Susie King Taylor was born Aug. 5, 1848, the oldest of nine children to Hagar Ann Reed and Raymond Baker in Liberty County Georgia. She was deemed property, as she was born on the Grest Plantation. Even though she and her family were enslaved, the Grest did not follow the norm of being cruel owners. At the age of 7, Taylor and one of her brothers were allowed to live with her grandmother who was a free woman in Savanah, Georgia.

April 1862 brought the Civil War, with South Carolina being the first state to secede. Once Union troops captured Fort Pulaski, enslaved African Americans began to escape to freedom. Taylor’s uncle was among the ones looking to take his family, and Taylor went along. 

While aboard ship, she met Captain Whitmore. Talking with him revealed her ability to read and write. Once they reached the island, Captain Whitmore revealed her abilities which led to Taylor becoming a teacher. She taught over 40 children by day and a number of adults by night that wanted to learn.

The next big change that came in her life was the construction of the first Black regiment. The First South Carolina Volunteers was formed on Nov. 7, 1862, under of white Commander Colonel Thomas Wentworth Hissinson. “Volunteers’ because none of them were paid because of the color of their skin. Commander Hissinson fought for them to get paid, but his words and writing fell on deaf ears, and payment for their service was never received. The regiment name was later changed to 33rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment.

The war brought another killer into the camps besides fighting. The killer was a virus called smallpox. Even though there was a vaccination for smallpox, most states outlawed the vaccination for fear the vaccine itself would spread the virus. The outbreak spread in the camps since almost all of the troops had never been vaccinated.

There was an outbreak of smallpox in Taylor’s regiment, which led her to become a nurse. This is also where her “healer” abilities came in. One of the important plants that her Grandma Dolly taught her to use as medicine was sassafras to purify the blood and reduce joint inflammation. Susie wasn’t afraid of smallpox because she remembered this lesson.

As a nurse in South Carolina, Taylor also met and worked beside Clara Barton, who later became the founder of the American Red Cross. The 33rd Colored Infantry Regiment is also where she met and married Sergeant Edward King. Together they served until they were no longer needed in 1866 and later had a son. After the war, she and Edward moved back to Savannah where she open up a private school. Unfortunately, Edward died soon after and public schools opened in her area. She eventually moved to Boston in 1872, where she met and married Russell Taylor. She spent the rest of her life working at Woman’s Relief Corps, a national organization for female Civil War veterans.

Susie King Taylor was the first Black U.S. Army nurse during the Civil War and the first Black woman to publish a memoir about her experiences in the war.

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