Linked Data Explorer

"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. 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. 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. Wartime hardships also strained relationships among Josie's family, neighbors, and friends, whose passionate beliefs about Lincoln, slavery, and Kentucky's secession divided them. Her 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."
"At the outset of the Civil War, Josie Underwood was the educated, outspoken daughter of a politically prominent family in Bowling Green, Kentucky. She left behind a unique, intimate account of the early years of the war, one of the few from a Kentucky woman sympathetic to the Union. "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. Available for the first time in print, Josie Underwood's Civil War Diary offers a vivid, firsthand account of a family that owned slaves and opposed Lincoln, yet remained unshakably loyal to the Union. Josie's father, Warner, played an important role in keeping Kentucky from seceding. Among the many highlights of the diary is Josie's record of meeting the president in wartime Washington, which served to soften her opinion of him. Josie describes her fear of secession and war, and the anguish of having relatives and friends fighting on opposite sides, noting in the spring of 1861 that many friendships and families were breaking up "faster than the Union." The diary also brings to life the fears, frustrations, and deprivations of living under occupation in strategically important Bowling Green, known as the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy" during the war. Despite the wartime upheaval, Josie's life is also refreshingly normal at times and she recounts travel, parties, local gossip, and the search for her "true Prince.""@en
"At the outset of the Civil War, Josie Underwood was the educated, outspoken daughter of a politically prominent family in Bowling Green, Kentucky. She left behind a unique, intimate account of the early years of the war, one of the few from a Kentucky woman sympathetic to the Union. "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. Available for the first time in print, Josie Underwood's Civil War Diary offers a vivid, firsthand account of a family that owned slaves an."@en