My Diary North and South

William Howard Russell (1820–1907) was a nineteenth-century war correspondent for The Times. In 1861–2 he visited America to report on the secession crisis that had followed Abraham Lincoln's campaign to abolish slavery, in which eleven southern states had withdrawn from the United States to form their own confederacy, resulting in the American Civil War. First published in 1863, this two-volume work recounts Russell's experiences there. Based on his interviews with Lincoln, other pivotal figures, and ordinary citizens, together with his diaries and his letters to The Times, it documents his impressions of both the northern and the opposing southern states as he travelled through them. His book, thought to have been compiled in response to accusations that he was biased towards the South, provides a revealing eyewitness account of life during a landmark period in America's history. Volume 1 focuses mainly on southern society and slavery.