Download or read book The Civil War Through the Eyes of Lt Col John Withers and His Wife Anita Dwyer Withers written by John Withers and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eyewitness accounts of the American Civil War, told through the viewpoints of a Confederate husband and wife. Providing a unique perspective on the American Civil War, this book weaves together the diaries of Lt. Col. John Withers, an Assistant Adjutant General for Jefferson Davis, and his wife, Anita Dwyer Withers. Reports of battles fought meld with domestic life in these journals, creating a multi-dimensional picture of the Withers' lives together during the "War Between the States." Jointly, their diaries encompass the entire length of the Civil War; from May 1860 - September 1865. A West Point graduate, John Withers served as an officer in the U.S. Army. Anita Dwyer Withers was the daughter of a distinguished citizen of San Antonio, Texas. In September 1860, Withers was ordered to Washington, D.C., and assigned duty as an Assistant in the Adjutant-General's office. As Anita was very close to her family in Texas, she was deeply troubled by the move. She wrote, "I regret it mightily." In Washington, John served under General Samuel Cooper's command until March, 1861, when he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and came south to join the Confederate cause. Because of the nature of his job in the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Lt. Col. Withers and his wife were closely acquainted with many of the notable figures of Civil War history, including Jefferson Davis, his wife, Varina Davis, and the Secretary of War. John and Anita recorded Civil War events as they happened, including the Seven Days Battles. Each also wrote of the more personal aspects of their lives, such as Anita's near fatal illness and the agony of their young son's death. Lt. Col. John Withers and Anita were ordinary people living in extraordinary times. Their story is timeless, and well worth being remembered.
Download or read book Lt Col John Withers Civil War Confederate Officer written by John Withers and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eyewitness account of the American Civil War, never before published in its entirety. Told from the first person perspective of Lt. Col. John Withers, an Assistant Adjutant General in the James Buchanan administration, and later in the Jefferson Davis administration for the Confederacy, this civil war diary encompasses over two years in Withers' life, from October 1860 - December 1862. Because of the nature of his job, Lt. Col. Withers was closely acquainted with many of the notable figures of Civil War history. His friend, Ed. A Palfrey, later wrote, "his relations with the President and Secretary of War were of an intimate character, as was necessarily the case from the position he held." Lt. Col. Withers' family was from the south. When Withers received a letter from his aunt, Susanna Withers Clay (wife of Clement Comer Clay, 8th Governor of Alabama), urging him to resign his commission in the U.S. Army and come south to join the Confederate cause, Withers did so. He joined the Confederate Army in March, 1861. While stationed in the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia, Lt. Col. Withers recorded civil war events as they happened, including the Seven Days Battles, and other battles that took place during the early part of the "War Between the States." He also wrote of the more personal aspects of his life, such as the agony of his wife's illness and his young son's death. Withers wrote of the profound and the mundane, and even, on occasion, the slightly bizarre human behavior that he witnessed. His diary provides a unique, first person account of life during the American Civil War. His is a rich story, and worthy to be told. Handwritten diary images are included. (Print edition only.)
