Two Soldiers, One Diary: A Rare Civil War Record Bridges Union And Confederate Voices

MORGANZA, Md. — When Mary Hall first learned of her great-grandfather’s Civil War diary, she had no idea that it was a historical rarity — that it included entries not only from her great-grandfather, a Confederate private, but also from a Union soldier.

Hall, an adjunct professor of political science and military history at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, is the author of “From a Yankee to a Rebel Diary,” a newly published nonfiction work examining the shared journal of Private Jacob L. Elsesser of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves and Private George Washington Hall of the 14th Georgia Infantry.

Elsesser recorded his wartime experiences in an 1862 diary for six months before abandoning it after fighting near Beaver Dam Creek outside Richmond, Virginia. That same day, as Confederate troops moved through the area, George Washington Hall, Mary Hall’s great-grandfather, found the diary and continued writing in it until March 1865.

While Civil War diaries are not uncommon, a “blue-gray” diary — one written by soldiers from opposing armies — is exceptionally rare. “I didn’t fully understand how unusual this was until I began researching it,” Hall said.

The project soon expanded beyond family history. With limited information about Elsesser, Hall located one of his descendants, who provided photographs and a never-before-published unit history written by Elsesser himself, now included in the book. Although Hall included extensive context material on battles and differences between Union and Confederate camp life, the diary reveals striking similarities between the two men — particularly their devotion to family, faith and survival.

Staying connected to their families was their emotional lifeline.

Elsesser, a married justice of the peace in his 30s, regularly received letters and supplies from home. George Washington Hall, only 19 when he enlisted, cherished the few letters he received from home and even sold meals while imprisoned as a prisoner of war to afford postage.

As both a historian and a descendant, Hall said she worked to preserve the soldiers’ original voices, resisting the urge to modernize or make major changes.

“They deserved to speak for themselves,” she said.

For Hall, the diary’s significance lies not in its rarity alone, but in what it represents — two ordinary soldiers, separated by ideology and circumstance, unknowingly sharing the same space on the page. Their words, written without an audience in mind, now offer a rare bridge across one of the nation’s deepest divides.

“In the end,” Hall said, “the diary was a way for two human beings to make sense of the same war.”

Hall will host a book signing on Saturday, Dec. 20, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Keepin’ It Local in Morganza, Maryland. The first five purchasers will receive a complimentary display case containing one Union Civil War-era bullet and one Confederate Civil War-era bullet — a symbolic pairing that echoes the diary’s enduring legacy.

More than a historical artifact, “From a Yankee to a Rebel Diary” stands as a reminder that history is often preserved not through grand declarations, but through quiet, honest moments — written in ink, carried through time and finally read by generations who were perhaps never meant to find them.