Preview: Through 'Window,' view 'afflicted' Georgia 'prodigy'

Sixth-plate ambrotype of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, circa 1856. Gresham died on June 18, 1865, in Macon, Ga. 
He was 17.  (Library of Congress)

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In a journal he kept from 1860-65, fatally ill LeRoy Wiley Gresham of Macon, Ga., suggested drastic treatment for a crippled limb.

"Saw off my leg," the teenager wrote in pencil.

ORDERING INFO:
From Savas Beatie (signed) | Amazon.com

From our vantage point 153 years after his death at 17, we may wince at the physical decline of LeRoy, who suffered from crippling effects of spinal tuberculosis and other maladies. The articulate and well-educated young man may have barely weighed 50 pounds when he died. But thanks to his remarkable journals -- a unique window into daily life during the Civil War -- we have so much to celebrate, too.

In his diary, Gresham, an avid reader of newspapers and literature, wrote of aiding Confederates ("this morning the ladies gave the soldiers flowers"), advancing Yankees ("Gen. Toombs advises all ladies and children to get away if they can") and other war news. And, of course, he recorded entries on his declining health ("I am weaker and more helpless than I ever was"). For his health woes, he was given whiskey, morphine and other remedies, none of which apparently eased his pain.

Edited and annotated by Janet Croon, Gresham's diaries have been published by Savas Beatie as The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Journals of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865. Available since June, the book has already generated considerable buzz -- the first edition sold out in less than a month.

"LeRoy’s is the only account that allows readers to slip into the very household of a wealthy slave-holding family in the Deep South, and stay as a guest from secession (1860) through collapse and the death of the protagonist," publisher Ted Savas, managing director of Savas Beatie, told me.

In this Q&A with the blog, Savas tells us more about why he believes the book is important, the moment he knew the diary was special and more. Croon, meanwhile, gives an example of Gresham's humorous side and speculates on how he would have reacted had he known his words were shared with the public. And each has one question for "Loy," who, as the book's subtitle says, led a "privileged, but afflicted, life."

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Publisher Ted Savas: '... the adrenaline coursed through me.'

Why is this book important?

Savas: Because nothing else like it exists, anywhere, in any genre.

No other male teenage noncombatant male of whom I am aware left a diary of any length, let alone one that covers nearly five years. And this one spilled from the pen of a highly intelligent, educated — you could call him a prodigy — and well-read young man uniquely positioned to play his role on history’s stage.

LeRoy’s is the only account that allows readers to slip into the very household of a wealthy slave-holding family in the Deep South, and stay as a guest from secession (1860) through collapse and the death of the protagonist (LeRoy, in June 1865). From this we get the longest, most detailed, sustained, and personal account of Southern family life in existence.

Ted Savas with Joanne Dillard, who works at
 1842 Inn in Macon, Ga. It was the home
 of  LeRoy Wiley Gresham during the Civil War. 

LeRoy’s diary is also the only full-length detailed account in the world of a spinal tuberculosis patient. He writes about his symptoms, his mental state, his doctor conversations, the remedies they plied him with and how it made him feel, and his steady deterioration, day by day, week by week, as he transitioned from a mobile but sick young man of 12, to an emaciated skin-and-bones teen of 17 who weighed perhaps all of 50 pounds and was so weak he could no longer hold his pen.

One reviewer, who believes this will be a book of the year award-winner, described it this way:

 “If you are an environmental historian, you should read the diary for the droughts and floods that interrupt the agriculture practices of the plantations and the fluctuating prices of food. If you are a social historian, you should read this for his description of his family’s extended relative connections, his education, the family’s parlor games, and the diets of a plantation household that live in a city. If you are drawn to communications and journalism, you will find how fast news and newspapers travel between the United States and the Confederate States. LeRoy had his favorite Northern and Southern newspapers, and he comes to an understanding of ‘fake news’ and how and why it exists. If you are a medical historian, you will discover how doctors understand and treat Gresham’s coughs, back pains, headaches, nerve damage to his leg and hips. Readers will come to learn that a belladonna plaster on the spine really, really itches."       -- Rea Redd, Civil War Librarian 

Crippled by a broken leg, Leroy Wiley Gresham suggested drastic treatment in his diary.

When did you realize that this was something special?

Savas: The moment I finished reading a 2012 article in the Washington Post about the diary, and that the Library of Congress was featuring it as one of its jewel holdings. It was unpublished, and the adrenaline coursed through me. I read the article in 2017, so I was sure someone had published it. Fortunately, no one had done so. How many people read that amazing article and it never occurred to publish this historical one-of-kind gem? I spent an hour or two reading through some of the diary entries at the LoC website and decided then and there I had to publish this journal.

