Memorable Days: The Costs of War through the Eyes of a Free Black Woman

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Memorable Days: The Costs of War through the Eyes of a Free Black Woman

1863, as we have noted, was a memorable year for Emilie Davis. A free black woman living in Philadelphia, Emilie celebrated the Emancipation Proclamation, twin Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and steps toward lasting change as northern states like Maryland chose to end slavery voluntarily. But 1863 was also a year of devastation for Emilie, one in which she would witness the deterioration of her family as a direct result of the new rights that came along with the Emancipation Proclamation.

This is the third installment of Memorable Days: the Civil War through the eyes of a free black woman. To read an introduction of Emilie, click here. To read her take on the Battle of Gettysburg, click here.

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Memorable Days: The Battle of Gettysburg through the Eyes of a Free Black Woman

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Memorable Days: The Battle of Gettysburg through the Eyes of a Free Black Woman

Gettysburg. If someone can name a single Civil War battle, it is most likely the only major battle that occurred north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Many argue that this three day ordeal in 1863 was the culminating point of America’s most destructive war, the moment that turned the tide against Robert E. Lee’s legendary Army of Northern Virginia and began the uphill struggle towards reunion and a new birth of freedom. But Emilie Davis, a free African-American woman living in Philadelphia during the war, never names this small Pennsylvania town in her diary chronicling the monumental year of 1863.

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Memorable Days: The Civil War through the Eyes of a Free Black Woman

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Memorable Days: The Civil War through the Eyes of a Free Black Woman

Emilie Davis was a young twenty-something black woman living in the city of Philadelphia during the Civil War. Like many her age, she worried about school, employment, family and friends. Her activities did not make headlines, and her name is unlikely to appear in a textbook. Yet her story is important because it is the story of a cross-section of society previously unexplored. Moreover, Emilie’s story is everyone’s story, a narrative of a woman on the rise, confronting the daily realities of a nation at war at a personal level defined by relationships, experiences, and often the seemingly mundane.

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