The Civil War has broken out and Annie Sinclair’s Virginia home, Hickory Heights, is right in the line of battle. Caught up in the rising conflict, Annie and her mother tend to wounded soldiers while Annie’s older brother, Laurence, enlists in the Confederate cavalry under JEB Stuart.
Firlik brings honest appraisal of her work with less heroism and more day-to-day problem solving as she moves from intern to doctor. Along the way she removes a nail in a carpenter’s head and allows maggots to clean pus out of an infected brain in this humorous and candid memoir.
Seventeen-year-old Sarah Jane’s journal entries chronicle her journey by clipper ship from Massachusetts to Alabama, then on to Russia and other European countries in 1857. Photos, maps, drawings, and letters accompany journal text and bring the passengers and setting to life.
