The Civil War Letters of Alexander McNeill, 2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment

The Civil War Letters of Alexander McNeill, 2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment PDF Author: Alexander McNeill
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781611175363
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
More than two hundred eloquently written Civil War letters of love and life on the battlefield During the American Civil War, Alexander "Sandy" McNeill, a southern merchant, served in the Secession Guards, Company F, and Second South Carolina Regiment from April 17, 1861, to May 2, 1865. Within three weeks after the war began at Fort Sumter, McNeill wrote his first epistle to his long-time friend, Almirah Haseltine "Tinie" Simmons, in a campaign to win her heart and hand in marriage. The 29-year-old McNeill proclaimed in that letter, "I have always esteemed you as a friend and now I feel stealing over me a feeling which tells me that you are now held in higher estimation than that of a friend." Civil War historian and documentary editor Mac Wyckoff adds context to the correspondence, more than two hundred letters that encompass the entire duration of the war. With the exception of three breaks in communication, McNeill wrote to Tinie four to five times a week and persisted to the last week of April 1865, more than two weeks after General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. In general, letters written during the final six months of the war are hard to find as are many other primary source materials for the waning war. While this is among the largest and fullest Civil War collections, it is the literary quality of McNeill's letters and wide variety of topics reported that distinguish it from others. In frequent and lengthy missives, McNeill opened his heart and mind to Tinie, his fiancée and then wife. He fulsomely reported his experiences and thoughts on a soldier's life during this war, describing combat, camp life, the building of winter quarters, the marches, company election of officers, weather, food, and morale. McNeill chronicled his experiences at First Manassas (Bull Run), Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and other battles. A man of sophisticated opinions, McNeill voiced his personal views on political, religious and military events, and the names of fellow soldiers he liked and disliked--all illuminating his deep, dynamic character.

The Civil War Letters of Alexander McNeill, 2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment

The Civil War Letters of Alexander McNeill, 2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment PDF Author: Alexander McNeill
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781611175363
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
More than two hundred eloquently written Civil War letters of love and life on the battlefield During the American Civil War, Alexander "Sandy" McNeill, a southern merchant, served in the Secession Guards, Company F, and Second South Carolina Regiment from April 17, 1861, to May 2, 1865. Within three weeks after the war began at Fort Sumter, McNeill wrote his first epistle to his long-time friend, Almirah Haseltine "Tinie" Simmons, in a campaign to win her heart and hand in marriage. The 29-year-old McNeill proclaimed in that letter, "I have always esteemed you as a friend and now I feel stealing over me a feeling which tells me that you are now held in higher estimation than that of a friend." Civil War historian and documentary editor Mac Wyckoff adds context to the correspondence, more than two hundred letters that encompass the entire duration of the war. With the exception of three breaks in communication, McNeill wrote to Tinie four to five times a week and persisted to the last week of April 1865, more than two weeks after General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. In general, letters written during the final six months of the war are hard to find as are many other primary source materials for the waning war. While this is among the largest and fullest Civil War collections, it is the literary quality of McNeill's letters and wide variety of topics reported that distinguish it from others. In frequent and lengthy missives, McNeill opened his heart and mind to Tinie, his fiancée and then wife. He fulsomely reported his experiences and thoughts on a soldier's life during this war, describing combat, camp life, the building of winter quarters, the marches, company election of officers, weather, food, and morale. McNeill chronicled his experiences at First Manassas (Bull Run), Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and other battles. A man of sophisticated opinions, McNeill voiced his personal views on political, religious and military events, and the names of fellow soldiers he liked and disliked--all illuminating his deep, dynamic character.

The War for the Common Soldier

The War for the Common Soldier PDF Author: Peter S. Carmichael
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469643103
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
How did Civil War soldiers endure the brutal and unpredictable existence of army life during the conflict? This question is at the heart of Peter S. Carmichael's sweeping new study of men at war. Based on close examination of the letters and records left behind by individual soldiers from both the North and the South, Carmichael explores the totality of the Civil War experience--the marching, the fighting, the boredom, the idealism, the exhaustion, the punishments, and the frustrations of being away from families who often faced their own dire circumstances. Carmichael focuses not on what soldiers thought but rather how they thought. In doing so, he reveals how, to the shock of most men, well-established notions of duty or disobedience, morality or immorality, loyalty or disloyalty, and bravery or cowardice were blurred by war. Digging deeply into his soldiers' writing, Carmichael resists the idea that there was "a common soldier" but looks into their own words to find common threads in soldiers' experiences and ways of understanding what was happening around them. In the end, he argues that a pragmatic philosophy of soldiering emerged, guiding members of the rank and file as they struggled to live with the contradictory elements of their violent and volatile world. Soldiering in the Civil War, as Carmichael argues, was never a state of being but a process of becoming.

