Susie King Taylor landed in the history books by becoming the Army’s first Black nurse, and the first and only Black woman to detail her experiences in the Civil War. Additionally, Taylor is the first Black woman to teach openly at a freedmen’s school in Georgia.
Taylor was born August 6, 1848 into slavery in Liberty County, Ga. At age seven, Taylor was sent by her owner to live in Savannah with her grandmother, Dolly. Dolly secretly enrolled her granddaughter into a pair of schools, of which one was taught by a free Black woman. Slave literacy was outlawed at the time.
Taylor’s education was cut short when Dolly was arrested for singing freedom hymns. Taylor was sent back to her mother in Isle of Wight, Ga. Taylor learned as much as she could on her own, and even had the help of a pair of white youths and playmates, despite it being illegal.
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In 1862, a fourteen-year-old Taylor fled to St. Simons Island with several other African-Americans, only to find the region occupied by the Union Army during the heights of the Civil War. Taylor impressed the Union Generals with her ability to read and write, so she was assigned to teach at the freedmen’s school. While at the school, she met Sgt. Edward King of the 33rd Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops.
She traveled with the troop, serving as its nurse, laundress, and teaching the soldiers reading and writing during their off time. Like many other Civil War nurses, Taylor was untrained. After the birth of she and King’s first child, her husband died. She continued to teach but was forced to close her school after a free school was established in the region.
The former nurse and educator was working as a domestic servant to a wealthy Boston family when she met her second husband, Russell Taylor of Georgia. She remained in Boston for the rest of her life, only returning South for occasional visits.
She wrote her memoir, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers, after visiting her dying son in the 1890’s in Louisiana. The book was published privately in 1902, and featured many of the details of Taylor’s life that historians and scholars refer to.
Taylor passed in October 1912 at the age of 64 in Massachusetts.
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