Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas was an intelligent, spirited woman born in 1834 to one of the wealthiest families in Georgia. At fourteen, she began keeping a diary. Her accounts of life before, during, and after the Civil War filled 13 volumes with 450,000 words. The war and its aftermath changed her life forever. She experienced poverty, illness, and devastating family strife. She saw four of her ten children die. She grew to question the “peculiar institution” upon which the antebellum South was built. Through it all, Thomas poured her thoughts into her diary, and through it all, she persevered. In her later years, she became a leading voice in the suffrage and temperance movements.