Download or read book The Diary of Lt Col John Withers October 1860 December 1862 written by LtCol. John Withers and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Civil War, more commonly known as the Civil War, raged from 1861 to 1865. This bloody conflict was conducted to maintain the Union of the United States and prevent the formation of an independent country known as the Confederate States of America. In 1861 the United States consisted of 34 states. Seven Southern slave states seceded from the United States to form the Confederacy. Eventually the Confederacy included eleven states, but they claimed thirteen, plus additional western territories. The primary issue behind the southern states seceding from the Union was that of slavery. The North desired to abolish slavery, the South wanted to keep it. April 12, 1861, marked the beginning of hostilities when Southern forces fire upon Fort Sumter, South Carolina. After four bloody years and 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead, the Confederacy surrendered and the Union was maintained. Sadly, the battles were fought between brothers, between fathers and sons, between families and friends. It wasn't uncommon for old friends commanding forces of the Union and Confederacy to face-off across the killing fields of various battlefields. No one knows how many fathers killed their sons, how many son's killed their fathers and how many brothers, killed their sibling. Or how many lifelong friends killed each other. It was indeed a sad and tragic episode in America history. Interestingly, many officers serving in the Union army resigned their commission and enlisted in the Confederate Army. That was true for General Robert E. Lee the supreme commander of the Confederate Army and it was true for Lt. Col. John Withers a graduate of the United States Military Academy who resigned his commission in the union army in March 1861 and was appointed a Captain in the Confederate Army on March 29, 1861. His diary provides an exceptionally intimate window into his military and family life which is rarely seen in publications. His love for his family is evident and his dedication to duty comes through clearly. At times, his diary reads similar to a novel; capturing the joy, sadness, death, destruction, horrors and mundane activities of everyday life during times of war. His entries include meeting Presidents, British Royalty and Generals of the Union and Confederacy and learning of battles in real time. One must remember, this was his personal diary, it was never meant for public review. Yet, it is a marvelously profound work and powerful piece of history. I opted to preserve the authenticity, flavor and intimacy of his diary by printing it in his original handwriting. This brings remarkable warmth to his story not present in a transcribed form. It allows the readers to imagine Lt. Col. Withers seated at a desk, lit by a lantern, as he put words to paper at the end of the day. Since this is a copy of his original diary, some of the words on the right side of the page were unavoidably clipped by the National Archives during processing. However, the missing letters do not distract from the work. No matter your opinion regarding the Civil War; you will agree that after reading this magnificent diary, you will never forget Lt. Col. Withers. Enjoy his journey.
Download or read book Lost Causes written by Bradley R. Clampitt and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2022-06 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking analysis of Confederate demobilization examines the state of mind of Confederate soldiers in the immediate aftermath of war. Having survived severe psychological as well as physical trauma, they now faced the unknown as they headed back home in defeat. Lost Causes analyzes the interlude between soldier and veteran, suggesting that defeat and demobilization actually reinforced Confederate identity as well as public memory of the war and southern resistance to African American civil rights. Intense material shortages and images of the war’s devastation confronted the defeated soldiers-turned-veterans as they returned home to a revolutionized society. Their thoughts upon homecoming turned to immediate economic survival, a radically altered relationship with freedpeople, and life under Yankee rule—all against the backdrop of fearful uncertainty. Bradley R. Clampitt argues that the experiences of returning soldiers helped establish the ideological underpinnings of the Lost Cause and create an identity based upon shared suffering and sacrifice, a pervasive commitment to white supremacy, and an aversion to Federal rule and all things northern. As Lost Causes reveals, most Confederate veterans remained diehard Rebels despite demobilization and the demise of the Confederate States of America.
Download or read book As Near Hell as I Ever Expect to Be written by Paul Tremewan and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As near Hell as I ever expect to be is the biography of a Civil War soldier from Ohio. In September 1861 twenty-seven-year-old John Vanetton Patterson left his young wife and two babies on their farm near Pemberville. Patterson and thousands of other Ohioans answered Lincoln's call to save the Union. In November Victoria Patterson received a letter, she opened it, and read the inside address, "As near Hell as I ever expect to be". Over the next four years this soldier husband was sick, wounded, captured, and imprisoned. He escaped... Based on letters to his wife, this is his story of trial and yearning.
