author
Charlotte St. J. (Charlotte St. Julien) Ravenel
d. 1880
Remembered for a vivid Civil War diary, these writings capture everyday life on South Carolina plantations in the final months of the Confederacy. Her firsthand account remains valuable for readers interested in women’s voices from the wartime South.
1 Audiobook
Two diaries From Middle St. John's, Berkeley, South Carolina, February-May, 1865 Journals kept by Miss Susan R. Jervey and Miss Charlotte St. J. Ravenel, at Northampton and Pooshee plantations, and reminiscences of Mrs. (Waring) Henagan; with two contemporary reports from federal officials.
by Susan R. (Susan Ravenel) Jervey, Mary Rhodes Waring Henagan, Charlotte St. J. (Charlotte St. Julien) Ravenel
About the author
Charlotte St. Julien Ravenel was a South Carolina diarist whose journal from February to May 1865 was later published in Two Diaries from Middle St. John's, Berkeley, South Carolina. Written at Pooshee Plantation during the closing months of the Civil War, her account offers a close, personal view of uncertainty, household life, and the collapse of the Confederacy.
Library and archive records identify her as Charlotte St. Julien Ravenel and note that she died in 1880. Although not much else about her life could be confirmed from reliable readily available sources, her surviving diary has given her a lasting place among firsthand chroniclers of the Civil War era.
Her work is often read today not as formal history, but as something more immediate: a daily record of how large events were felt in ordinary life. That directness is what continues to make her writing memorable.