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A Curriculum Guide to

Susie King Taylor:

Nurse, Teacher, & Freedom Fighter

By Erica Armstrong Dunbar & Candace Buford

About the Book

From a young age, Susie King Taylor understood that things had to change for Black and enslaved people in America. While she was grateful to have lived for a while with her grandmother in Savannah, Georgia, this did not equate to the life and freedom that she and many others like her deserved. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Taylor took a leap of faith and ran away, toward the promise of freedom toward the Union camp.

With the camaraderie of the First South Carolina Colored Troops, the first Black military regiment to fight for the United States of America, Taylor went on to become a talented and beloved teacher, nurse, and leader. This book, based on Taylor’s firsthand account of her time during and after the Civil War, breathes narrative context and emotion into the story of one of America’s truest war heroines.

Discussion Questions

1. Discuss the impact of education on Susie King Taylor’s life and career. How might things have been different if her grandmother hadn’t instilled the value of education in her?

2. Why do you think Taylor was willing to risk running away? What would you have done if you were in her position?

3. The Yankees harbored Taylor and other Black runaways, referring to them as “contraband.” (Chapter eight) This didn’t sit well with Taylor. Discuss the role of titles and how they impact our perception of ourselves and others.

4. How did Taylor’s perception of the Yankee soldiers change once she escaped? Was she correct in her initial beliefs? Why or why not?

5. In your opinion, what incentives did the Yankees have to hide and release enslaved Black people?

6. Discuss the significance of St. Simon’s Island. What did this place mean in reference to Susie King Taylor’s past and to her future?

7. In the Settlement of War agreement, it was proposed that freed B

About the project

First black nurse during the American Civil War

"Susie Taylor" redirects here. For the Australian former model, see Suzi Taylor.

Susie King Taylor (August 6, 1848 – October 6, 1912) was an American nurse, educator and memoirist. Born into slavery in coastal Georgia, she is known for being the first African-American nurse during the American Civil War. Beyond her aptitude in nursing the wounded of the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Taylor was the first Black woman to self-publish her memoirs. She was the author of Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers (1902). She was also an educator to formerly bonded Black people in the Reconstruction-era South when she opened various Freedmen's schools for them in the city of Savannah, Georgia. Taylor was a main organizer of Corps 67 of the Woman's Relief Corps in Massachusetts (1886).

Biography

Childhood

Susie Taylor, born Susan Ann Baker on August 8, 1848, was the eldest of the nine children of Raymond and Hagar Ann Reed Baker. She was born into slavery on a plantation owned by Valentine Grest on the Isle of Wight in Liberty County, Georgia. Taylor is recognized as being a member of the Gullah peoples of the coastal lowlands of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.

Susie Baker's grandmother Dolly Reed was allowed by Grest to take seven-year-old Susie to live with her in Savannah, then Georgia's largest city and a major seaport located some 38 miles (61 km) north of the plantati

Susie King Taylor, teacher and nurse, achieved many firsts in a lifetime of overcoming adversity and helping elevate others out of slavery. As the author of Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers, she was the only African American woman to publish a memoir of her wartime experiences. 

Susie Baker was born into slavery near Savannah, Georgia in 1848. Despite Georgia's harsh laws against the formal education of African Americans, she attended two secret schools taught by black women. Her literacy proved invaluable not only to her but to other African Americans she educated during the war. She became free at the age of 14 when her uncle led her out to a federal gunboat plying the waters near Confederate-held Fort Pulaski.

Baker and thousands of other African American refugees found themselves seeking safety behind Union lines on the South Carolina Sea Islands. She soon attached herself to the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first black regiment in the US Army. First organized by Major General David Hunter, the military governor Rufus Saxton would become the driving force behind the unit’s creation.

Taylor originally worked as the regimental laundress and throughout the war would perform the essential duties of cooking and washing. However, her literacy proved most useful and enabled her to serve as the reading instructor for the regiment of former slaves. The unit’s white abolitionist colonel, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, later wrote of his men, “Their love of the spelling-book is perfectly inexhaustible.” 

Taylor married Sergeant Edward King of the First South Carolina in 1862. Together they remained with the unit until it was mustered out of service in 1866. Postwar, the Kings moved to Savannah, Georgia. She hoped to continue her teaching career and opened a private school for the children of freedmen. Unfortunately, her husband died the same year, and a public school opening caused her privat