Longstreet

Longstreet PDF Author: Elizabeth Varon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982148276
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
"An authoritative biography of the second-highest-ranking and most controversial Confederate general, who rejoined the Union after the Civil War, advising other Confederate soldiers to put that war behind them. After joining an interracial government in New Orleans, Longstreet fought against white supremacists when they attacked these postwar elected officials, for which he was vilified and attacked by other Southerners, and blamed for the South's defeat in the Civil War"--

From Arlington to Appomattox

From Arlington to Appomattox PDF Author: Charles R. Knight
Publisher: Savas Beatie
ISBN: 161121503X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description
“Brilliant . . . really gives one a sense of what it took to both lead and run an army in the Civil War. . . . Superb.” —Chris Kolakowski, author of The Virginia Campaigns: March–August 1862 In From Arlington to Appomattox, Charles Knight does for Robert E. Lee and students of the Civil War what E. B. Long’s Civil War Day by Day did for our understanding of the conflict as a whole. This is not another Lee biography, but it is every bit as valuable as one. We know Lee rode out to meet the survivors of Pickett’s Charge and accept blame for the defeat, that he tried to lead the Texas Brigade in a counterattack to save the day at the Wilderness, and took a tearful ride from Wilmer McLean’s house at Appomattox. But where was Lee and what was he doing when the spotlight of history failed to illuminate him? Focusing on what he was doing day by day offers an entirely different appreciation for Lee. Readers will come away with a fresh sense of his struggles, both personal and professional, and discover many things about Lee for the first time through his own correspondence and papers. From Arlington to Appomattox is a tremendous contribution to the literature of the Civil War. “Knight’s study will become the standard reference work on Lee’s daily wartime experiences.” —R. E. L. Krick, author of Staff Officers in Gray “A staggering work of scholarship.” —Jeffry D. Wert, author of A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee’s Triumph, 1862–1863 "A pleasure to read.” —Michael C. Hardy, author of General Lee’s Immortals “Keeps the reader engaged.” —Journal of America's Military Past

Florida Civil War Heritage Trail

Florida Civil War Heritage Trail PDF Author:
Publisher: Department of State Division of Historical Resources
ISBN: 9781889030227
Category : Battlefields
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
"Includes a background essay on the history of the Civil War in Florida, a timeline of events, 31 sidebars on important Florida topics, issues and individuals of the period, and a selected bibliography. It also includes information on over 200 battlefields, fortifications, buildings, cemeteries, museum exhibits, monuments, historical markers, and other sites in Florida with direct links to the Civil War"--[p. 2] of cover.

To the Last Man :.

To the Last Man :. PDF Author: Jonathan D. Bratten
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Reminiscences of a Mississippian in Peace and War

Reminiscences of a Mississippian in Peace and War PDF Author: Frank Alexander Montgomery
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mississippi
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description


Horses and Mules in the Civil War

Horses and Mules in the Civil War PDF Author: Gene C. Armistead
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786473630
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Horses and mules served during the Civil War in greater number and suffered more casualties than the men of the Union and Confederate armies combined. Using firsthand accounts, this history addresses the many uses of equines during the war, the methods by which they were obtained, their costs, their suffering on the battlefields and roads, their consumption by soldiers, and such topics as racing and mounted music. The book is supplemented by accounts of the "Lightning Mule Brigade," the "Charge of the Mule Brigade," five appendices and 37 illustrations. More than 700 Civil War equines are identified and described with incidental information and identification of their masters.

Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65

Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-'65 PDF Author: Walter Clark
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : North Carolina
Languages : en
Pages : 882

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Book Description


Mr. Lincoln's Army

Mr. Lincoln's Army PDF Author: Bruce Catton
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504024184
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 519

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Book Description
A vivid account of the early battles, first in the Pulitzer Prize-winning trilogy: “One of America’s foremost Civil War authorities” (Kirkus Reviews). The first book in Bruce Catton’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Mr. Lincoln’s Army is a riveting history of the early years of the Civil War, when a fledgling Union Army took its stumbling first steps under the command of the controversial general George McClellan. Following the secession of the Southern states, a beleaguered President Abraham Lincoln entrusted the dashing, charismatic McClellan with the creation of the Union’s Army of the Potomac and the responsibility of leading it to a swift and decisive victory against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Although a brilliant tactician who was beloved by his troops and embraced by the hero-hungry North, McClellan’s ego and ambition ultimately put him at loggerheads with his commander in chief—a man McClellan considered unworthy of the presidency. McClellan’s weaknesses were exposed during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history, which ended in a stalemate even though the Confederate troops were greatly outnumbered. After Antietam, Lincoln ordered McClellan’s removal from command, and the Union entered the war’s next chapter having suffered thousands of casualties and with great uncertainty ahead. America’s premier chronicler of the nation’s brutal internecine conflict, Bruce Catton is renowned for his unparalleled ability to bring a detailed and vivid immediacy to Civil War battlefields and military strategy sessions. With tremendous depth and insight, he presents legendary commanders and common soldiers in all their complex and heartbreaking humanity.