A Woman's Wartime Journal An account of the passage over a Georgia plantation of Sherman's army on the march to the sea, as recorded in the diary of Dolly Sumner Lunt

In this intimate diary, a cultivated New England woman finds herself living on a sprawling Georgia plantation just before the Civil War erupts. Born in Maine and married into the Southern elite, she writes with the keen eye of an educated outsider, noting the fragrant springs, towering oaks, and the rhythms of a household that blends genteel white families with a hundred enslaved workers. Her entries capture everyday moments—teaching children, tending the garden, and observing the subtle tensions that already hum beneath the cotton fields.

When Union forces under Sherman sweep across the countryside, her words become a front‑line chronicle of uncertainty and disruption. She describes the thunder of marching boots, the clatter of wagons, and the uneasy negotiations between soldiers and the plantation’s residents. Through her honest reflections, listeners hear the clash of loyalties, the fear and curiosity of a mother protecting her daughter, and the stark contrast between the genteel domestic world and the harsh reality of war moving right outside her window.