Reading Great-grandfather's 1868 Diary for His Story

On January 1, 1868, Charles Edward Dickinson begins a diary as a preparatory student in the Academy of Washington University at St. Louis. He lives with his uncle and aunt, away from his hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. With a keen eye and empathetic heart, his diary entries capture how he lives day to day.The St. Louis of 1868 is busy and thriving as the fourth-largest city in the Union. The disciplined, bourgeois, church-going diarist lives with memories of the most divisive social upheaval in American history—the Civil War or the War of the Southern Rebellion that lingered on a few diary pages. Memories that surely set the stage for Charles Edward noting on May 16, 1868, President Andrew Johnson has avoided removal from office. When the diary opens on January 1, Charles Edward is winding up a two-week vacation from school that began December 23, 1867, and which will end Monday, January 6, 1868.