Customer Reviews

The Civil War Diary of Sarah Morgan

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Ms. Morgan's diaries are so beautifully written that they read like a novel; there is never a dull moment as she describes with great detail life in Baton Rouge during the Civil War. Even if the reader is not a Civil War buff, he or she will find this book spell-binding. The book includes informative footnotes, fine copies of historic photographs, and is a MUST for those pursuing courses in women's studies, the American Civil War or Southern history and culture.

Sarah writes with all her emotion and holds nothing back. She writes very detailed however at times it can be a little slow in parts and I found myself trudging through it at times. However, it was an interesting view from a young woman in Civil War times with two brothers in the army and a brother who had been involved in a duel.

Sarah Morgan was an 18 year old girl who lived the most sheltered of lives the social aristocracy
of deep south dictated before the war. We read as
she grows up after the dueling death of a brother and the death by illness of her father as the Civil War began.

She was a natural writer, later becoming one of the first women to get a by-line in a major American newspaper.

Her adventures are many and some quite dangerous. Her concerns are frivilous
and girlish. Her views are through the prism of
bigoted class distinction. Yet you will come to
see her as your sister. Intelligent by nature, ignorant by training these two selves are in constant conflict.

Just a terrific piece of history!

Having just finished reading "Mary Chestnut's Civil War", I came across this during my searches and thought it would be interesting to see how Sarah Morgans story compared to that of Mary Chestnut.

This diary is very different to that of MC but it certainly provides a different perspective as Sarah was much younger than MC and it shows in the writing. It is just as good in its own way and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see how civilian life was affected by the civil war. A most entertaining read.

This is a very interesting view of the Civil War. I always thought that my children were the "ME" generation. Maybe I was wrong. The young upper-class in the South were also a "ME" generation. Just like the young Confederate soldiers had to learn to be a good soldier, the Southern Belles were also forced to grow up and do what was needed to survive the war. I am sure there were some that continued to be the spoiled, but they were in the minority. By Ruth Thompson author of "Natchez Above The River" and The Bluegrass Dream"

This was not the typical Confederate family, even though three sons were serving the Rebel cause. Mainly, they were were not Southerners as both parents came to the South as young adults and did not have native heritage. Sarah was from a wealthy family who had a Victorian two-story house near the capital at Baton Rouge and a plantation twenty miles North of the small town called Linwood.

She and her rich friends took buggy rides and strolls around the terrraced grounds of the State House until April, 1962, when David Farragut as he left New Orleans, the Confederacy's largest city at that time. The Union sailors came ashore and pulled down the Confederate flag which was on the arsenal and it became a Unionist territory.

The Morgans left the town after seeing much of the military action and occupied Linwood, just five miles from Port Hudson where one of the most important operations of the war in Louisiana would take place in spring, 1863. Much of the diary was written during the months they spent at Linwood.

Sarah was in New Orleans when the war ended in June 1865. From the accompanying picture of Sarah Morgan, you would think she is a Yankee. This is a part of history, but not necessarily Rebel history. She was just a young privileged woman who lived to telll the tale. Had she been a poor, Southern girl, it would have been a different story altogether.

Sarah Morgan is a girl of apparent intelligence and wit with a palpable charm. I don't agree that her concerns were trivial. They are those of any young girl thinking about love, marriage, family and her future. Her worries for the safety of her three brothers serving in the Confederate army were certainly not unwarrented since two of the three were killed by war's end. The book is very involving. My sympathy is all with the Northern army but I do care what happens to Sarah and those she loves.