Download or read book Reminiscences of the Civil War written by John Brown Gordon and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 1903 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON'S last work was the publishing of his "Reminiscences of the Civil War." This volume, written in his vigorous style and broad, patriotic spirit, has been most favorably received and read all over the country. Since his death this memorial edition is brought out; and it is appropriate that an additional introduction should accompany it, somewhat in the shape of a biographical sketch. General John Brown Gordon was an all-round great man--a valiant and distinguished soldier, an eminent statesman, a great orator, an author of merit, and a public-spirited and useful citizen. He was born in Upson County, Georgia, February 6, 1832. His father was the Rev. Zachary Herndon Gordon. The family was of Scotch extraction, and its members fought in the Revolutionary War. He received his education at the university of his native State, and by profession was a lawyer. At the breaking out of the war, in 1861, he enlisted as a private soldier, and was elected captain of his company. His career was perhaps as brilliant as that of any officer in the Confederate army. In rapid succession he filled every grade--that of Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier-General, Major-General, and, near the end, was assigned to duty as Lieutenant-General (by authority of the Secretary of War), and while he never received the commission in regular form, he commanded, at the surrender at Appomattox, one half of the Army of Northern Virginia, under Robert E. Lee. At the close of the war he had earned the reputation of being perhaps the most conspicuous and personally valiant officer surviving, and the one generally regarded as most promising and competent for increased rank and larger command. His imposing and magnificent soldierly bearing, coupled with his splendid ringing voice and far-reaching oratory, made him the "White-plumed Knight of our Southland" and the "Chevalier Bayard of the Confederate Army." He had the God-given talent of getting in front of his troops and, in a few magnetic appeals, inspiring them almost to madness, and being able to lead them into the jaws of death. This was notably done at Fredericksburg, and again on the 12th of May, at the battle of Spottsylvania Court House. He greatly distinguished himself on many bloody fields. I mention now, as most prominent, the battles of Seven Pines, Sharpsburg or Antietam, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, Cedar Creek, Petersburg, and Appomattox. At Sharpsburg he was wounded five times, but would not leave his troops till the last shot laid him helpless and insensible on the field. A scholarly professor of history in one of our Southern universities recently stated that in his study of the great war on both sides he had found but one prominent general who, when he was in command, or when he led a charge, had never been defeated or repulsed, and that general was John B. Gordon.
Download or read book Bloody Engagements written by John R. Kelso and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first edited edition of a Union soldier’s remarkable memoir, offering a rare perspective on guerrilla warfare and on the larger meanings of the Civil War While tales of Confederate guerilla-outlaws abound, there are few scholarly accounts of the Union men who battled them. This edition of John R. Kelso’s Civil War memoir presents a firsthand account of an ordinary man’s extraordinary battlefield experiences along with his evolving interpretation of what the bloody struggle meant. A former Methodist preacher and Missouri schoolteacher, Kelso served as a Union Army foot soldier, cavalry officer, guerilla fighter, and spy. Initially shaped by a belief in the Founding Fathers’ republic and a disdain for the slave-holding aristocracy, Kelso became driven by revenge after pro-Southern neighbors stole his property, burned down his house, and drove his family and friends from their homes. Interweaving Kelso’s compelling voice with historian Christopher Grasso’s insightful commentary, this fascinating work charts the transformation of an everyday citizen into a man the Union hailed as a hero and Confederate sympathizers called a monster.
Download or read book A Civil War Soldier of Christ and Country written by John Rodgers Meigs and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of letters and documents offers a rare glimpse into a young officer's interesting but short life. Mary A. Giunta's A Civil War Soldier of Christ and Country tells the story of the relationships between the headstrong John Rodgers Meigs and his family and friends; his heartwarming eagerness to please his demanding parents; his West Point experiences that include a meeting with Abraham Lincoln; and his life as a combatant in the Civil War. John Rodgers Meigs was the son of Union Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, and his official correspondence reveals much about his duties as a military engineer and aide-de-camp to Union generals. The private correspondence between him and his father and mother is especially compelling. Approximately forty of the letters were written in an early version of Pitman shorthand and are here transcribed for the first time. Collectively, they provide an intimate picture of the young Meigs, uncover the concerns of a family with high expectations, and offer a unique look at a devastating war.
