Journal of a Visit to the Georgia Islands of St. Catharines, Green, Ossabaw, Sapelo, St. Simons, Jekyll, and Cumberland, with Comments on the Florida Islands of Amelia, Talbot, and St. George, in 1753
Journal of a Visit to the Georgia Islands of St. Catharines, Green, Ossabaw, Sapelo, St. Simons, Jekyll, and Cumberland, with Comments on the Florida Islands of Amelia, Talbot, and St. George, in 1753

Author: Jonathan Bryan

Publisher: Mercer University Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 9780865544901

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In August 1753, four colonists and their boat crew set out on a potentially dangerous passage of "discovery and observations" along Georgia's barrier islands from Savannah southward as far as the St. Johns River in Spanish-held Florida. Journal of a Visit to the Georgia Islands is a record of that trip, and although unsigned, internal evidence points directly to prominent Georgia entrepreneur Jonathan Bryan (1708-1788) as the author. His companions were the famous cartographer William G. De Brahm and South Carolina planters William Simmons and John Williamson. Traveling by day, hunting for food and camping on shore at night, the brave little band endured a battering by stormy seas and undoubtedly vicious attacks by nocturnal insects. However, the author was not deterred from appreciating the wilderness and its beauty. His comments on the waterways, the deplorable condition of coastal fortifications, and his assessment of the splendid timber resources and the fertile land for agriculture and for raising livestock make the document tantamount to a field report. As our only known legacy of the trip, this previously unpublished journal is unique in the annals of Georgia's colonial history.

Where These Memories Grow
Where These Memories Grow

Author: W. Fitzhugh Brundage

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2015-12-01

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 146962432X

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Southerners are known for their strong sense of history. But the kinds of memories southerners have valued--and the ways in which they have preserved, transmitted, and revitalized those memories--have been as varied as the region's inhabitants themselves. This collection presents fresh and innovative perspectives on how southerners across two centuries and from Texas to North Carolina have interpreted their past. Thirteen contributors explore the workings of historical memory among groups as diverse as white artisans in early-nineteenth-century Georgia, African American authors in the late nineteenth century, and Louisiana Cajuns in the twentieth century. In the process, they offer critical insights for understanding the many communities that make up the American South. As ongoing controversies over the Confederate flag, the Alamo, and depictions of slavery at historic sites demonstrate, southern history retains the power to stir debate. By placing these and other conflicts over the recalled past into historical context, this collection will deepen our understanding of the continuing significance of history and memory for southern regional identity. Contributors: Bruce E. Baker Catherine W. Bishir David W. Blight Holly Beachley Brear W. Fitzhugh Brundage Kathleen Clark Michele Gillespie John Howard Gregg D. Kimball Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp C. Brenden Martin Anne Sarah Rubin Stephanie E. Yuhl

A Soldier's General
A Soldier's General

Author: John C. Oeffinger

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2003-04-03

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0807860476

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During his service in the Confederate army, Major General Lafayette McLaws (1821-1897) served under and alongside such famous officers as Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, James Longstreet, and John B. Hood. He played a significant role in some of the most crucial battles of the Civil War, including Harpers Ferry, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Despite this, no biography of McLaws or history of his division has ever been published. A Soldier's General gathers ninety-five letters written by McLaws to his family between 1858 and 1865, making these valuable resources available to a wide audience for the first time. The letters, painstakingly transcribed from McLaws's notoriously poor handwriting, contain a wealth of opinion and information about life and morale in the Confederate army, Civil War-era politics, the Southern press, and the impact of war on the Confederate home front. Among the fascinating threads the letters trace is the story of McLaws's fractured relationship with childhood friend Longstreet, who had McLaws relieved of command in 1863. John Oeffinger's extensive introduction sketches McLaws's life from his beginnings in Augusta, Georgia, through his early experiences in the U.S. Army, his marriage, his Civil War exploits, and his postwar years.

