Dolly Burge

Dolly Sumner (Lunt) Burge was born September 29, 1817, in Bowdoinham, Maine. As a young woman, she decided to become a teacher, joining her sister in Georgia. While teaching school in Covington, she met, then married, Thomas Burge. Widowed in 1858, she remained on the family plantation with her daughter, Sarah (Sadai), and some one hundred slaves.

In the midst of World War I, Julian Street visited the plantation. Intrigued by the story of Sherman's March to the Sea, he read Mrs. Burge's diary, later receiving permission to publish the text from her grand-daughters. Street supplied the bracketed notes found in the text. Century Company published the book, A Woman's Wartime Journal, in 1918.

The complete book is available as an Adobe Acrobat file. Click on the title below to open the file. A free Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at www.adobe.com.