A deserter from the 48th Alabama writes the regiment’s history

No sooner had the last shot of the war ended than there was a push to write a history of the conflict. Edward A. Pollard, a newspaper editor from Richmond, released The Lost Cause in 1866. While often considered a “pro-Confederate” volume, Pollard’s text was very critical of both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Another newspaper editor, but in New York, Horace Greeley released volume 1 of The American Conflict in 1864. The second volume was released in 1866. An abolitionist, Greeley incorporated his own partisan views about the cause of the war, much like Pollard did with his work.

John D. Taylor (findagrave)

As time went on, the men who had fought the war began to pen their own accounts. In the north, veterans’ organizations would appoint one of their members as the regimental historian. This person would then gather materials and correspond with other veterans to write a regimental history. The South was less organized. It was not until 1885 that the United Confederate Veterans began to push for histories written by former Confederates. Over the next couple of decades, a trickle of books appeared.

We are not sure what prompted John Dykes Taylor to pick up his pen and draft a history of his regiment, the 48^th Alabama Infantry, before his death in 1888. This short survey was not published until 1902 in the Montgomery Advertiser, and later in pamphlet form by both the Confederate Publishing Company and Morningside. These later editions have a forward by William Stanley Hoole and additional notes by William C. Oates (of the 15^th Alabama fame.)

Taylor was born in Habersham, Georgia, in 1830. As a young man he moved to Jackson, Alabama, to study law and was admitted to the bar in Marshall County, Alabama, in 1857. Taylor must not have found the practice of law to his liking, as in 1860 he was working for a wholesaler in Nashville, Tennessee.[1]

Taylor did not answer the call to enlist until March 1862 when he joined Company E, 48^th Alabama as a private. He was present through all of the muster rolls through October 1864, often listed as the ordnance sergeant for his company. On August 27, 1864, his company commander actually wrote to Richmond, asking that Taylor be officially promoted to ordnance sergeant, a position he had unofficially held. The War Department agreed. It is unclear if Taylor ever received word of the promotion. In November 1864, Taylor was granted a furlough for 30 days. We assume he returned home. And he never returned. The major of the regiment wrote to the secretary of War on February 18, 1865, asking that Taylor be dropped from the rolls of the regiment. “He has not been heard from since [leaving on his furlough], and from all the information that I have, I do not think he intends to return to the Regiment,” Major J.W. Wiggonton wrote.[2]

Taylor survived the war, married twice, and lived in Guntersville, working as a wholesaler and commission merchant, along with being a notary public and justice of the peace. He died on May 9, 1888.[3]

The 48^th Alabama was mustered into service in Auburn, Alabama, in May 1862. It was composed of men from Blount, Calhoun, Cherokee, DeKalb, and Marshall Counties. The regiment was sent east, becoming a part of Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro’s brigade, fighting at Cedar Mountain, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, and Fredericksburg. Later the regiment was transferred to Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law’s Alabama brigade, Hood’s Division, Longstreet’s Corps, and fought at Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, and then back east, through the Overland Campaign, Petersburg Campaign, and Appomattox Campaign. At Appomattox, the regiment surrendered 122 men.[4]

The detail that Taylor provides is good, just not deep or in great detail. For example, in writing about Chickamauga, he sums up the action of the brigade with: “Throughout the two days of terrific fighting Law’s Alabamians won new laurels and received the compliments of [illegible].[5]

But why Taylor? He ends his narrative toward the end of October 1864, about the time he heads home on his furlough. Never throughout the text does he criticize his commanders; he is not disgruntled by the outcome of the war. What were the underlaying issues that caused him to pen this short account of the regiment he served in? Are there any other cases of a soldier, who deserted toward the end of the war, who later penned a history of his regiment?

The 48^th Alabama does have a modern regimental history, written by Joshua Glenn Price and released in 2017.  

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[1] Taylor, History of the 48^th Alabama Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 6-7.

[2] J.D. Taylor, CMSR, RG109, Roll0437, National Archives.

[3] Taylor, History of the 48^th Alabama Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 8.

[4] Taylor, History of the 48^th Alabama Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 14-20.

[5] Taylor, History of the 48^th Alabama Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 21.

New project - on Robert E. Lee!

 Robert E. Lee is one of the most written-about subjects in American history. There are scores of books, hundreds of articles, a few documentaries, and other forms of media. So why add another book to the stack? That is a question I have been asking a lot over the past few weeks.

In 2024, Savas Beatie published a book on U.S. Grant – Unconditional Surrender: Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War. The co-authors are Curt Fields and Chris Mackowski. Chris is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Emerging Civil War. I’m not so sure how long I have known Chris, but he interviewed me in 2019 when the American Battlefield Trust’s Teacher’s Institute was in Raleigh. I was at the annual teacher’s meeting talking about North Carolina and the end of the War. Curt is undoubtedly the premier U.S. Grant interpreter in the United States. We’ve met in person a couple of times and follow one another’s work online. The book is a part of the Emerging Civil War series. It is a quick introduction to the life, especially the war-years, of U.S. Grant.

If we have a book on Grant, why not a book on Robert E. Lee? I pitched that idea to Chris, and he thought it was a good idea. I then pitched that book idea to Thomas Jessee, someone I first met 40 years ago in the reenacting community. Thomas is undoubtedly the best Robert E. Lee interpreter in the United States. Curt and Thomas are often at Appomattox Court House each year during the surrender commemoration events. At times, they also appear on stage together portraying their respective historical characters in programs based on decades of careful research, study, and respect for the past. These events are truly historical performances in their own right, and I encourage you to check them out.  Seeing these two gentlemen in action is the closest thing to jumping in a time machine and meeting the originals. I am honored that Tom agreed to join me on the project.

