A Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky: The Diary of Frances Peter. (Book Reviews).

A Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky: The Diary of Frances Peter. Edited by John David Smith and William Cooper Jr. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, c. 2000. Pp. [xxxiv], 222. $22.50, ISBN 0-8131-2144-2.)

Frances Dallam Peter's diary is a welcome addition to the growing library of women's Civil War writings. The title of this volume explains why: Peter was a Unionist, and for this reason her diary complements the more numerous Confederate women's diaries published. Furthermore, she lived in Kentucky, part of the border region still overshadowed in the historiography of the Civil War.

Peter was born in 1843 in Lexington, Kentucky, one of eleven children of Dr. Robert Peter, a noted physician, and Frances Peter, a descendant of the prominent Preston and Breckinridge families. Never married, the diarist lived with her family in Lexington, where she began chronicling the war in January 1862. Peter's ardently pro-Union diary extends until April 1864, four months before she died from an epileptic seizure at age twenty-one.

The editors suggest that Peter's epilepsy profoundly shaped her diary, and indeed it appears she rarely left her house and instead watched the war from her window. The result is a series of observations that come filtered through other sources, such as newspapers and gossip brought home by her family. Peter often prefaces her statements with "There is a story afloat" (p. 64) or "As far as I could learn" (p. 147), raising interesting questions about the flow of communication and rumor during the war. Peter's confinement did not prevent her engagement with the war and instead presents a case study of the household's position at the intersection of public and private life.

Peter's diary cuts across a number of important themes in Civil War history, and it particularly captures the complexity of a border state. One month she describes the presence of the Union army in town; the next month she reports on occupying Confederate troops. She sees African American soldiers--whom she derides--and also observes the auction of an enslaved man and woman in 1864. Her neighbors range from Unionists to Copperheads to Confederates, who interact in interesting ways. Peter describes Union women caring for Confederate soldiers in local hospitals, as well as families dealing with their own internal divisions. Her vivid account of the overlap of loyalty and disloyalty, slavery and freedom, makes this an invaluable source for examining the war along the border.

The same editors previously published this diary as Window on the War (Lexington, Ky., 1976), but their new edition features 200 additional entries, an expanded introduction, an index, and extensive annotations that not only clarify the text but often complicate Peter's statements. However, the editors chose only the "most significant" passages from the original diary for this volume (p. xxxiii) and left out what they describe as verbatim copies of newspaper battle summaries. This leaves unanswered what other aspects of the military war entered into the consciousness of a woman at home, but the diary is still packed with fascinating observations that should inspire new avenues of research.

AMY E. MURRELL
State University of New York, Albany