A Confederate Soldier
A Confederate Soldier

Author: Thomas D. Duncan

Publisher: anboco

Published: 2016-09-07

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 3736413300

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This unpretentious work is not the product of a literary ambition. Though my story deals with events that will live forever in the records of our country, I have not sought to give it the wings of poetic fancy whereby it may fly into the libraries of the earth. Within the happy family circle, from which my children are now gone, these oft-recounted recollections became a part of their education. I permitted them to turn the pages of my memory, as the leaves of a book, that they might learn the vanished glory of the old South—the loving loyalty and the sad travail of her people. And I trust that they learned also that our unfortunate Civil War—now, thank God, nearly sixty years behind us—was a clash of honest principles. That there were wild-eyed agitators and extremists on both sides, and that each had its scalawags and low-flung ruffians, there can be no doubt (and some of these—alas!—still live); but the masses of the soldiers of both armies, who bore the brunt of battle and suffered the privations of those sorrowful years, were patriots; and he who speaks or writes to the contrary is an enemy to our reunited country and an element of weakness and danger in the strength of the nation. My two beloved daughters have prevailed upon me to record my experiences of four years as a Confederate soldier, in the form of a brief printed memoir; and so, impelled by my regard for their wishes, I enter the work for them and for their descendants, without any thought of placing a literary commodity upon the counters of the country; and yet I must so write that, wherever this volume may chance to fall into the hands of a stranger, he may find in it that one essential to such a story as this is—Truth. Thomas D. Duncan.

Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee
Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee

Author: Larry J. Daniel

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-08-25

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1469620561

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In Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee Larry Daniel offers a view from the trenches of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. his book is not the story of the commanders, but rather shows in intimate detail what the war in the western theater was like for the enlisted men. Daniel argues that the unity of the Army of Tennessee--unlike that of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia--can be understood only by viewing the army from the bottom up rather than the top down. The western army had neither strong leadership nor battlefield victories to sustain it, yet it maintained its cohesiveness. The "glue" that kept the men in the ranks included fear of punishment, a well-timed religious revival that stressed commitment and sacrifice, and a sense of comradeship developed through the common experience of serving under losing generals. The soldiers here tell the story in their own rich words, for Daniel quotes from an impressive variety of sources, drawing upon his reading of the letters and diaries of more than 350 soldiers as well as scores of postwar memoirs. They write about rations, ordnance, medical care, punishments, the hardships of extensive campaigning, morale, and battle. While eastern and western soldiers were more alike than different, Daniel says, there were certain subtle variances. Western troops were less disciplined, a bit rougher, and less troubled by class divisions than their eastern counterparts. Daniel concludes that shared suffering and a belief in the ability to overcome adversity bonded the soldiers of the Army of Tennessee into a resilient fighting force.

Of Age
Of Age

Author: Frances M. Clarke

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0197601049

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"Enormous numbers of boys and youths served in the American Civil War. The first book to arrive at a careful estimate, Of Age argues that underage enlistees comprised roughly ten percent of the Union army and likely a similar proportion of Confederate forces. Their importance extended beyond sheer numbers. Boys who enlisted without consent deprived parents of badly needed labor and income to which were legally entitled, setting off struggles between households and the military. As the contest over underage enlistees became a referendum on the growing centralization of military and political power, it was the United States, more than the Confederacy, that fought tooth and nail to retain this valuable cohort. How far could the federal government breach the sanctity of the household when the nation's very survival was at stake? Should military officers bow to the will of local and state judges? And what form should the military take to ensure victory while remaining true to the nation's republican principles? As they detail how Americans grappled with these questions, Clarke and Plant introduce readers to common but largely unknown wartime scenarios-parents chasing after regiments to recover their sons, state judges defying the federal government by discharging boys, and recently enslaved African American youths swept up by Union recruiters. Examining the phenomenon from multiple perspectives-legal, military, medical, social, political, and cultural-Of Age demonstrates why underage enlistment is such an important lens for understanding the Civil War and its transformative effects"--

