| Josie Underwood''s Civil War Diary Subjects: Underwood Josie 1840–1923 -- Diaries; Women -- Kentucky -- Bowling Green -- Diaries; Unionists (United States Civil War) -- Kentucky -- Bowling Green -- Diaries; Bowling Green (Ky.) -- History Military -- 19th century; Bowling Green (Ky.) -- Social lif; 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. "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. Nancy Disher Baird is the author of Healing Kentucky: Medicine in the Bluegrass State and coauthor of Western Kentucky University: The First 100 Years . From 1975 to 2010, she served as professor and special collections librarian at Western Kentucky University. |