My Diary North and South

A British journalist's eyewitness description of American society at the start of the Civil War, published in 1863.

William Howard Russell (Author)

9781108041225, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 December 2011

448 pages, 1 map
21.6 x 14 x 2.5 cm, 0.57 kg

William Howard Russell (1820–1907) was a nineteenth-century war correspondent for The Times. In 1861–2 he visited America to report on the secession crisis that had followed Abraham Lincoln's campaign to abolish slavery, in which eleven southern states had withdrawn from the United States to form their own confederacy, resulting in the American Civil War. First published in 1863, this two-volume work recounts Russell's experiences there. Based on his interviews with Lincoln, other pivotal figures, and ordinary citizens, together with his diaries and his letters to The Times, it documents his impressions of both the northern and the opposing southern states as he travelled through them. His book, thought to have been compiled in response to accusations that he was biased towards the South, provides a revealing eyewitness account of life during a landmark period in America's history. Volume 1 focuses mainly on southern society and slavery.

1. Departure from Cork
2. Arrival at New York
3. 'St Patrick's Day' in New York
4. Streets and shops in New York
5. Off to the railway station
6. A state dinner at Mr. Abraham Lincoln's
7. Barbers' shops
8. New York Press
9. Dinner at General Scott's
10. Preparations for war at Charleston
11. Scenes on board an American steamer
12. Portsmouth
13. Sketches round Wilmington
14. Southern Volunteers
15. Slaves, their masters and mistresses
16. Charleston
17. Visit to a plantation
18. Climate of the Southern States
19. Domestic negroes
20. By railway to Savannah
21. The river at Savannah
22. Slave-pens: negroes on sale or hire
23. Proclamation of war
24. Mr. Wigfall on the Confederacy
25. The River Alabama
26. Visit to Forts Gaines and Morgan
27. Pensacola and Fort Pickens
28. Bitters before breakfast
29. Judge Campbell
30. The first blow struck
31. Carrying arms
32. Up the Mississippi
33. Ride through the maize-fields
34. Negroes
35. War-rumours, and military movements
36. Visit to Mr. McCall's plantation.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK]