A Mississippi Rebel in the Army of Northern Virginia
A Mississippi Rebel in the Army of Northern Virginia

Author: David Holt

Publisher: Lsu Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780807119815

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David Eldred Holt was born in 1843, the eighth child of a wealthy plantation family in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Eighteen years later, after his state seceded from the Union, he enlisted in Company K of the 16th Mississippi Regiment and was soon on his way to the northern Virginia theater, where he served throughout the Civil War. Late in his life, at a time when many former soldiers on both sides of the Civil War were reliving their memories of that event, Holt penned this memoir, recounting the idyllic life of an affluent southern boy before the war and the exhilarating, sometimes humorous, and frequently terrifying experiences of a common soldier during the war. Although Holt's antebellum observations are enlightening, he is at his best when describing his wartime experiences. Holt saw action in most of the major campaigns and battles of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, and his battle descriptions rank among the most graphic, dramatic, and poignant accounts written by any participant in the war. He was gifted with the ability to record the salient details of any situation, to penetrate the confusion of battle and see the human emotions behind the faces of anonymous combatants.

A Mississippi Rebel in the Army of Northern Virginia
A Mississippi Rebel in the Army of Northern Virginia

Author: David Holt

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13:

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Born the eighth child in a wealthy Mississippi plantation family in 1843, David Eldred Holt joined Company K of the 16th Mississippi Regiment in 1861 and served in the Virginia theater throughout the Civil War. Late in his life, at a time when many former soldiers, both Union and Confederate, were reliving their memories of that event, Holt penned this memoir, recounting the idyllic life of an affluent southern boy before the war and the exhilarating, sometimes humorous, often terrifying experiences of a common soldier in camp and battle.

The Long, Lingering Shadow
The Long, Lingering Shadow

Author: Robert J. Cottrol

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2013-02-01

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 0820344761

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Students of American history know of the law’s critical role in systematizing a racial hierarchy in the United States. Showing that this history is best appreciated in a comparative perspective, The Long, Lingering Shadow looks at the parallel legal histories of race relations in the United States, Brazil, and Spanish America. Robert J. Cottrol takes the reader on a journey from the origins of New World slavery in colonial Latin America to current debates and litigation over affirmative action in Brazil and the United States, as well as contemporary struggles against racial discrimination and Afro-Latin invisibility in the Spanish-speaking nations of the hemisphere. Ranging across such topics as slavery, emancipation, scientific racism, immigration policies, racial classifications, and legal processes, Cottrol unravels a complex odyssey. By the eve of the Civil War, the U.S. slave system was rooted in a legal and cultural foundation of racial exclusion unmatched in the Western Hemisphere. That system’s legacy was later echoed in Jim Crow, the practice of legally mandated segregation. Jim Crow in turn caused leading Latin Americans to regard their nations as models of racial equality because their laws did not mandate racial discrimination— a belief that masked very real patterns of racism throughout the Americas. And yet, Cottrol says, if the United States has had a history of more-rigid racial exclusion, since the Second World War it has also had a more thorough civil rights revolution, with significant legal victories over racial discrimination. Cottrol explores this remarkable transformation and shows how it is now inspiring civil rights activists throughout the Americas.

The Spotsylvania Campaign
The Spotsylvania Campaign

Author: Gary W. Gallagher

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2010-02-01

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0807898376

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The Spotsylvania Campaign was a crucial period in the protracted confrontation between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in spring 1864. Approaching the campaign from a variety of perspectives, the contributors to this volume explore questions regarding high command, tactics and strategy, the impact of continuous fighting on officers and soldiers in both armies, and the ways in which some participants chose to remember and interpret the campaign. They offer insight into the decisions and behavior of Lee and of Federal army leaders, the fullest descriptions to date of the horrific fighting at the "Bloody Angle" on May 12, and a revealing look at how Grant used his memoirs to counter Lost Cause interpretations of his actions at Spotsylvania and elsewhere in the Overland Campaign. The contributors are William A. Blair, Peter S. Carmichael, Gary W. Gallagher, Robert E. L. Krick, Robert K. Krick, William D. Matter, Carol Reardon, and Gordon C. Rhea.

General Lee's Army
General Lee's Army

Author: Joseph Glatthaar

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2009-03-24

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 1416596976

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A history of the Confederate troops under Robert E. Lee presents portraits of soldiers from all walks of life, offers insight into how the Confederacy conducted key operations, and reveals how closely the South came to winning the war.

