Category Archives: Col. Alfred G.W. O’Brien

Crowded Camp Chase

Union prison Camp Chase, just west of Ohio’s state capital of Columbus, where some of the Rebs captured at Fort Sanders spent the rest of the war—or, in some cases, their lives. Commissioned and non-commissioned officers got the wooden barracks … Continue reading

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East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad

Its roadbed, somewhat elevated from the surrounding terrain, gave the novel’s Private Bird Clark and his fictional cousin, the historical Lt. Col. Alfred George Washington O’Brien, a convenient place from which to view Fort Sanders. Although, unfortunately, not enough of … Continue reading

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Camp Chase Prison

In the novel, as in history, Thirteenth Mississippi Lt. Col. Alfred George Washington O’Brien was captured in Fort Sanders. His older sister, Elisa, the wife of radical Unionist Parson William Brownlow, had the privilege of nursing his minor wounds in … Continue reading

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The LeMat revolver

The revolver which Lt. Col. Alfred George Washington O’Brien pointed at 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 … Continue reading

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Stonewall’s Unionist sister

One of the themes of Knoxville 1863 is the bitter division of the town and surrounding area between Unionists and Confederates. Leila Ellis, Confederate Major Clayton Ellis’s widow, is herself a Union sympathizer. Not to mention Knoxville Unionist Elisa Brownlow’s … Continue reading

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