Download or read book Sacrifice All for the Union written by Philip Hatfield, PhD and published by 35th Star Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-21 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Captain John Valley Young personifies the body of rugged Union Army volunteers from West Virginia during the Civil War: highly resilient, stubbornly independent, and fiercely patriotic. Using Captain Young’s wartime letters to his wife, Paulina Franklin Young, and his daughters, Sarah and Emily Young, along with his diary and numerous other original soldier accounts, this book reveals the experiences of a Union soldier and his family who were truly willing to “Sacrifice All for the Union.” Young, a farmer and Methodist-Episcopalian minister prior to the Civil War, during April 1861 raised a company of Union volunteers at the strongly pro-Southern village of Coalsmouth, Virginia, (modern St. Albans, West Virginia). He was adamantly opposed to slavery, yet often expressed a bitter ire at having to fight a violent civil war because his beloved nation had thus far failed to eradicate the awful practice. While he displayed an unshakeable desire to preserve the Union, Young’s convictions were severely tested as he and his family faced constant dangers from guerillas and Confederate raids in the Kanawha Valley. Captain Young also participated in more than one hundred skirmishes and eleven major engagements in the bloody Shenandoah Valley, and at Petersburg, and Appomattox; more than any other Union officer from West Virginia. He died from tuberculosis in 1867, a sad irony after surviving some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. “…Stand firm to the good old Cause. I have just come from Charleston, and found while there that there will be a change of Commanders in the Department of [West] Virginia. The authorities feel determined that we shall have protection. But if we cannot have better protection than we have had, the country is ruined. But I assure you there will be a change for the better. I don’t know how you will get up to see me now. Well, we must bear it the best we can. Sacrifice All for the Union.” - Captain John Valley Young, Letter to his wife, February 3, 1862
Download or read book Surviving the Confederacy written by John C. Waugh and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2002 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War and Reconstruction as seen through the eyes of one of Virginia's most famous couples.
Download or read book The Citizen soldier written by John Beatty and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Southerners fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861, John Beatty left his bank job in Ohio to answer President Lincoln's call for soldiers. Within a short while he was commanding the Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, as green to combat as his men. The diary he kept from June 1861 to January 1864 shows how well they did their fearful job without losing their humanity. In October 1862 the Ohio regiment lost nearly forty percent of its five hundred men on the field at Perryville. After heavy fighting at Stone's River the following year, Beatty was promoted to brigadier general. In these pages the cost of union is carefully weighed by an intelligent and modest man who never glorifies war. Advancing through the South with the Army of the Cumberland, he lives to tell about the horrific battles at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. Whether describing large events in Kentucky, Tennessee, and elsewhere or the quiet times of camp life, Beatty never loses personal perspective. Steven E. Woodworth, in his introduction, writes about the life of this extraordinary "ordinary man, " whose diary, originally published in 1879, "stands out as one of the dozen or so best memoirs of the Civil War for its clarity, honesty, humor, and plain good sense." Woodworth is an assistant professor of history at Texas Christian University and the author of Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West, Davis and Lee at War, and, most recently, Six Armies in Tennessee: The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns
Download or read book Jack Hinson s One Man War written by Tom McKenney and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of one man's reluctant but relentless war against the invaders of his country.A quiet, wealthy plantation owner, Jack Hinson watched the start of the Civil War with disinterest. Opposed to secession and a friend to Union and Confederate commanders alike, he did not want a war. After Union soldiers seized and murdered his sons, placing their decapitated heads on the gateposts of his estate, Hinson could remain indifferent no longer. He commissioned a special rifle for long-range accuracy, he took to the woods, and he set out for revenge. This remarkable biography presents the story of Jack Hinson, a lone Confederate sniper who, at the age of 57, waged a personal war on Grant's army and navy. The result of 15 years of scholarship, this meticulously researched and beautifully written work is the only account of Hinson's life ever recorded and involves an unbelievable cast of characters, including the Earp brothers, Jesse James, and Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Download or read book Reminiscences of the Civil War written by John B. Gordon and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-18 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John B. Gordon, by the end of the Civil War, had become one of Robert E. Lee's most trusted generals. At