Susie King Taylor
2025 Black History Month: Unsung Heroes
Savannah, GA
This Black History Month, the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project honors the unsung hero Susie King Taylor (1848–1912), a remarkable Civil War nurse, educator and memoirist.
A remarkable Civil War nurse, educator and memoirist, Taylor was born Susie Baker to an enslaved Geechee family on the Grest Plantation in Midway, GA. At age seven, she was sent to live with her free grandmother, Dolly, in Savannah, GA, who enrolled her in a clandestine school where she learned to read and write. Dolly was eventually arrested for her illegal organizing, and Taylor was forced to return to Grest by the time the Civil War began in 1861. The following year, she escaped with an uncle during the Union Army’s siege of nearby Fort Pulaski on Tybee Island. They initially fled to St. Catherine’s Island where they then boarded the Union U.S.S. Potomska headed to a freedmen’s colony on St. Simons Island.
The Potomska’s commander was impressed by Taylor’s ability to read and upon arrival at St. Simon’s recommended her for a teaching position. At just 14, she became the first Black educator to teach at a freedmen’s school in the state of Georgia – an achievement that was out of reach for her own teachers just seven years prior. In the fall of 1862, Taylor moved to Camp Saxton in Beaufort, SC, where she began to serve as the laundress for the recently formed 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first Black regiment in the U.S. Army. There she met and married her husband, Sergeant Edward King, and they served alongside one another.
Her official title throughout her four years of military service was laundress, but her role quickly expanded to include cooking, firearm maintenance, and later nursing. Although Black women were not formally allowed to serve as nurses, Taylor’s support was vital, and her talents as a healer, grounded in the Gullah medicinal knowledge she learned from Dolly, were unique. Her work continued off-duty, teaching eager freedmen to read and write. This generosity of spirit positioned Taylor as a highly respected and instrumental figure within the 1st South Carolina Volunteers.
Taylor’s regiment – reorganized in 1864 as the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops Infantry – ended in 1866. Formerly classified as a volunteer, she was never paid and was ineligible for a veteran’s pension despite her contributions to the Union efforts. Taylor and her husband moved to Savannah where she realized her dream of opening a private school. In September 1866, Edward tragically died in a docking accident, just months before the couple’s child was born. Taylor, now facing the racial oppression of the Reconstruction South as a single mother, was forced to close her school and work as a domestic servant for a wealthy family. In 1872, the family relocated to Boston, MA, and Taylor accompanied them.
Taylor seized new opportunities in the North. She quickly began working with the Woman’s Relief Corps (WRC) in support of female Civil War Veterans and was a founding member of the Boston chapter. Over the next two decades, she rose in WRC ranks, progressing from secretary to treasurer to president in 1893. Concurrently, Taylor began working on Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, late 1st S.C. Volunteers (1902), her now lauded first-hand account of her early years, wartime chronicles, and the enduring challenges she faced post-emancipation. She is the only Black woman to write a memoir of her Civil War experiences.
Susie King Taylor’s legacy continues to inspire those committed to the advancement of equitable education and healthcare in both military and civilian life. Since late 2015, The Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute & Ecology Center has been sharing her story from their headquarters in Midway, Georgia.
Please visit their website to learn more about their important work: https://www.susiekingtaylorinstitute.org/