The Slave-Trader's Letter-Book
The Slave-Trader's Letter-Book

Author: Jim Jordan

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2018-01-15

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0820351954

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Long-lost letters tell the story of an illegal slave shipment, a desperate Savannah businessman, and the lead-up to the Civil War. In 1858 Savannah businessman Charles Lamar, in violation of U.S. law, organized the shipment of hundreds of Africans on the luxury yacht Wanderer to Jekyll Island, Georgia. The four hundred survivors of the Middle Passage were sold into bondage. This was the first successful documented slave landing in the United States in about four decades, and it shocked a nation already on the path to civil war. Nearly thirty years later, the North American Review published excerpts from thirty of Lamar’s letters, reportedly taken from his letter book, which describe his criminal activities. However, the authenticity of the letters was in doubt until very recently. In the twenty-first century, researcher Jim Jordan found a cache of private papers belonging to Charles Lamar’s father, stored for decades in an attic in New Jersey. Among the documents was Charles Lamar’s letter book—confirming him as the author. The first part of this book recounts the flamboyant and reckless life of Lamar himself, including involvement in southern secession, the slave trade, and a plot to overthrow the government of Cuba. A portrait emerges at odds with Lamar's previous image as a savvy entrepreneur and principled rebel. Instead, we see a man who was often broke and whose volatility sabotaged him at every turn. His involvement in the slave trade was driven more by financial desperation than southern defiance. The second part presents the “Slave-Trader's Letter-Book.” Together with annotations, these seventy long-lost letters shed light on the lead-up to the Civil War from the remarkable perspective of a troubled, and troubling, figure.

A Southern Moderate in Radical Times
A Southern Moderate in Radical Times

Author: David I. Durham

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2008-06

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0807134228

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In A Southern Moderate in Radical Times, David I. Durham offers a comprehensive and critical appraisal of one of the South's famous dissenters. Against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent periods in American history, he explores the ideological and political journey of Henry Washington Hilliard (1808--1892), a southern politician whose opposition to secession placed him at odds with many of his peers in the South's elite class. Durham weaves threads of American legal, social, and diplomatic history to tell the story of this fascinating man who, living during a time of unrestrained destruction as well as seemingly endless possibilities, consistently focused on the positive elements in society even as forces beyond his control shaped his destiny. A three-term congressman from Alabama, as well as professor, attorney, diplomat, minister, soldier, and author, Hilliard had a career that spanned more than six decades and involved work on three continents. He modeled himself on the ideal of the erudite statesman and celebrated orator, and strove to maintain that persona throughout his life. As a member of Congress, he strongly opposed secession from the Union. No radical abolitionist, Hilliard supported the constitutional legality of slavery, but working in the tradition of the great moderates, he affirmed the status quo and warned of the dangers of change. For a period of time he and like-minded colleagues succeeded in overcoming the more radical voices and blocking disunion, but their success was short-lived and eventually overwhelmed by the growing appeal of sectional extremism. As Durham shows, Hilliard's personal suffering, tempered by his consistent faith in Divine Providence, eventually allowed him to return to his ideological roots and find a lasting sense of accomplishment late in life by becoming the unlikely spokesman for the Brazilian antislavery cause. Drawing on a large range of materials, from Hilliard's literary addresses at South Carolina College and the University of Alabama to his letters and speeches during his tenure in Brazil, Durham reveals an intellectual struggling to understand his world and to reconcile the sphere of the intellectual with that of the church and political interests. A Southern Moderate in Radical Times opens a window into Hilliard's world, and reveals the tragedy of a visionary who understood the dangers lurking in the conflicts he could not control.

The Confederate Hospitals of Madison, Georgia / their records & histories / 1861-1865
The Confederate Hospitals of Madison, Georgia / their records & histories / 1861-1865

Author: Bonnie P. (Patsy) Harris

Publisher: Bonnie P. (Patsy) Harris

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 588

ISBN-13: 0991112547

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Madison, Georgia was a hoppin' place while it hosted three (and later a fourth) Confederate hospitals during the eight months before their final retreat in July 1864. Every few days the train depot was a flurry of activity as surgeons, attendants, and locals unloaded hundreds of sick and wounded soldiers fresh from the battles in Tennessee and North Georgia. Most of the records of their care were saved by the Director of Hospitals of the Army of Tennessee and then ferreted out 140 years later by the author from collections scattered across many states. This book includes verbatim transcriptions of those documents, the subsequent hospital histories, surgeon biographies, and thousands of names in hundreds of regiments.