Susie King Taylor - Infinite Women

Born: 6 August 1848, United States
Died: 6 October 1912
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA

The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.

Susie King Taylor was the first Black nurse during the American Civil War. Beyond nursing the wounded of the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment, she became the earliest African-American woman to self-publish her memoirs, including “Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers.”
Susie King Taylor’s impact was not limited to nursing and writing. In the postbellum South, she established schools that empowered formerly enslaved Black individuals, contributing to their education and progress. Her influence also led to the formation of the 67 Corps of the Women’s Relief Corps in 1886.

The following is shared from The New Georgia Encyclopedia, which allows the use of protected materials for noncommercial educational purposes.

Susie Baker King Taylor was the first Black educator to teach openly in a school for formerly enslaved African Americans in Georgia. As the author of Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers, she was the only African American woman to publish a memoir of her wartime experiences.

Susie Baker, the daughter of enslaved parents, was born in Liberty County on August 6, 1848. When she was about seven years old, her owner allowed her to go to Savannah to live with her grandmother. Despite Georgia’s harsh laws against the formal education of African Americans, she attended two secret schools taught by Black women. From them she gained the rudiments of literacy, then extended her education with the help of two white youths, both of whom knowingly violated law and custom.

In April 1862 Baker and many other African Americans fled to St. Simons Island, occupied at the time by Union forces. Within days her educational advantages came to the attention of army officers, who offered to obtain books for her if she would organize a school. She thereby became the first Black teacher for freed African American students to work in a freely operating freedmen’s school in Georgia. She taught forty children in day school and “a number of adults who came to me nights, all of them so eager to learn to read, to read above anything else.” She taught there until October 1862, when the island was evacuated.

While at the school on St. Simons Island, Baker married Edward King, a Black noncommissioned officer in the Union forces. For three years she moved with her husband’s and brothers’ regiment, serving as nurse and laundress, and teaching many of the Black soldiers to read and write during their off-duty hours. In 1866 she and Edward returned to Savannah, where she established a school for the freed children. Edward King died in September 1866, a few months before the birth of their first child. In 1867 she returned to her native Liberty County to establish another school. In 1868 she again relocated to Savannah, where she continued teaching freedmen for another year and supported herself through small tuition charges, never receiving aid from the northern freedmen’s aid organizations.

In the 1870s King traveled to Boston as a domestic servant of a wealthy white family. While there she met and married Russell Taylor. She remained in Boston for the rest of her life, returning to the South only occasionally. After a trip to Louisiana in the 1890s to care for a dying son, she wrote her Reminiscences, which were privately published in 1902. She died ten years later. In 2019 the Georgia Historical Society erected a historical marker honoring King Taylor near the Midway First Presbyterian Church in Midway, Georgia.

The following is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).

On August 6, 1848, Susie King Taylor was born on a plantation in Georgia. In spite of her enslavement, she became a teacher, a nurse, and the only African American woman to write a Civil War memoir.

Taylor’s grandmother obtained permission for Taylor to live in Savannah with her. Although illegal, she also arranged for Taylor to learn to read and write.

When the Civil War started, Taylor, her uncle, and his family eventually made it to St. Simons Island, where Union Troops were stationed. Here, Taylor met and married Sergeant Edward King who served with the 1st Carolina Volunteers, later the 33d United States Colored Troops (USCT). When her husband and the soldiers left the island for active duty, Taylor departed with them. She used her education to serve as their teacher and her skill as a nurse to care for them. Although she received much praise for her work, she never received any compensation. Regardless of this, when she settled in Boston after the war, she continued to serve veterans through various organizations.

Major Samuel K. Thompson and Unidentified Soldiers of the 39th U.S. Infantry…. [United States, between 1868-1869]. Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs. Prints & Photographs Division
In 1898 Taylor traveled from Boston to Shreveport, Louisiana to care for her gravely ill son. During her stay, she observed outrageous regulations and appalling race-related practices that forced Black people into servile positions, restricted their rights, and sometimes resulted in their death.

When she returned to Boston, Susie was inspired to honor the members of the 33d USCT. She wanted history to remember that Black soldiers and other military personnel like her made sacrifices to win the war, end slavery, and reunite the Union. Taylor accomplished this with her 1902 publication, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers.

Taylor concludes her memoir by writing:
“….my people are striving to attain the full standard of all other races born free in the sight of God, and in a number of instances have succeeded. Justice we ask,—-to be citizens of these United States, where so many of our people have shed their blood with their white comrades, that the stars and stripes should never be polluted.”