Myra Inman: A Diary of the Civil War in East Tennessee

In 1859, a thirteen-year-old-girl began a diary, detailing the emotions and events of everyday life. Daily life in her small hometown of Cleveland, Tennessee was not destined to remain quiet and routine, however. When the Civil War began, the diary entries provide a firsthand account of the sorrows inflicted when the Civil War tore families apart in the border South. Myra, a staunch Confederate, gave a vivid account of the war, how it divided her community and left misery in its wake. Her diary became a bosom friend to whom she could confide her pain and grief. While she never knew the historical importance of her diary, her descendants did, and preserved this precious legacy.

Like the famous diary of Anne Frank, Myra Inman's diary begins with ordinary events and proceeds to tell the story of a child's view of the horrors of war. This book offers a unique perspective on the Civil War--that of a child in the borderlands, where families were torn apart by differing loyalties.

"A sympathizer of the Confederate cause and supporter of its war effort... Inman occasionally records military news and political views, but her diary is more valuable for the evidence it provides about the workings of the important social sphere that historian Karen V. Hansen describes operating in the lives of antebellum New England working-class women." Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 77, No. 1