Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of People and Institutions Mentioned in the Diary
A Note on Method
Introduction
Chapter 1 1863
Chapter 2 1864
Chapter 3 1865
Coda: All’s Well that Ends Well
Bibliography
The Memorable Days Project Editorial Team
Index
Judith Giesberg is Professor of History at Villanova University.
“Emilie Davis's diary surely will find an appreciative audience
among scholars and readers interested in African Americans during
the Civil War era. Its entries, covering January 1863 through
December 1865, yield valuable information on multiple topics,
including daily life among Philadelphia's free black community,
reactions to news from the war's political and military fronts, and
the centrality of religion in Davis's world. Judith Giesberg and
her coeditors have framed the diary beautifully and placed students
of the conflict much in their debt.”—Gary W. Gallagher,author of
The Union War and The Confederate War
“Emilie Davis’s Civil War offers a rare ‘interior’ view of the
daily life and doings of a young black Philadelphian during the
Civil War. In brief but regular daily jottings, Emilie Davis
recorded the rhythms of life in the city; the associations in
clubs, school, and church that formed the marrow of the black
community; the feelings she had about loved ones, friends, and
public figures; and moments when the war brought home death and
dangers. This book commands attention because sustained private
views from black women are few, and those few we have are from more
educated and affluent writers than Davis. The diaries also benefit
from a perceptive introduction by Judith Giesberg and excellent
annotation throughout. The result is a book that is at once a
rarity and a necessity. It allows us to enter a place and meet a
people we hardly know—black Philadelphia during wartime—and by
doing so, in critical ways, it turns the narrative of the home
front upside down and inside out.”—Randall M. Miller,Saint Joseph’s
University
“Emilie Davis’s Civil War: The Diaries of a Free Black Woman in
Philadelphia, 1863-1865 is both an important educational tool and a
vivid depiction of everyday life in a country at war to end the
greatest injustice it has ever committed.”—Hope Wabuke The Root
“This book and its digital counterpart are priceless additions to
the study of the northern Civil War home front.”—Tyler Sperrazza
Civil War Monitor
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