the outbreak of the war, in 1861, he enlisted as a private soldier, and was elected captain of his company. His career was perhaps as brilliant as that of any officer in the Confederate army. In rapid succession he filled every grade -- that of Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier-General, Major-General, and, near the end, was assigned to duty as Lieutenant-General (by authority of the Secretary of War), and while he never received the commission in regular form, he commanded, at the surrender at Appomattox, one half of the Army of Northern Virginia, under Robert E. Lee. He had the extraordinary talent of getting in front of his troops and, in a few magnetic appeals, inspiring them almost to madness, and being able to lead them into the jaws of death. Brown distinguished himself in many of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, including at Seven Pines, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Spotsylvania Court House. John B. Gordon's remarkable activities are all recorded in vivid detail in his Reminiscences of the Civil War which allows the reader to fully understand the thoughts and actions of this fascinating man. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in how one man rose from relative obscurity to become one of the most formidable leaders of the American Civil War. "The mass of intelligent readers ... will find it one of the best obtainable pictures of life in the Confederate army." The American Historical Review John B. Gordon was an attorney, a planter, general in the Confederate States Army, and politician in the postwar years. After the war, Gordon strongly opposed Reconstruction during the late 1860s. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected by the state legislature to serve as a U.S. Senator, from 1875 to 1881, and again from 1891 to 1897. He also was elected as the 53rd Governor of Georgia, serving from 1886 to 1890. Reminiscences of the Civil War was first published in 1903 and he passed away in 1904.
Download or read book A Politician Goes to War written by John White Geary and published by Penn State University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers can also glimpse pieces of life on the northern homefront and the ways that relationships between men and women changed during the course of the war.
Download or read book A Civil War Diary written by James A. Black and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Reconciliation in Action" gives a synoptic view of her intense belief of sanctity toward humanity in her written thoughts on person-to-person interactions. Sadie Williams believes that the realities of the journey through life should be treated with the best possible commonsense attitude in order to maintain a well balanced focus toward a positive direction. She believes that individuals should accept accountability of their thought process that reflects behavioral conduct. Sadie believes that personal conduct is a state of mind that can revel itself in spoken words of harmonious, or contemptuous behavior. She refers to the thought process as being very individually unique within itself, therefore the individual needs to be first, "true to self", in order to accept reality as truth. Sadie applauds respect in dealing with issues of differences or indifference that relates to settling disputes: because there are always two sides to a story that needs to be heard and given its due rewards. Her idea is that it is good for the individual to have and maintain a peaceful mindset that is good for both the mind as well as physical well-being. "Reconciliation in Action" is a book packed with great food-for-thoughts-ideas that is designed to have a delightful impact on its readers.
Download or read book I Married a Soldier written by Lydia Spencer Lane and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 1964 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through her eyes we see the close-knit social life of an army post, the western frontier's divided response to the American Civil War, and the cultures and peoples of the West.
Download or read book John Dooley Confederate Soldier written by John Dooley and published by University Alabama Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the best primary accounts of the Civil War by a Confederate. John Dooley was the youngest son of Irish immigrants to Richmond, Virginia, where his father prospered, and the family took a leading position among Richmond's sizeable Irish community. Early in 1862, John left his studies at Georgetown University to serve in the First Virginia Infantry Regiment, in which his father John and brother James also served. John's service took him to Second Manassas, South Mountain, Sharpsburg (Antietam), Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg; before that last battle, Dooley was elected a lieutenant. On the third day at Gettysburg, Dooley swept up the hill in Pickett's charge, where he was shot through both legs and lay all night on the field, to be made a POW the next day. Held until February 27, 1865, Dooley made his way back south to arrive home very near the Confederacy's final collapse. Dooley's account is valuable for the content of his service and because most of the material came from his diary, with some interpolations (which are indicated as such) that he made shortly after the war's end when his memory was still fresh. Dooley's health seems to have been permanently compromised by his wounds; he entered a Roman Catholic seminary after the war and died in 1873 several months before his ordination was to take place.
