Item Description: Diary entry, dated 7 November, 1863 by Edward Anderson. At the time a colonel on duty in Savannah, his diary entry discusses reminisces of the “good old days” and discusses the disrepair and neglect of a plantation. During his lifetime, Anderson was a United States Navy officer, planter, Confederate Army officer, mayor of Savannah, insurance company representative, and railroad director and was married to Sarah McQueen Williamson Anderson.

[Item transcription available below image]

Item Citation: Folder 10, Edward C Anderson Papers #03602, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Item Transcription:

                                                                                                                                                                                   Saturday Novbr 7th    I spent the morning in the country at Saranac, taking Richard out with me for company. The day was lovely and bright and the drive over the Plant Road as pleasant as one could expect over so rough a highway as it has become. With everything to cheer me, there was an unaccountable weight on my spirits. The good old days of my boyhood when my old Father had to carry me out with him on my holidays came back upon me and I thought of a thousand things that had been and some perhaps that may never be. The people at Saranac were glad to see me as usual and came out of the cotton field to greet me. Old Benah? went into pantomime as is her wont whenever she sees the buggy coming up the avenue. The plantation looks like desolation, fences tottering, building dilapidated, in fact everything giving unmentionable evidence of neglect includes? to the war that are upon us. Returned to town to dinner.