Category Archives: The Phillips Georgia Legion

Colonel Solon Z. Ruff

SOLON Z. RUFF, colonel of the 18th Georgia which followed the Phillips Georgia Legion in the attack on Fort Sanders, was a graduate of the Georgia Military Institute and a professor there until the war began, according to the web … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Confederate Veteran Magazine, Eighteenth Georgia, The Phillips Georgia Legion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Tail coats

“Men in claw-hammer coats and tall, beaver hats and ladies in silk dresses and sunbonnets were standing looking down at us from above the red-clay walls we had tried so hard to climb…” So says Private Lafayette Bolton of the … Continue reading

Posted in Civil War clothing, Fort Sanders, The Phillips Georgia Legion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Phillips Legion at Knoxville

The Phillips Georgia Legion (or Phillips Legion of Georgia or simply Phillips Legion) rates its own chapter in the novel, for its co-starring part in the attack on Fort Sanders. Although this stirring little animation of its battle flag does … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Fort Sanders, The Phillips Georgia Legion | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

19th Century Weapon: The steam train

“In today’s world of tanks, bombers and submarines, it’s perhaps hard to believe that the train was once an amazingly mobile weapons platform. They might be locked to their rails, but for over a century trains were the fastest means … Continue reading

Posted in Boy Battery, Eighteenth Georgia, Eighteenth Mississippi, Eighth Georgia, Gen. Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, Gen. James Longstreet, Seventeenth Mississippi, Sixteenth Georgia, The Phillips Georgia Legion, Thirteenth Mississippi, Twenty-First Mississippi | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The battle’s sesquicentennial

One hundred fifty years ago at dawn today, four seriously-under strength Mississippi and Georgia regiments attacked the earthwork Fort Sanders on Knoxville’s west side. The very subject of Knoxville 1863, the novel—this blog—and the book itself. I suppose there will be … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Eighteenth Georgia, Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Reenactors, Seventeenth Mississippi, The Phillips Georgia Legion, Thirteenth Mississippi | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Gettysburg’s 150th

I’m not sorry to be missing Gettysburg’s 150th anniversary these next three days. Too much of the occasion will be taken up by reenactment events, which reenactment participants call “impressions.” But too many of the reenactors are too corpulent and all … Continue reading

Posted in Boy Battery, Civil War armament, Civil War clothing, Eighteenth Georgia, Eighteenth Mississippi, Eighth Georgia, Gen. Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, Gen. James Longstreet, Gen. Lafayette McLaws, Gen. William T. Wofford, President Abraham Lincoln, Reenactors, Seventeenth Mississippi, Sixteenth Georgia, The Phillips Georgia Legion, The Sesquicentennial, Thirteenth Mississippi, Twenty-First Mississippi | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The last Rebel unit to leave Richmond

There’s always been some dispute as to which Rebel unit was the last to depart Richmond during its evacuation on April 3-4, 1865. But for some there was never any doubt. One who had no doubt was Captain D.B. Sanford … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Confederate Veteran Magazine, The Phillips Georgia Legion | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

New history: an error and an argument

There’s a new history on the Battle of Fort Sanders, one of the few ever written. It’s Lincoln Memorial University historian Earl J. Hess’s 2012 The Knoxville Campaign: Burnside and Longstreet in East Tennessee. I bought a copy to see if … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Disputes and errors of fact, Fort Sanders, Gen. Lafayette McLaws, Orlando Poe, Samuel Nicoll Benjamin, Seventeenth Mississippi, The Phillips Georgia Legion, Thirteenth Mississippi | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment