Overview

"A well-educated, outspoken member of a politically prominent family in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Josie Underwood (1840-1923) left behind one of the few intimate accounts of the Civil War written by a southern woman sympathetic to the Union. This vivid portrayal of the early years of the war begins several months before the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861. ""The Philistines are upon us,"" twenty-year-old Josie writes in her diary, leaving no question about the alarm she feels when Confederate soldiers occupy her once-peaceful town. Offering a unique perspective on the tensions between the Union and the Confederacy, Josie reveals that Kentucky was a hotbed of political and military action, particularly in her hometown of Bowling Green, known as the Gibraltar of the Confederacy. Located along important rail and water routes that were vital for shipping supplies in and out of the Confederacy, the city linked the upper South's trade and population centers and was strategically critical to both armies. Capturing the fright and frustration she and her family experienced when Bowling Green served as the Confederate army's headquarters in the fall of 1861, Josie tells of soldiers who trampled fields, pilfered crops, burned fences, cut down trees, stole food, and invaded homes and businesses. In early 1862, Josie's outspoken Unionist father, Warner Underwood, was ordered to evacuate the family's Mount Air estate, which was later destroyed by occupying forces. Wartime hardships also strained relationships among Josie's family, neighbors, and friends, whose passionate beliefs about Lincoln, slavery, and Kentucky's secession divided them. Published for the first time, Josie Underwood's Civil War Diary interweaves firsthand descriptions of the political unrest of the day with detailed accounts of an active social life filled with travel, parties, and suitors. Bringing to life a Unionist, slave-owning young woman who opposed both Lincoln's policies and Kentucky's secession, the diary dramatically chronicles the physical and emotional traumas visited on Josie's family, community, and state during wartime."

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9780813152356

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Reviews

[This diary] of wartime accounts is a welcome new addition written by women from Kentucky. -- HistoryNet A little gem of Civil War literature... It gives a uniquely clear and penetrating analysis of the home front in the 'brothers' war, ' with a vivid picture of a family who owned slaves, believed in slavery, hated abolitionism, opposed Lincoln and held him in utter contempt, yet was unshakably loyal to the Union. --Charles P. Roland, Alumni Professor of History Emeritus, University of Kentucky -- An important primary source.... Baird's attention to detail and context in the editing... increases its value, both as a general read and as a research tool. --Journal of Southern History -- As a Unionist in one of the more pro-Southern sections of the state, Underwood provides a fascinating window into the early years of the Civil War in Kentucky.--Ohio Valley History -- Josie Underwood's diary is the most valuable addition to Kentucky Civil War history in years, and has been edited to give readers an easy yet thorough glimpse at the tensions of the era. --Bowling Green Daily News -- Josie's diary is lively and keeps the reader enthralled by relating what was happening to her and around her. --Daily Oklahoman -- The diary provides a good examination of the war in south-central Kentucky and lends another quality female voice to the growing number of published wartime diaries. --Register of the Kentucky Historical Society -- The Underwood diary provides fascinating descriptions of the Civil War's devastating effects within Kentucky, one of the four Union slave-holding border states that occupied Lincoln's political and military thinking in the early years of the war. --President Lincoln's Cottage -- There are common pleasures, the efforts at normalcy, of 'southern people loving the south, ' amid the desciptions of destruction, death, and loss. Her voice is animated and personal. --Kentucky Libraries -- This private journal of an educated woman, a lady of the slaveholding gentry in Bowling Green, is written with clarity giving details of lengthy conversations, opinions and explanations for the differing beliefs. --Louisville Courier Journal -- Winner of the 2009 Basil W. Duke Award given by the Military Order of the Stars and Bars --

Author Information

Nancy Disher Baird is a librarian and specialist in Kentucky history at the Kentucky Library (Special Collections) at Western Kentucky University.

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