The Diary of Caroline Seabury, 1854-1863

Caroline Russell Seabury, the first child of John and Caroline (Plimpton) Seabury, was born on June 1, 1827, in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Little is know about Caroline’s childhood except that during those years eight family members died of consumption, known today as tuberculosis; it was one of the most virulent diseases of the nineteenth century. The toll on the Seabury family was great; on July 11, 1850, three months after her daughter Mary died of consumption, Caroline’s mother, Caroline Plimpton Seabury, took her own life at the age of forty-six, leaving behind three children: Caroline, her younger sister Martha, and their young brother, Channing Seabury.

During her early years, Caroline attended school, most likely one of the female seminaries operating in New England at that time. The female seminary (sometimes called the female institute or academy) came into existence as early as 1814, when Emma Willard opened the Middlebury Female Seminary. The goal of such institutions was to provide girls with an education beyond the common schooling to which many had been limited. Caroline Seabury studied Latin, French, and Shakespeare. By the early 1850s, Caroline, Martha, and Channing Seabury were living with their mother’s brother, Edwin Plimpton, in Brooklyn, New York. To support herself, Caroline Seabury began a journey to Mississippi in the fall of 1854. She had been newly hired as a teacher of French at the recently reorganized Columbus Female Institute,, which began accepting pupils in 1848 and which enrolled the daughters of the wealthier citizens of Columbus, Mississippi.

The diary of Caroline Seabury begins with her journey from New York to Mississippi. Her diary continues throughout the next nine years, during which time Caroline remained in the South as the Civil War erupted. Her sister, Martha Seabury, soon joined her in Columbus, and Caroline wrote that they intended the diary to become a joint record of their experiences as teachers in an unfamiliar land. The diary chronicles the naivete about the institution of slavery and the gradual awakening to its horrors experienced by the Seabury sisters and recorded by Caroline. When her sister Martha became sick with consumption, dying in June 1858, Caroline Seabury recorded those events in her diary. After the war began, many diary entries reflect Caroline Seabury’s thoughts and feelings about the effects of war. In 1862, she lost her teaching position when the principal of the Columbus Female Institute decided to employ only Southerners as teachers.

After a year spent in tutoring the daughters of George Hampton Young, the owner of Waverly Plantation near Columbus, Caroline implemented a plan in August 1863 that would help her pass through army lines and return to the North. Her diary chronicles that journey, which brought her back to New York, where she discovered that her only surviving sibling, her younger brother Channing Seabury, had gone to St. Paul, Minnesota, to work. Caroline soon joined Channing in St. Paul, where she lived for twenty years. She kept the books for Channing’s wholesale grocery business and helped care for his children after the death of his first wife. Caroline Seabury died on March 18, 1893, in Washington, D.C., where she had been living for five months. Her body was returned to St. Paul for burial in the Seabury family plot in Oakland Cemetery.

For many years after her death, the diary of Caroline Seabury remained in her trunk, which was stored in the attic of her brother Channing’s home in St. Paul. In the early 1950s, when the house was being sold, the diary and other items were donated to the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, where it remains today. The original handwritten diary, measuring 8 ½" by 11" and bound in dark green leather with maroon trim, contains approximately 150 pages of handwritten text plus newspaper clippings, samples of United States and Confederate currency, photographs of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, and other Civil War memorabilia. A scholarly edition, entitled The Diary of Caroline Seabury, 1854-1863, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press (1991).

Here is an excerpt from the diary of Caroline Seabury:

New Year's Day / [18]56 "Hiring Out"

