The Quaker Sergeant's War

The Civil War posed a dilemma for American Quakers, who abhorred slavery as much as they hated violence. Fighting for the Confederacy was unthinkable. The situation for the citizens of East Tennessee—most of whom voted against secession—was especially vexed. Faced with conscription into the Confederate Army, David Haworth, two of his brothers, and a group of friends walked from their home in East Tennessee into Kentucky, moving by night to avoid Confederate patrols. Arriving in London, Kentucky, they enlisted in the Union Army as part of the Third Tennessee Infantry. David kept a diary throughout the Civil War, recounting the unit’s participation in numerous encounters including the battle at Resaca, Georgia, where his brother William was killed and where he and his other brother Isaac were wounded, and he went on to write movingly of one of the last engagements of the war at Nashville. This memoir is a rare historical source that scholars will find valuable. It is rich in detail, and Civil War buffs and general readers alike will find it an engaging firsthand account of our nation’s most tragic conflict.