Sunday, March 29, 2015

Guilford County now the most written-about North Carolina County and the War.

Most of you know that I collect books. One of the cornerstones of that collection is any book that deals with North Carolina and the War. There are scores of those that line the shelves : Troops books, biographies, regimental histories, etc. Having these resources at hand helps me tremendously in the work that I do.


   A couple of new books just coming out have propelled Guilford County and Greensboro into the lead as far as being the most written-about area of the Old North State and the War. Just being released is C. Michael Brigg's Guilford under the Stars and Bars. Briggs is a Greensboro native and collector. This book (hardback, 296 pages, color and black and white photos, maps), is rich in detail, especially when it comes to the various arms manufacturing facilities around Guilford County and Stoneman's Raid in April 1865.


On the heels of the release of Briggs's new book is Carol Moore's new Guilford County and the Civil War. This is one of the History Press's latest Civil War Series books and will be released in late April 2015. In looking over what is available on Google books, Moore's account looks well written and will be useful for future generations.


Moore is the author of an additional book on Greensboro, a part of Arcadia's Images of America series. This tome is entitled Greensboro's Confederate Soldiers and was released in 2008.


There are three books that deal with the end of the war in Greensboro/Guilford County. The first book released on Greensboro and the war was Ethel Arnett's Confederate Guns Were Stacked in Greensboro (1965). This was followed in 2008 by Bradley Foley and Adrian Whicker's The Civil War Ends, Greensboro April 1865 and in 2013, Robert M. Dunkerly's The Confederate Surrender at Greensboro- The Final Days of the Army of Tennessee, April 1865.


Also touching Greensboro and the War in significant ways are Chris Hartley's Stoneman's Raid 1865 and William T. Auman's Civil War in the North Carolina Quaker Belt, released in 2014.









For the foreseeable future, I believe that the events in Greensboro during the war have been adequately covered. 

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