Invaluable...many insights into the life and thought of the nineteenth
century.... [Fisher's] comments are stimulating, often barbed....the
narrative is smooth-flowing and fascinating.-American Historical Review
An important literary event....an invaluable historical source.
Unexcelled.
-Pennsylvania History
Fisher was an astute and acerbic commentator on politics and society in
Philadelphia, Washington, and the country as a whole during the Civil
War. While legal, historical, and literary scholars will mine this diary
for its penetrating insights, lovers of history will delight in Fisher's
ability to record the quotidian and the monumental with clarity, force,
and lasting effect.-Herman Belz, University of Maryland
An indispensable source for the Northern home front during the Civil
War.-Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Pennsylvania State University
An aristocratic member of a prominent Philadelphia family, Sidney George
Fisher (1809-1871) was a prolific man of letters. Between 1834 and 1871,
he kept a detailed diary that chronicled not only daily life in
America's second city but also the key political, social, and cultural
events of the nineteenth century. Published in 1967, Fisher's diary
quickly became one of the most remarkable works of its kind; few
published diaries are as incisive and illuminating of their era.
This book makes available once again the pages of Fisher's diary written
during the Civil War. As he wrote on November 9, 1861, My diary has
become little else than a record of the events of the war, which
occupies all thoughts and conversation. His record of the events is a
uniquely valuable portrait of a city, and a nation, at war. Fisher
recorded everything from conversations on street corners to arrests of
civilians for treason (including some members of his family), critiques
of partisan speeches and pamphlets to descriptions of battles, accounts
of runaway slaves, and tales of mob violence. At the same time, he
reports on dinners, parties, weddings, and funerals among the city's
elite.
Brilliant journalism, the Diary is rich with Fisher's own observations-
on secession, war and peace, on his admiration for Lincoln and his
complicated feelings about slavery and emancipation.
The Diary, with a new introduction by Jonathan W. White, joins those of
George Templeton Strong and Mary Boykin Chesnut as classic windows on
American life
During the War Between the States.
Jonathan W. White's articles on Civil War politics have appeared in such
journals as Civil War History, American Nineteenth Century History, The
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, and Pennsylvania
History. Awarded a John T. Hubbell prize for the best article in Civil
War History, he is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of
Maryland, College Park.
Cover illustrations:
Cover design by
Fordham University Press
New York
www.fordhampress.com