By invitation of a friend I went this morning to his plantation twelve miles in the country--my first insight into plantation life. When about half way there we saw quite a large crowd assembled on the "porch' and scattered about the yard of a double log house. My friend at once understood that there was to be a negro hiring & asked if I would like to see it. I assented & we rode up to the door. With but one exception, every man was dressed in copperas colored home made jeans. Mr. C., my companion, at once became an Esq. by virtue of his black suit. I was escorted into "the room" where was a man making out bonds for those hired. I read one, which obligated the person named to pay the sum of 120 dollars for Rose & two small children, payment to be made monthly for the ensuing year to her master or his agent, and moreover she was to be furnished a change of clothing, two blankets & suitable food . The lady of the house gave me all necessary information unasked. The "niggers' to be hired were she said the property of some orflins [orphans] for whom her husband stood 'guardian.' I sat by an open window & the business soon began. A large block was brought & placed on the highest spot. Around it gathered the crowd of tobacco chewers, now & then I saw a black bottle passed round among them, their voices soon telling of its virtues. The property of the orflins stood in the background dressed in their best clothes, of all colors & sizes--in fact this was true of themselves as well as their clothes. There were about 35 in all varying from the real unmistakable Africans to the pale blue eyed mulatto. My hostess commented on the subject in general, telling me "nobody but them that has it knows what a heap o'trouble orflins is to a body. Niggers never is satisfied, one of em came home last week all tore an bit by dogs, but I didn't blame him so much for runnin off for they tied him to 4 pieces of wood made like a cross and whipped him a'most to death. He jest could git home 15 miles, an he's too badly off to be hired out to-day so we've got him on our hands like as not all the year. Then last month we had a woman to come home, she'd bin in the woods risin o' two months, an was nigh to bein perished. The overseer couldn't bring her to terms, an so undertook to whip her an she run off--we put her in jail for him to come after her, but he never came. That yeller one there is the one, you'll hear her called Suey when they put her up. Last year one o' the best men a carpenter, wouldn't work, an they made him build a coffin, then make him git into it, and nailed it up to scare him--he was a'most white, a mighty smart feller, could read and write, they said, an so they was afraid to whip him--fear he'd pay back some way. Well, they kep Jack in a leetle too long, for when they come to knock off the lid, he didn't speak, an when they opened it, he'd just done breathin--He was Suey's husband. We've tried an tried to git a judgment gainst the master but we can't he's got some rich kin-folks that always keeps him up, an the children will have to lose it I'm afeerd. He an Suey was hired to different places 10 miles apart an he would run away every two or three months to see her--when he died she went a'most crazy.["] For a half hour she had talked on these precise words I answering not one work--I could not doubt the horrid truths she told and never can I forget them, or that scene. The auctioneer's loud voice rang out, "genmen, it's a'most time to begin, it's time to bring em on." The first one was a gray-headed old man who with difficulty got up-- "What'll you give me for old Jo," the bloated seller screamed out, "not much I know master,["] Jo said, ["]my work is a'most done." "Well, he'll do for hog tender--10 dollars--15--15 gone to Mr. Hankins for 15 dollars--" Next came old Joe's wife more infirm but younger than he--she went to another man just to mind the black children for a home. Then their children--Ned stepped up--"about 25, likely field hand, can do most anything--some one starts 50, 50 is bid, 60--65--65 worth double genmen, 75--80--100--125 then up to 150--cheap at that--gone to Charles Slocum for 150." He stepped down and went to his new master, then came a large girl & two smaller children, "only large enough for cotton pickers"--They were soon bid off, and their places were filled by others--who went lively as the current expression was, as cotton was likely to be high & "hands scarce." About a dozen were disposed of, when there came a tall slender, well-formed light mulatto woman with two children about 7 & 9 yrs. old, and a baby in her arms. "Here's Suey, got no husband to bother her, what'll you give--want the children to go along if we can--50--75--85--100--without the children." Here the woman fixed her black eyes on the man bidding. Mrs. H. told me twas "a rich old bachelor, mighty rich from cross the river, but hard on niggers"--Some one kept running against him until it went up to 150--175--& she was "struck off" to the rich man--She said not a word, but her looks told what was in her heart, as she gave up the two older children, she sobbed bitterly--Any other expression of feeling would I suppose have been punished--Here was one of my own sex almost as light in color--with a poor shabby dress of mourning for her husband still on her. I could not keep back my own tears, though they were unobserved by others. Suey's place was next filled by a young, fine-looking gaily dressed "house girl" who went to "the Squire" of that county. Some looked happy--knowing their masters--they could calculate so far as eating & drinking went with tolerable certainty & this to them makes up the sum of life. While the bonds were being settled one & another related instances of violations of them & injuries by whipping which all agreed--"the laws orter take in hand." One in the neighborhood was paralyzed for life, perfectly helpless from too much shipping, another woman had started twice to drown herself, & "was well whipped for it too"--I heard an animated discussion on the use of dogs in catching them--it was denounced--because so often hands were laid up after it and couldn't work. It was new strange talk to me-- indescribably revolting--How from my inmost soul I detested those creatures in the form of men who could thus calmly in a perfect matter-of-fact way discuss subjects which to me seemed only fit converse for fiends. We spent perhaps two hours there--it seemed to me but a glimpse of the lower world & its foul deeds--and yet it is done at the beginning of every year all over the "Sunny South"--How thankful was I when we rode away from the sight of so much helpless hopeless misery, which I was powerless to relieve--