Curt Fields and Thomas Jessee at Appomattox

Chris and Ted Savas at Savas Beatie Publishing both said yes. Of course, I’ve worked with Savas Beatie on other projects, including General Lee’s Immortals, my history of the Branch-Lane Brigade, and Feeding Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, plus an upcoming book on the April 1864 battle of Plymouth. (You can order signed copies of those books here.)

Over my thirty years of writing, I have spent a great deal of time with the Army of Northern Virginia – books on the 37^th North Carolina, the 39^th Battalion Virginia Cavalry, the Branch-Lane Brigade, the battle of Hanover Court House, and most recently, the book on food and the army. (This does not include many articles and blog posts.) You would think that writing about Lee would be a natural progression, and in some ways, it is. The most challenging part is that the books in this series are relatively short. And, I don’t want this to be a history of the Army of Northern Virginia. This is a look at Lee. In many cases, the descriptions of battles are just slightly expanded summaries. What is important is Lee’s personal role and how he felt about that battle. For example, he wrote that the battle of Chancellorsville, perhaps his greatest victory, was not worth the cost.

This project is due in March 2026. It is exciting to be working with such a great publishing team and with the incomparable Thomas Jessee.  We just started the first of December 2025, and it will hopefully be released in 2027.

Longstreet's other plan

Lt. Gen. James Longstreet

A lot of ink has been spilt over the decades on Gen. James Longstreet and the Gettysburg campaign. Believing that they were just fighting defensive battles, Longstreet was opposed to the attacks on July 2 and 3. He wanted to find a defensive position and let the Federals attack them. Frequently lost in the discussion is the fact that Longstreet did not even really want to be on this campaign.

Following Chancellorsville, Confederate Army of Northern Virginia commander Robert E. Lee sought to once again invade the North. He had many reasons, including a dwindling supply of foodstuffs and wanting to pull the enemy army out of Virginia. A Confederate victory on Northern soil might just galvanize the beginning peace party in the North to press for an end to the war. Elsewhere in the Confederacy, the primary Confederate army of the western theater was locked in a siege at Vicksburg, Mississippi. There were some who believed that a portion of the Army of Northern Virginia should be detached and sent to help defeat the Federal forces.

Longstreet was one of those who wanted to ship a portion of the Virginia army west. Writing in the Philadelphia Weekly Times in 1897, Longstreet recalled visiting the Secretary of War James Seddon as he passed through Richmond following his assignment in the Suffolk area. Seddon asked Longstreet his views on the matter of sending part of the ANV west. “I replied that there was a better plan, in my judgement, for relieving Vicksburg than by direct assault upon Grant. I proposed that the army then concentrating at Jackson, Mississippi, be moved swiftly to Tullahoma, where General Bragg was located with a fine army, confronting an army of about equal strength under General Rosecrans, and that at the same time two divisions of my corps be hurried forward to the same point. The simultaneous arrival of these reinforcements would give us a grand army at Tullahoma. With this army General Johnston might speedily crush Rosecrans, and that he should then turn his force towards the north, and with his splendid army march through Tennessee and Kentucky, and threaten the invasion of Ohio.”

When Longstreet met with Lee, “I laid it before him with the freedom justified by our close personal and official relations. . . . We discussed it over and over, and I discovered that his main objection to it was that it would, if adopted, force him to divide his army. He left no room to doubt, however, that he believed the idea of an offensive campaign was not only important, but necessary.”[1]

Longstreet brings up the same argument in 1896 when he pens his autobiography, From Manassas to Appomattox.[2]

Why not reinforce Pemberton in Vicksburg? “Grant seems to be a fighting man, and seems to be determined to fight. Pemberton seems not to be a fighting man. . . the fewer troops he has the better,” Longstreet wrote Wigfall on May 13, 1863.[3]

Historians are mixed on Longstreet’s motivation. Freeman speculates that “It is impossible to say how far his ambition influenced his proposal or to what extent his plan stirred his ambition. Perhaps he dreamed of supplanting Bragg and of winning the decisive victory.”[4] Piston found Longstreet’s proposal “strategically sound,” but questioned his motives. Did Longstreet wish to replace Bragg? Johnston out-ranked Bragg. Maybe Longstreet still preferred serving under Joseph E. Johnston. Piston goes on to agree with Jones and Connelly who wrote that Longstreet was a part of the “western concentration bloc.” This group of men feared that the industries in East Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama were susceptible to Federal attacks and Bragg should be reinforced by portions of Lee’s army. Longstreet actually wrote Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall about such a proposal in February 1863 concerning this concentration of troops.[5] Wert argues that Longstreet was not a member of that “western concentration bloc.” He bases this assertion on the letter that Longstreet wrote Wigfall on May 13, 1863. Longstreet told the senator that if a forward movement was ordered, “we can spare nothing from this army to re-enforce in the West.” Instead, the Army of Northern Virginia should be reinforced. “If we could cross the Potomac with one hundred & fifty thousand men, I think we could demand Lincoln to declare his purpose. . . . When I agreed with the Secy & yourself about sending troops west I was under the impression that we would be obliged to remain on the defensive here. But the prospect of an advance changes the aspect of affairs to us entirely.”[6]

Would the proposal of a combination of men and commanders in central Tennessee have reaped the benefits that Longstreet proposed? Maybe. The plan of Lee moving north certainly did not work to the best advantage of the Confederates.

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[1] The Annals of War written by Leading Participants North and South, 416-17.

[2] 330-31.

[3] Wert, General James Longstreet, 245.

[4] Freeman, R.E. Lee, 3:20.

[5] Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, 42, 44.

[6] Wert, General James Longstreet, 244-45.