My Diary North and South Book

"William Howard Russell wrote My Diary North and South while traveling through the Union and the Confederacy from March 1861 to April 1862 as a war correspondent for the Times of London. Along the way he met and interviewed an impressive number of leaders - including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, William H. Seward, General George B. McClellan, Judah P. Benjamin, and General P. G. T. Beauregard - but he also canvassed average citizens on both sides, recounting their manners, appearance, values, and habits in remarkable detail. This memoir of his journey provides a vivid snapshot of American life and culture at the dawn of the Civil War." "A clever and witty companion, Russell made friends easily and had a talent for persuading them to discuss national affairs as well as local issues. He initially found favor across most of the country but soon incurred the wrath of both southerners and northerners when he condemned slavery and criticized the Union army's sloppy performance at the Battle of Bull Run. Unwelcome in both military and civilian circles, Russell sailed back home and published his nine-hundred-page diary in 1863." Few people traveled as widely throughout the United States that year as did Russell, and no other journalist interviewed so many Union and Confederate leaders in so short a time. With rare and unusually objective insights into the divided nation, and bolstered by the astute editorial hand of Eugene H. Berwanger and an informative new introduction by William E. Gienapp, this condensed edition of My Diary North and South is essential reading for all students of the Civil War and of nineteenth-century America.