Richard B. Sewall's The Life of Emily Dickinson 1861-1865 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974)
return to Warfront | Homefront | Library
1861   May 4-11, 1861 Springfield Republican prints ED's poem beginning "I taste a liquor never brewed," under the title "The May-Wine"
   June 19, 1861 Austin and Susan's first child, Edward (Ned) Dickinson, born
   December 1861? Exchange with Susan on the poem "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers"
   early 1862 Third (?) Master letter: "Oh, did I offend it -"
   March 14, 1862 Frazar Stearns killed in action
   [April 14, 1862 Presentation of a cannon to Amherst College in honor of Frazar Stearns] *Our addition based on information discovered in researching the Civil War period in Amherst.
   April 25, 1862 Second letter (and three poems) to Higginson: "Thank you for the surgery -"
   May 6, 1862 Death of Thoreau
   July 9, 1862 Judge Lord delivers Amherst Commencement address
   late July 1862? To Hollands: "My business is to love"
   November 16, 1862 Bowles returns from Europe
   1863   March 1863? Bowles to Austin: ". . . to the queen Recluse my especial sympathy -"
   October 1, 1863 Major E. B. Hunt killed in Brooklyn
   February 27, 1864 Professor Edward Hitchcock dies
   March 30, 1864 Republican prints ED's poem "Blazing in gold, and quenching in purple"
   May 13, 1864 Austin drafted, pays $500 for substitute
   November 28, 1864 Emily returns from Cambridgeport
   April 1, 1865? Emily again to Boston for eye treatment
  January 1861? Second (?) Master letter: "If you saw a bullet hit a Bird..."
   June 6, 1861 Eliza Coleman and J. L. Dudley married in Monson
   June 29, 1861 Elizabeth Barrett Browning dies (ED to Bowles in Europe: "...if you touch her Grave, put one hand on the Head, for me - her unmentioned Mourner -")
   1861   March 1, 1862 Republican prints "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers"
   April 1862 Thomas Wentworth Higginson's "Letter to a Young Contributor" appears in Atlantic Monthly
   April 15, 1862 First letter (and three poems) to Higginson: "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?"
   May 1, 1862 Charles Wadsworth and family sail for San Francisco
   June 7, 1862 Third letter to Higginson: ". . . will you be my Preceptor..."
   mid-July 1862 Fourth letter (and four poems) to Higginson: "My Business is Circumference"
   August 1862 Fifth letter (and two poems) to Higginson: "All men say ‘What' to me..."
   December 4, 1862 Higginson made colonel of Negro regiment
   January 17, 1863 Loring Norcross, uncle, dies; ED to the cousins: "Let Emily sing for you..."
   July 9, 1863 Father awarded LL.D. at Amherst Commencement
   1864   March 12, 1864 In New York, Round Table prints ED's poem "Some keep the Sabbath going to church"
   late April 1864 Emily to Boston for eye treatment (seven months); stays with Norcrosses in Cambridgeport ("Loo and Fanny take sweet care of me . . .")
   May 19, 1864 Death of Hawthorne
   1865   October 17, 1865 Emerson lectures in Amherst on "Social Aims"