Piedmont Farmer: The Journals of David Golightly Harris, 1855-1870The journals of David Golightly Harris are a unique daily record of a fifteen-year span in the life of a Piedmont South Carolina farm family that owned ten slaves and cultivated one hundred acres. Documents from small slaveholders are few, making these journals an invaluable source of information about the agricultural routines of a small antebellum farm as well as a revealing commentary on regional and national affairs, slavery, education, religion, family relationships, and community life. An especially compelling feature of this book is its inclusion of writings by Harris's wife, Emily, who took over the journal when he went to war for the Confederacy in 1862. Recounting the trials of managing the farm and raising seven children in her husband's absence, Emily's words offer poignant insights into the daily struggles of those who tended the home front during the Civil War. "Piedmont Farmer is one of those rare books that deserves a place alongside The Cotton Kingdom, My Bondage and My Freedom, The Children of Pride, Mary Chesnut's Civil War, and the recent Freedom volumes as an indispensable source for historians of the nineteenth-century South."--David C. Rankin, The Journal of Southern History "Harris's journals are important because they span the years before, during, and after the Civil War. . . . Philip N. Racine's annotations are extensive and extraordinarily rich in detail and insight. Enhanced with photographs, maps, and a comprehensive index, the Harris journals are not only a major contribution to southern history, but also they are a poignant view of agriculture and an explicit confirmation of slavery's burden."--David E. Schob, Illinois Historical Journal The Editor: Philip N. Racine is Kenan Professor of History at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He edited "Unspoiled Heart": The Journal of Charles Mattocks of the 17th Maine in the Voices of the Civil War series published by the University of Tennessee Press. |
From inside the book
Results 6-10 of 84
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Contents
Journal Entries of Emily Liles Harris 20 | 20 |
Antebellum Farmer 18551860 29 | 29 |
Farmers at War 18611864 171 | 171 |
Coping with Defeat 18651870 357 | 357 |
Notes 497 | 497 |
References 571 | 571 |
Common terms and phrases
August began begin better Bottom boys brought bushels busy Camp cents church clouddy cold commenced cool corn cotton crop cutting David December District early Emily expect fair farm father fear February fine Finished Forest frost garden getting give Golightly gone ground growing half hands hard Harris hauling heard hoeing hogs hope horse James January journal July June killed land Lanford Last night late lived looks March Mary miles mill Miss Monday morning negroes November oats October planting pleasant plow poor potatoes pretty promising rain repairing roads season seems sell sent September slaves snow sold soon South Carolina sowing Spartanburg Spring Sunday thing thought turned village warm weather week wheat wife winter Yesterday young