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 Colored 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 and near the city of Savannah, Georgia. In her later years as a resident of Boston, Taylor became a main organizer of Corps 67 of the Massachusetts Woman's Relief Corps (1886).
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 plantation. Susie Baker moved to Reed's home there, along with her younger brother and sister. Reed sent her and her brother to be educated through what was known as an "underground education". Under Georgia state law in the 1850s, it was illegal for enslaved people to be educated. The girl and her brother were taught by a friend of Dolly Reed's, Mrs. Woodhouse, a free woman of color in Savannah who lived a half mile from Reed's house. Mrs. Woodhouse had the students enter one at a time with their books covered to keep from drawing much attention from the police or local whites. Susie Baker attended school with about 25 to 30 children for another two years, after which she would find instruction from another free woman of color, Mrs. Mathilda Beasley. Savannah's first Black nun, Beasley would continue to educate Susie until May 1860. Beasley then told Reed that she had taught the young girl all she knew and that Reed should find someone else to continue her studies.
Dolly Reed worked continuously to support the education of her granddaughter. Susie Baker became friends with a white playmate named Katie O’Connor, who attended a Savannah convent school. Her new friend agreed to continue to give Susie lessons if she promised not to tell anyone. After four months, the lessons ended when O’Connor formally entered the convent as a novice nun. Lastly, Susie would be educated by the son of Dolly Reed's white landlord until he was called to military duty for the Confederacy:
James Blouis, our landlord's son, was attending the High School, and was very fond of grandmother, so she asked him to give me a few lessons, which he did until the middle of 1861, when the Savannah Volunteer Guards, to which he and his brother belonged, were ordered to the front under General Barton. In the first battle of Manassas, his brother Eugene was killed, and James deserted over to the Union side, and at the close of the war went to Washington, D.C., where he has since resided.
Susie King Taylor's early education would prove paramount. Her ability to read and write would later give her power and protection for people of color—both free people and slave. As a youngster, Susie Baker wrote town passes that gave some amount of security to Black people who were out on the street after the curfew bell was rung at nine o’clock each night. This helped keep the pass holders from being arrested by the watchman and placed in a guardhouse until their fines could be paid by their master or guardian. Despite being exposed to secessionist propaganda that attempted to paint all people from the North as wanting to further subjugate the Black population, young Susie Baker soon saw the importance of supporting the Union in the war. In 1862, she was given the opportunity to obtain her own freedom.
One year into the Civil War, Susie Baker was sent back to the plantation and her mother's care on April 1, 1862. During the battle ten days later between the Confederate and Union armies at Fort Pulaski, Susie, along with her uncle and his family, fled to St. Catherine's Island to seek the protection of the Union fleet. After two weeks, the family members were transferred to St. Simon's Island. While aboard the Union gunboat during the transfer, Susie was questioned by its commander, Captain Whitmore, who inquired where she was from. Susie informed him that she was from Savannah. He then asked her if she could read and write. When he learned that she could, he handed her a notebook and asked her to write her name and where she was from. After being on St. Simon's Island for about three days, Commodore Goldsborough visited her at Gaston Bluff where they were located. It was at this meeting she was asked to take charge and create a school for the children on the island. She agreed to do so, provided she be given the necessary books for study. She received the books and testaments from the North and began her first school.
At the age of fourteen, Susie Baker founded the first free African-American school for children, and also became the first African-American woman to teach a free school in Georgia. During the day, Taylor educated more than forty children. Adults attended classes in her night school.
Formation of the 33rd Regiment Colored Troops
In late August 1862, Captain Charles T. Trowbridge came to St. Simon's Island by order of General David Hunter, a noted abolitionist. Under his orders all of the able men on the island were to be organized into his regiment. General Hunter was aware of the many skirmish events the men on the island had bravely fought and recruited them to join the 1st S. C. Volunteers, which would later be known as the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops. During October 1862, they received orders to evacuate the new troops to Beaufort, South Carolina. All of the enlisted men were housed at Camp Saxton, and Susie was enrolled with the army as a laundress. During this time she married Edward King, a non-commissioned officer in the Company E regiment. Captain Trowbridge was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1864 and remained with the 33rd Regiment until they mustered out on February 6, 1866.
In their spare time throughout their service to the regiment, both Susie King and her husband, Sergeant Edward King, continued to expand the education of many Black soldiers by teaching them how to read and write. Although Susie King's occupational title was laundress, while on Morris Island she spent little time doing these duties. Rather, she packed haversacks and cartridge packs for the soldiers to use in combat and carried out orders for the commanders. She is also believed to have been entrusted with rifled muskets by the regiment's officers and rumored to be a dead shot. She was even trusted to engage in active picket line duty, contributing more to the war than education and nursing services.
In her memoir published in 1902, Susie King Taylor shared many of the gruesome sights she encountered during the war and expresses her willingness to help the wounded. She also describes her attempts to alleviate the soldiers' pain and personal hardship while they served their regiment. In a letter to Susie from Colonel C. T. Trowbridge, an officer of the 33rd regiment, he mentions that she is unable to acquire a federal pension, as she was an army nurse. He explains that she nonetheless is most deserving of a pension. Susie King willingly continued her service to the U.S. Colored Troops for four years and three months, and received no pay. In February 1862, she wrote about assisting a male nurse in the same military company during the war: Edward Davis had contracted varioloid, a form of smallpox that sometimes occurs when one is vaccinated against the disease. Susie, who had been previously vaccinated, would tend to David every day. He later died. During her time as a nurse, Susie met Clara Barton, later the founder of the American Red Cross. Taylor visited the hospital at Camp Shaw in Beaufort, South Carolina where Barton worked, and would help tend the wounded and sick.