at Gettysburg." Illustration from Reminiscences of the Civil War.

• What advantages and disadvantages do firsthand military accounts present to the modern researcher?
• How might the impressions of the Confederacy differ between non-combatants and soldiers?
  

Other research topics that lend themselves well to the collection include studies of social stratification in the South both before and after the Civil War, the positive and negative results of strong regional pride, and the problems associated with African-American emancipation.