William Howard Russell wrote My Diary North and South while traveling through the Union and the Confederacy from March 1861 to April 1862 as a war correspondent for the Times of London. Along the way he met and interviewed an impressive number of Union and Confederate leaders -- including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, William H. Seward, and General George B. McClellan -- but he also canvassed average citizens on both sides, recounting their manners, appearance, values, and habits in remarkable detail. This memoir of his journey provides a vivid snapshot of American life and culture at the dawn of the Civil War.