The Hour of Our Nation's Agony
The Hour of Our Nation's Agony

Author: William Cowper Nelson

Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9781572335677

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The Hour of Our Nation's Agony offers a revealing look into the life of a Confederate soldier as he is transformed by the war. Through these literate, perceptive, and illuminating letters, readers can trace Lt. William Cowper Nelson's evolution from an idealistic young soldier to a battle-hardened veteran. Nelson joined the army at the age of nineteen, leaving behind a close-knit family in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He served for much of the war in the Third Corps of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. By the end of the conflict, Nelson had survived many major battles, including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness, as well as the long siege of Petersburg. In his correspondence, Nelson discusses in detail the soldier's life, religion in the ranks, his love for and heartbreak at being separated from his family, and Southern identity. Readers will find his reflections on slavery, religion, and the Confederacy particularly revealing. Seeing and participating in the slaughter of other human beings overpowered Nelson's romantic idealism. He had long imagined war as a noble struggle of valor, selflessness, and glory. But the sight of wounded men with "blood streaming from their wounds," dying slow, lonely deaths showed Nelson the true nature of war. Nelson's letters reveal the conflicting emotions that haunted many soldiers. Despite his bitter hatred of the "ruthless invaders of our beloved South," the sight of wounded Union prisoners moved him to compassion. Nelson's ability to write about irreconcilable moments when he felt both kindness and cruelty toward the enemy with introspection, candor, and sensitivity makes The Hour of Our Nation's Agony more than just a collection of missives. Jennifer Ford places Nelson squarely in the middle of the historiographic debate over the degree of disillusionment felt by Civil War soldiers, arguing that Nelson-like many soldiers-was a complex individual who does not fit neatly into one interpretation. Jennifer W. Ford is head of special collections and associate professor at the J. D. Williams Library at the University of Mississippi, where the where the collection containing Lt. Nelson's letters and other family documents is held.

The Heart of Hell
The Heart of Hell

Author: Jeffry D. Wert

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2022-04-04

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1469668432

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The struggle over the fortified Confederate position known as Spotsylvania's Mule Shoe was without parallel during the Civil War. A Union assault that began at 4:30 A.M. on May 12, 1864, sparked brutal combat that lasted nearly twenty-four hours. By the time Grant's forces withdrew, some 55,000 men from Union and Confederate armies had been drawn into the fury, battling in torrential rain along the fieldworks at distances often less than the length of a rifle barrel. One Union private recalled the fighting as a "seething, bubbling, soaring hell of hate and murder." By the time Lee's troops established a new fortified line in the predawn hours of May 13, some 17,500 &8239;officers and men from both sides had been killed, wounded, or captured when the fighting &8239;ceased.&8239;The site of the most intense clashes became forever known as the Bloody Angle.&8239; Here, renowned military historian Jeffry D. Wert draws on the personal narratives of Union and Confederate troops who survived the fight &8239;to offer a gripping story of Civil War combat at its most difficult. Wert's &8239;harrowing tale&8239;reminds us that the war's story, often told through its commanders and campaigns,&8239;truly belonged to the common soldier.

The 16th Mississippi Infantry
The 16th Mississippi Infantry

Author: Robert G. Evans

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1604736925

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They fought in the Shenandoah campaign that blazed Stonewall Jackson's reputation. They fought in the Seven Days' Battles and at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, in the Wilderness campaign, and at Spotsylvania. At the surrender they were beside General Robert E. Lee in Appomattox. From the beginning of the war to its very end the men of the Sixteenth Mississippi endured. In this collection of their letters and their memories, both historians and Civil War buffs will find the fascinating words of these common soldiers in one of the most notable units in the Army of Northern Virginia. Gathered and available here for the first time, the writings in this anthology include diary entries, letters, and reminiscences from average Mississippi men who fought in the war's most extraordinary battles. Chronologically arranged, the documents depict the pace and progress of the war. Emerging from their words are flesh-and-blood soldiers who share their courage and spirit, their love of home and family, and their loneliness, fears, and campaign trials. From the same camp come letters that say, Our troops are crazy to meet the enemy and, It is not much fun hearing the balls and shells a-coming. Soldiers write endearingly to wives, earnestly to fathers, longingly to mothers, and wistfully to loved ones. With wit and dispatch they report on crops and land, Virginia hospitality, camp rumors and chicanery, and encounters, both humorous and hostile, with the Yankee enemy. Many letters convey a yearning for home and loved ones, closing with such phrases as Write just as soon as you get this. Though the trials of war seemed beyond the limits of human endurance, letter writing created a lifeline to home and helped men persevere. So eager was Jesse Ruebel Kirkland to keep in touch with his beloved Lucinda that he penned, I am on my horse writing on the top of my hat just having met the mail carrier. Robert G. Evans is a judge of the Thirteenth Circuit Court of the State of Mississippi. He lives in Raleigh, Miss.