|
|
Introduction
William
B. Gould's Civil War diary chronicles his daily life in the United
States Navy from September 27, 1862, to his discharge three years
later, on September 29, 1865. One of the only known diaries of an
African American sailor in the Civil War, this document describes
his service and life as a sailor on the U.S.S. Cambridge
and later on the U.S.S. Niagara, which took him from the
northeastern U.S. to Great Britain, Holland, Belgium, Spain, and
Portugal.
This site is intended to complement
William B. Gould IV's book about his great-grandfather, Diary
of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor.
Here the reader can view the diary itself, and see aspects of it
that cannot be replicated in a typescript or book. The reader can
also view a photo gallery of images related to the diary, William
B. Gould, and his family.
The diary consists of two books plus
some forty unbound pages that appear to have once been part of another
book. All of the extant material is provided here in chronological
order. There are only two significant hiatuses, one for the period
May-October 1863, when he is hospitalized with the measles, and
the other for the late September 1864-early February 1865 period,
which appears to be a section that was somehow lost.
Although WBG kept his entries chronologically
on a day to day basis, the order that some of the sections of the
diary appear in the original books can be somewhat confusing. WBG's
first entries from Sept. 27, 1862 to May 3, 1863 are written in
the final pages of the first book, with the May 3 entry falling
on the last page of the book. At this point, WBG becomes ill with
the measles and presumably stops keeping daily entries. The diary
resumes on Oct. 13, 1863, the day he is transferred from the Chelsea
Naval Hospital to the receiving ship Ohio and then to the U.S.S.
Niagara. On this day, WBG begins a second book, which runs uninterrupted
from Oct. 13, 1863 through Sept. 4, 1864. Opposite the Sept. 4,
1864 entry, on the last page of the book is WBG's drawing of the
C.S.S. Stonewall. The next surviving entry is an apparent continuation
of a February 4, 1865 entry. The first part of the Feb. 4 entry,
as well as the preceding entries (from Sept. 4, 1864 onward) have
been lost. The partial entry begins the first of about forty loose
pages that were probably once part another book whose binding was
destroyed. As is clear from the scans provided here, these pages
are in the most fragile condition and have deteriorated significantly
around the edges so that some of the text has been lost. The last
of these unbound pages contains WBG's May 26, 1865 entry. At this
point, WBG returns to the first book (the book whose last 50-odd
pages contain the beginning of his service from Sept. 27, 1862 -
May 3, 1863). He writes his May 27, 1865 on the first page of the
book, and continues through Sept. 29, 1865, the date of his discharge
from the Navy at the Charlestown Naval Shipyard. Thus, the 45 or
so pages at the beginning of the first book contain the entries
for the very end of his service, while the last 50 or so pages contain
his entries for the very beginning of his service.
To complicate matters further, between
the two sections at the beginning and the end of the first book,
are a large number of blank pages and a few pages of notes. Immediately
following last diary entry on Sept. 29, 1865, are two pages of trade
notes detailing formulas for mixing different types of cement, clay,
etc, which were undoubtedly written after the war. In the middle
of the book, surrounded on both sides by a number of blank pages,
are a two undated entries, "Notes by WBG" and "The
Negro his Friends and Foes." These items are written from the
bottom line of the diary to the top, or upside down. Although their
placement in the diary makes dating them difficult, they may well
have been written by WBG before the war.
|
