Born in Whitefield, N.H., Kimball, in 1864, boarded in Boston and worked as a clerk for Cutter, Tower & Co., stationers, and later as a bookeeper for Francis D. Ellis & Co., commission merchants. Kimball spent his evenings going to parties (singing parties, "candy-scrapes") and playing cards, and records his attraction to pretty young women. He frequently attends theatrical and musical performances at venues such as the Music Hall (inc. Adelaide Phillips' performance on April 30), the Howard Athenaeum, the Boston Museum, and the Boston Theatre, and is a particular fan of the actor Edwin Forrest. He also attends Tremont Temple lectures, by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips (Jan. 29) and Henry Ward Beecher (May 26), and is a visitor to the Athenaeum Gallery (June 4, 11, 14). Kimball went to a variety of churches on Sunday and comments on the content and quality of the sermons. Kimball's best friend and roommate is Jeremiah Nourse George, a tailor. The journal entries are in a minute and sometimes ornamental hand; an aspiring artist taking classes at Richardson's Drawing Academy, he occasionally inserts sketches into the text. Kimball's entries are often humorous and sometimes in the form of poems. He mentions books that he is reading, borrowed from the Boston Public Library. His joining the Athena Lodge Independent Order of Good Templars, a mixed-sex temperance society seems to have been for the social benefits of membership -- the speech-making and singing. He occasionally falls into periods of deep introspection and depression. Unable to enlist with his friend Jere. George in the 61st Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the two instead, in September, join the Vermont 10th. After he is mustered into Co. G, Kimball's entries are minimal; the final one "Camp Dis[tribution]" is made when his regiment is at Bolivar Heights, Harper's Ferry, Virginia, Oct. 5, 1864.
