By guest blogger Millicent H.B. Hughes
While many people may associate St. Simons Island, Georgia, with laidback southern beach living, the island played an important role in the Civil War.
In April 1862, when the Union Army reclaimed the Sea Islands of Georgia from the Confederate forces, Susie Baker was a slip of a 13-year-old girl. Her family, enslaved on a plantation near Savannah, somehow, sent Susie to live with her grandmother. While Georgia had strict laws against the education of freed or enslaved African-Americans, her grandmother enrolled Susie in secret lesson programs.
Then the Civil War exploded, and Susie’s uncle took the young folk of the family on a Union gunboat headed to St. Simons Island. Onboard, Susie sat near the captain, who discovered that she could both read and write.
When the boat docked at St. Simons Island, the captain suggested to Union officials that they employ young Susie Baker as a teacher for the African-American children on the island. As unlikely as this might sound today, St. Simons Island saw religious northern abolitionists and the U.S. Treasury Department cooperate to make the abandoned cotton plantations profitable, as well as a source of support for rescued Blacks.
Why hire a teenage girl to be the teacher? Susie knew Gullah, the impenetrable local dialect. Thus, at age 14, Susie Baker became the first African-American to teach at a school in Georgia. Her class at Gaston Bluff consisted of 40 children, but numerous adults would show up each evening to also receive lessons.
In October 1862, the Union evacuated St. Simons and headed to Beaufort, South Carolina, on the mainland. Susie was asked to accompany the First South Carolina Volunteers, an all-Black troop. Her title? Laundress.
By this time, Susie had married Sergeant Edward King, a non-commissioned officer in the First South Carolina Volunteers, and in truth, she did not perform many laundry duties. Instead, she became the camp nurse and part-time teacher. Once, when food stores ran low, she had only cans of condensed milk and turtle eggs, Susie concocted turtle custard to feed the men. The hungry do not complain.
At the end of the Civil War, Susie Baker King had worked for close to four years for the Union Army. What was her compensation? Nothing. As an official nurse, she would have been eligible for a stipend, but her title of laundress did not qualify her for any payment.
When the Civil War ended, Susie and Edward moved to Savannah. A few months later, Edward died in a dock accident, and Susie became a widow. With a small son to take care of, she opened her private school for African-American children in Savannah. The government then set up free Freedmen’s Bureau schools, and she could not compete against the free education programs.
By 1879 Susie was working as a domestic. Her employer’s family spent the summers in Boston, Massachusetts, and the winters in Georgia. While in Boston, she met and married Russell Taylor and helped organize the Woman’s Relief Corps for disabled veterans of the Civil War.
Then, in 1902 Susie Baker King Taylor wrote a book, Reminiscences of my Life in Camp. It was the only recounting of the Civil War by an African-American female.
Today, the area on St. Simons where Susie Baker King Taylor’s school existed is called Gascoigne Bluff and sports trendy houses. But in 1862, it hosted an innovative school for African-American children, thanks to Susie Baker King Taylor.
~ A gracious thank you to Millicent H. B. Hughes for guest blogging this month on Strong Women. Millicent is the author of 1777 Danbury on Fire! a story of the American Revolution told from a 13-year-old boy who became swept up in the turmoil. The book is available upon request in bookstores and through Amazon.
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~ Linda Harris Sittig
Author of Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, and Counting Crows – available in bookstores and online.