author
Septima M. (Septima Maria) Collis
1842–1917
A rare firsthand voice from the Civil War, she wrote about army life with unusual candor and a sharp sense of what it meant to live through conflict up close. Her books blend personal experience, travel, and history in a way that still feels vivid.
1 Audiobook
A woman's war record, 1861-1865
by Septima M. (Septima Maria) Collis
About the author
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1842, Septima Maria Levy Collis became known for writing from the edges of major historical events rather than from a distance. Duke University’s account of her life says she married Charles H. T. Collis of Philadelphia in 1861 and accompanied him through much of the Civil War, even though her own family ties pulled her toward the South.
She is best remembered for A Woman's War Record, 1861-1865 (published in 1889), a memoir that offers an uncommon view of the war through the eyes of a woman living among Union soldiers and military camps. Records for her published work also identify her as the author of A Woman's Trip to Alaska, showing that her writing ranged beyond war into travel.
Collis died in 1917. What makes her especially interesting today is the perspective she preserved: personal, observant, and shaped by divided loyalties during one of the most painful periods in American history.