Monday, July 06, 2009

News, Notes, and 58th NCT update

Well folks, here are some items that I saw in a search around different online news outlets.

There is an article on Politico.com on Rep. Alexander Hamilton Jones, a member of the 40th Congress. Read that article here. Jones was born in Buncombe County, and served in the Union army during the war. There is a nice online bio on Jones you can find here.

A descendant of a member of the 26th NCT writes an interesting article on ENC.com, which you can read here.

For those interested in the Cold Mountain story (i.e., Frazier’s book, and subsequent movie), check out this article about the annual Cold Mountain tour.

There was also an interesting opinion piece a week or so ago in the Salisbury Post on the legacy on John Hope Franklin. The article is about Dr. Franklin’s work on Free Blacks owning slaves. The article points out that there were 69 Free Blacks (Free Persons of Color for my academic friends) who held slaves in North Carolina in 1860. Hmm, maybe it is time to pull out my census and slave schedules and re-examine the 58th NCT. You can read the article here.

Speaking of the 58th NCT, I have started editing Chapter 7, which deals with the battle of Chickamauga. I’ve also been trying to decide what to do with the whole slavery question. As I have said before, the men whose names appear on the muster rolls of the 58th NCT were not interested in the preservation of slavery, nor were they really interested in state’s rights: someone showed up at their farm with a piece of paper, and for some a gun, saying "You have to serve in the Confederate army." I have been trying to document actual slave owners in the regiment (and a note to my readers – slave ownership does not always mean loyal supporter of the Confederacy). As of today, I’ve got seven slave owners, out of almost 2100 men in the regiment. That is less than one percent.

Well, back to work…..

By the way, if you have emailed me recently, or posted a comment, I will get to those soon. I’ve been working hard on the 58th NCT manuscript lately.

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