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Susie King Taylor: The only known African-American woman to publish a wartime memoir about the Civil War, Susie King Taylor was born a slave near Savannah. Taylor, who secretly learned to read as a child, fled to freedom at St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, which Union Soldiers had occupied. Her literacy was noticed there and she was encouraged to form a school. Traveling with her husband Edward King, a noncommissioned officer in the Union army, King served as a nurse and laundress to Union forces. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Woman’s Civil War Memoir, detailing her experiences, was originally published in 1902. (Public domain photo)

Susie King Taylor: The only known African-American woman to publish a wartime memoir about the Civil War, Susie King Taylor was born a slave near Savannah. Taylor, who secretly learned to read as a child, fled to freedom at St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, which Union Soldiers had occupied. Her literacy was noticed there and she was encouraged to form a school. Traveling with her husband Edward King, a noncommissioned officer in the Union army, King served as a nurse and laundress to Union forces. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Woman’s Civil War Memoir, detailing her experiences, was originally published in 1902.

(Public domain photo)