Susie King Taylor served African American troops during the Civil War for more than 4 years and did so without pay. Taylor’s male relatives joined the 33rd U.S. Colored Infantry and she stayed with their unit, traveling up and down the Georgia coast as a laundress, cook, and nurse. Taylor also taught classes for the men. She had learned to read and write in a secret slave school during childhood. Later in the war, Taylor tended the men of the famous black regiment, the Massachusetts 54th and worked with Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross. After the war, Taylor opened a school for the newly freed black children of Savannah, Georgia and wrote the story of her life, My Life in Camp, the only such account of the Civil War by a black woman.
Susie King Taylor
