author
Septima M. (Septima Maria) Collis
1842–1917
Known for vivid first-person writing about the Civil War and late-19th-century travel, this author turned lived experience into lively, readable memoir. Her books offer a rare view of army life through the eyes of a woman who was there.
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 best known for writing from personal experience rather than from a distance. She married Charles H. T. Collis in 1861, and later wrote about the years of the American Civil War with a strong sense of immediacy and detail.
Her best-known book, A Woman's War Record, 1861–1865 (1889), draws on her time alongside her husband's military service and includes memorable scenes from wartime life. She also wrote A Woman's Trip to Alaska (1890), showing that her work ranged beyond war memoir into travel writing.
Septima M. Collis died in 1917. Today, her writing remains valuable both as literature and as a firsthand window into the world she lived through.