“I’ve long considered Michael and Jeff Shaara’s Civil War trilogy to be one of the benchmarks for Civil War historical fiction. Knoxville 1863 came very close to that mark.” –Jim Chambers for Red Adept Reviews
The eBook version of Knoxville 1863—professionally edited, proofread to eliminate errors, and formatted with a linked table of contents and a map—is now available for the Kindle at Amazon for just 99 cents.
Wofford’s Brigade cooperated with the Mississippi Brigade in the attack on Fort Sanders, as it had on the second day at Gettysburg five months earlier.
But brigade commander William Tatum Wofford was absent, home in Georgia attending the unexpected funeral of a beloved daughter who had died of diphtheria.
Originally the colonel of what would become the Eighteenth Georgia Infantry Regiment, Wofford had the dubious distinction of surrendering the last unit of southern troops east of the Mississippi, on May 12, 1865, in Resaca, Georgia.
Newly revised statistical measure of the Civil War has the numbers of male deaths and consequent widows and orphans much higher than previously believed.
“Even as Civil War history has gone through several cycles of revision, one thing has remained fixed: the number of dead. Since about 1900, historians and the general public have assumed that 618,222 men died on both sides. That number is probably a significant undercount, however. New estimates, based on Census data, indicate that the death toll was approximately 750,000, and may have been as high as 850,000.”
Adjusted for today’s population that would be about seven and a half million.
Go here for the whole story. And more here on YouTube.
In Houston, in 1867, Confederate veterans famously organized a home for 250 orphans of deceased Confederate soldiers.
Kerhsaw’s Brigade of South Carolinians didn’t actually fight in the Fort Sanders attack. They were held in reserve.
But they provided plenty of sharpshooting (i.e. snipers) during the weeks-long runup to the battle. And there’s a dandy bio about them here.
“A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,700 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.”
Heh. Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Read it all here, and have a good 2012.
Knoxville’s Gay Street, fifty-one years after it was the scene of Rebel and Union recruiting, as recalled by the novel’s Parthenia Leila Ellis.
Via Instapundit.
The revolver which the historical Lt. Col. Alfred George Washington O’Brien pointed at the novel’s fictional Sergeant Timothy Chase’s nose was a curious one.
The LeMat,first made in New Orleans in 1856, had two barrels: the upper one was a smoothbore normally reserved for a .36 or .42 caliber ball, and the one below it was a 20-gauge shotgun.
Hence the popular Southern weapon’s apt nickname: The “grapeshot revolver.” O’Brien’s was a late-model .44 caliber. Cabela’s sells a nine shot, rifled .44 caliber working reproduction. And there are several videos of loading and firing the weapon here.
The day before President Lincoln issued his proclamation of thanksgiving for the Confederate defeat at Knoxville, Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside congratulated his troops on their steadfast performance:
“The Army of the Ohio has nobly guarded the loyal region it redeemed from its oppressors, and rendered the heroic defense of Knoxville memorable in the annals of War.”
The troops can’t have been pleased, however, when they discovered that while they were on reduced rations throughout the Rebel siege, Burnside and his fellow commanders were living high-on-the-hog at his Crozier House headquarters.
The novel’s fictional character Parthenia Leila Ellis, of course, wore full black mourning because she was a new widow. But her good friend, the historical figure Elisa Brownlow might have worn something like this pretty plum wheat dress with bell-shaped Pagoda sleeves. It was made by Civil War reenactor and dressmaker “sarahanne” of Virginia. Her Victorian Times blog features this dress and others of similar design and materials.
Bob Krick’s criticism of Longstreet better comports with the general’s work at Knoxville, where he was defeated after a cursory inspection following many days of dithering.
But, of course, there’s a positive side to Lee’s war horse as well. And historian Jeffry Wert is a good exponent of the man his troops after Chickamauga called The Bull of the Woods.
“He is a conservative, a very cautious general,” Wert says in this talk. Which really doesn’t explain his behavior at Fort Sanders, where he was anything but cautious. But hear Wert—author of General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier—tell it.
Via Crossroads.
