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Diaries of Robert Henry Cartmell Project

The Diaries of Robert Henry Cartmell Project is an endeavor to transcribe, annotate, and publish the collective diary of Robert Henry Cartmell (1828-1915), a cotton planter from Jackson, Madison County, Tennessee. It chronicles daily life on a Southern farm in the mid to late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, as well as local personalities and events in Jackson. The diary also gives insight into Cartmell's opinions on the sectional strife between North and South leading up to the American Civil War, his experiences as a Confederate soldier, and his struggles living under Federal occupation and the aftermath of their withdrawal.

The diary consists of 33 individual ledger books donated by the Cartmell family to the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville, Tennessee. The first six have been scanned and made available on the Tennessee Virtual Archive website. This has been a tremendous resource for transcribing the diary. Hopefully, additional books will be scanned in the future and added to this online collection.

September 2020 Update

The first volume of the Diary of Robert Henry Cartmell, Madison County, Tennessee for the years 1849 to 1860 will be published by BrayBree Publishing by the spring of 2021. It will consist of a biographical sketch of Cartmell during this time period, the complete annotated diary, and an index.

The second volume for the period of the Civil War, 1861-1865, will follow about a year later.
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