Confederate soldier's deciphered Civil War diary full of surprises

Confederate soldier&#039;s deciphered Civil War diary full of surprises

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last updated 8 January 2015

The just-cracked code a Confederate officer used for his Civil War diary wasn't to keep military actions a secret; it was to protect gossip from the front lines.

James Malbone wrote straightforwardly about casualties and his day-to-day thoughts, but he brought out the code for entries about a soldier who was found in bed with another man's wife, The Associated Press reports. Malbone also wrote details about Varina Howell Davis, Confederate President Jefferson Davis' wife, saying she had "high cheek bones wide mouth" and was possibly of mixed race.

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Malbone's fate is unknown. Somehow, his diary made it to New York, where it wound up at the New York State Military Museum. In 2012, a volunteer looking at the diary realized that parts were in a code consisting of symbols, which ended up corresponding to the letters of the alphabet. Boklan said that "technically" it was not hard to figure out. "With a little bit of work and patience, everything worked out," he said.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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