The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865

Civil War diaries were not uncommon among the soldiers. But a growing corpus is starting to emerge of the diaries of non-combatants. Whether they be fathers too old to fight, mothers, sons, daughters. It provides fascinating insight into the home front during the Civil War. This diary is by young LeRoy Gresham, a young man raised by his family in Macon, Georgia. He would die young as well in 1865, not long after the war ended. What we get is a fascinating picture from the eyes of a young man as the South slowly changes during the course of the war, from the heady early days to the slow realization that the South was going to lose. While LeRoy Gresham might not have been directly involved in the politics of the town, he kept up on the ever-shifting news and often provides his own opinions.

Like many diaries of this time, no matter if they were made during war time or not, this can be a little hard to get into, as Gresham often shifts from one idea to another and back again in a matter of a few sentences, but this is still a fascinating look into civilian life.