Thursday, February 07, 2013

North Carolina Remembers Chancellorsville


Well I finished North Carolina Remembers Chancellorsville yesterday. It is a collection of forty-four letters, written by Tar Heel soldiers, who fought (or had connections) to the May 1863 battle of Chancellorsville. Thirty of the letters were written within days or weeks of the battle, while the other fourteen were written in decades after the war. This is my second such endeavor, the first being North Carolina Remembers Gettysburg. I will probably work on other collections in the future

Why do I think these types of collections are important?  It gives you a chance to take what the soldiers themselves wrote, and to go and stand where they stood and see what they saw. I've done this several times at Gettysburg, like with the position of the Rowan artillery on the far Confederate right, or in retracing the steps of the 11th and 26th NCT on day one. Let me encourage you to also do this. Get a copy of the book, go figure out where the regiment or battery was (there are many really good map books on the marker), and read his words. It's like having a movie right before you.

As soon as I have information on publication date and ordering, I'll get it to you.

1 comment:

Pat Ford said...

Good work Michael. . .please keep me informed.
Percy(Pat)Ford
Raleigh, NC
pford1@nc.rr.com