NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Its marble-printed cardboard cover made the journal look ordinary – like something you could pick up at Barnes and Noble today – hiding the brittle, yellowing pages covered with fine script inside.
A penciled inscription on the front page was retired science teacher Andrea Shearn’s only clue to its origins.
“Captured at Fort Henry, Stewart Co., Middle Tennessee Feb. 6 1862 by Captain M. Wemple Co. H 4th Ill. Volunteer Cavalry. Presented to Mrs. Sue Wemple.”
Like a bunch of old stuff from her parents’ house in Cincinnati, Shearn shipped it home to San Francisco. She wasn’t sure what else to do with it.
But now, about two years later, the contents of the diary are set to be published in Tennessee’s historical quarterly as part of what historians say is one of the most illuminating Civil War-era accounts of life in the state.