Susie King Taylor was the only African American woman to publish a memoir of her Civil War experiences. Before she married, army officers discovered her literacy and provided her books to organize a school in Georgia for freed African Americans, both children and adults. After marrying Edward King, a black non-commissioned officer in the Union forces, Susie King Taylor traveled with his regiment as a nurse and taught black soldiers to read and write. In 1866 she and her husband returned to Georgia where she opened a school for freed children. After her husband died, she returned to Liberty County, her home town, and established another school. In 1868 she went back to Georgia to continue teaching freedmen and supported herself with the small tuition. She eventually remarried and wrote her memoir Reminiscences while caring for a dying son.