Why were you interested in bringing this story to a wide audience?

Back cover of one of Leroy Wiley Gresham's journals.

Savas: For all the reasons noted above.

I knew it was extraordinarily important. In fact, I had no idea just how important it really was until Jan Croon and I went through the editing process and came to grips with its multiple layers of subject matter, and its many pathos. I read it dozens of times during the editing process, but you read it differently during that phase. Do you get a lot out of it? Sure. But since it has been published I have read it twice. Each time I lean back and think, “How did I miss X or Y the first time?”

It is so deep, so amazing, and so insightful. I pick it up almost everyday and read a half a dozen entries and the footnotes just to think about them. (The extensive notes, after all, contain information the family mostly would have known, and thus discussed at length around the dinner table or LeRoy’s sick bed. That adds to their value.)

Outside letters and other materials have added a lot of flesh to the Gresham story that fills in gaps, adding to the value of this young man’s work.

If you could go back in time and ask Leroy one question, what would you ask?

Savas: The issue really hinges on when in his life you asked him “the question.”

So I would go back to moment he learns he is dying, and ask something along the lines of, “LeRoy, if your parents had told you in 1860 that you had a fatal illness and they did not really know how long you had to live, would you have kept a diary at all? And if your answer is yes, how would that have changed what and how much you wrote?”

Let’s call that one and one-half questions. [laughs]

Nov. 16 and 17, 1864, entries in LeRoy Wiley Gresham's journal. (Library of Congress)

Editor Janet Croon: '... immense detail about everyday life'

What about LeRoy’s story is most compelling to you?

Croon: LeRoy’s story is compelling because it provides us with incredible insight into the era. We get immense detail about everyday life at a sustained depth over an extended period of time that exists no where else, period.

Keep in mind that LeRoy never set foot on a battlefield. He was fighting his own internal battle and was only partially aware of how serious it was. It’s an incredibly bittersweet story, and although you know how the story will eventually end, what he experiences and what one learns from LeRoy keeps you reading.

What do you think LeRoy’s reaction to his diary being shared with the public?

Croon: This is something we will never know, of course, but a great question to ponder. A journal, of course, is a private thing you write for yourself. So what would his reaction be?

LeRoy Gresham "wasn't a boastful young man," says 
Janet Croon, editor of  The War Outside My Window,
 "but I  think that knowing his words contributed
to the greater knowledge of mankind would make 
him happy."

Perhaps some shock and dismay, maybe some embarrassment because it was so detailed about his illness—at least at first. Keep in mind that even though he was very intelligent and farsighted, he had no idea that his daily observations on life in the Old South in the 19th century would have so much value 150 years later. So he would come to understand that. He didn’t know he was providing a first-hand account of what a TB patient goes through slowly dying for five long years — it’s a wholly unique piece of writing. LeRoy would also see the value in that, I am confident.

If he thought about it long enough, he would reach Ted’s conclusion that LeRoy gave his family immortality. They live nowhere else like this but in his journal. And this is especially true of his mother, Mary. Her dying son put flesh and a personality on her bones. She exists almost nowhere else but in his diary.

LeRoy loved his family. So I think after the shock sinks in, he would realize the value his journal provides to us today, and he would be pleased with it. He wasn’t a boastful young man, but I think that knowing his words contributed to the greater knowledge of mankind would make him happy. In fact, I believe he is happy.

Despite health issues, LeRoy had a great sense of humor. Give us an example that makes you smile.

Croon: The hot coals popping out of the fireplaces are one of my favorites! I laughed out loud when I first transcribed that section. His writing is so in-the-moment . . . little pieces of coal wreaking burning his mom’s knitting or a hole in the rug. Keep in mind flying hot coal in those days was quite dangerous and could catch the house on fire. He found humor in the event, despite the fact that he was unable to move much independently.

Another example is when he noted his right leg— his “good” leg — was drawing up like his left crippled leg. He adds that soon people would say LeRoy Gresham doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Given all he was going through — the pain, the vomiting, the coughing, the morphine — he could still joke. It’s enough to make you cry, really.

If you could go back in time and ask Leroy one question, what would you ask?

Croon: That’s a hard one. This may sound odd, but I always wonder how his parents explained to him that he could no longer go to school or attend church, most public functions, and so forth. He didn’t know the true state of his health, and that he was contagious, and so forth, but he also seems to have accepted the fact that he could not go many places outside the home. He was a smart boy. He never seemed bitter about it, but instead more resigned to accept it. I would like to know how that all came about.

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