The Mobile & Ohio Railroad in the Civil War
The Mobile & Ohio Railroad in the Civil War

Author: Dan Lee

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2022-07-19

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1476647119

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The Mobile & Ohio Railroad was the longest line in the nation when it was completed in spring of 1861--the final spike driven a few weeks after Confederate artillery shelled Fort Sumter. Within days, the M&O was swept up in the Civil War as a prime conveyor of troops and supplies, a strategic and tactical asset to both Confederate and Union armies, who fought to control it. Its northern terminus at Columbus, Kentucky saw some of the earliest fighting in the war. The southern terminus in Mobile, Alabama was the scene of some of the last. U. S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Newton Knight of the "Free State of Jones" and others battled over the M&O, the Federals taking it mile-by-mile. This book chronicles the campaigns and battles for the railroad and the calamity endured by the civilians who lived along it.

The River Was Dyed with Blood
The River Was Dyed with Blood

Author: Brian Steel Wills

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2014-03-17

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0806146052

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The battlefield reputation of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, long recognized as a formidable warrior, has been shaped by one infamous wartime incident. At Fort Pillow in 1864, the attack by Confederate forces under Forrest’s command left many of the Tennessee Unionists and black soldiers garrisoned there dead in a confrontation widely labeled as a “massacre.” In The River Was Dyed with Blood, best-selling Forrest biographer Brian Steel Wills argues that although atrocities did occur after the fall of the fort, Forrest did not order or intend a systematic execution of its defenders. Rather, the general’s great failing was losing control of his troops. A prewar slave trader and owner, Forrest was a controversial figure throughout his lifetime. Because the attack on Fort Pillow—which, as Forrest wrote, left the nearby waters “dyed with blood”—occurred in an election year, Republicans used him as a convenient Confederate scapegoat to marshal support for the war. After the war he also became closely associated with the spread of the Ku Klux Klan. Consequently, the man himself, and the truth about Fort Pillow, has remained buried beneath myths, legends, popular depictions, and disputes about the events themselves. Wills sets what took place at Fort Pillow in the context of other wartime excesses from the American Revolution to World War II and Vietnam, as well as the cultural transformations brought on by the Civil War. Confederates viewed black Union soldiers as the embodiment of slave rebellion and reacted accordingly. Nevertheless, Wills concludes that the engagement was neither a massacre carried out deliberately by Forrest, as charged by a congressional committee, nor solely a northern fabrication meant to discredit him and the Confederate States of America, as pro-Southern apologists have suggested. The battle-scarred fighter with his homespun aphorisms was neither an infallible warrior nor a heartless butcher, but a product of his time and his heritage.

The Battle of Okolona: Defending the Mississippi Prairie
The Battle of Okolona: Defending the Mississippi Prairie

Author: Brandon H. Beck

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2009-11-27

Total Pages: 101

ISBN-13: 1614230447

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In February 1864, General William Sooy Smith led a force of over seven thousand cavalry on a raid into the Mississippi Prairie, bringing fire and destruction to one of the very few breadbaskets remaining in the Confederacy. Smith's raid was part of General William T. Sherman's campaign to march across Mississippi from Vicksburg to destroy the railroad junction at Meridian. Both Smith and Sherman intended to burn everything in their path that could aid in the Southern war effort. It was a harbinger of things to come in Georgia, South Carolina and the Shenandoah Valley. But neither reckoned with General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest's small Confederate cavalry force defeated Smith in a running battle that stretched from West Point to Okolona and beyond. Forrest's victory prevented Smith from joining Sherman and saved the Prairie from total destruction. Join Civil War historian Brandon Beck as he narrates this exciting story, with all the realities and color of cavalry warfare in the Deep South. Also included is a brief guided tour of the extant sites, preserved for future generations by the Friends of the Battle of Okolona, Inc.