Volume 19 of NC Troops Roster Now Available!

Volume 19 of North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster contains the unit histories and troop rosters for 6 battalions and 25 independent companies of North Carolina troops. The battalions included are Avery's, Hahr's, McLean's, Mallett's, the Salisbury Prison Guard Battalion, and Clark's Special Battalion Militia. Mallett's fought in the December 1862 Battle of Kinston. Clark's was assembled to assist in the defense of New Bern in March 1862. The independent companies included in this volume are Banks's, Bass's, Cox's, Croom's, Devane's, Doughton's, Duke's, Galloway's, Gibbs's, Griswold's, Harding's, Hoskins's, Howard's, Lanier's, Lawrence's, Lee's, Luke's, Lyon's, McDugald's, Mallett's, Myers's, Nelson's, Townsend's, Wallace's, and Warren's. Most of these companies were formed for local or special service. Duke's and Luke's companies took part in action at Fort Hatteras in August 1861. A well-researched history of each battalion/company is followed by a complete roster and service records for all who served in the unit. A thorough index concludes the volume.

 

North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, Volume 19, Miscellaneous Battalions and Companies (hardbound, pp. xiii, 516, illustrated, indexed) retails for $50 (plus shipping and N.C. sales tax). Click here to order a copy through the online Historical Publications Shop.

 

For a limited time, Historical Publications is also offering a set of the volumes 1-19 of North Carolina Troops: A Roster for $475 (plus shipping and N.C. sales tax), a 50% savings off the purchase of the nineteen volumes separately.

 

For additional information on this new title, please contact Bill Owens by telephone at (919) 733-7442, ext. 335 or by e-mail at bill.owens@ncdcr.gov. 

This is so wrong in so many places.

This is so wrong .  Find-a grave can be very useful, but this is a good example of how misleading open-sourced web sources can be. I don't know Russ Dodge, but he does not know very much about the life of Col. Charles C. Lee, and there is no telling how many individuals have been confused by his mistakes. In addition, there is no picture of Lee's actual grave marker, though it would be easy to acquire one. The moral of the story: be very careful what sources you trust! My comments are in red.

Birth:   unknown [Feb. 2, 1834]

Death: Jul. 30, 1862 [June 30, 1862]

Civil War Union Army Officer. [Civil War Confederate Army Officer.] He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1856, and was assigned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Ordnance Department. Serving in that branch for the next three years, he resigned from the Army on July 31, 1859. When the Civil war started, he was residing in his native North Carolina [Lee was born in Charleston, South Carolina], and offered his services to the new Confederacy. Mustered into the 1st North Carolina Infantry regiment, he participated in the conflict's first land battle at Big Bethel, Virginia on June 10, 1861. [Lee was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the 1st North Carolina Volunteers, May 11, 1861. He was promoted to colonel of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers on September 1, 1861. Lee was mustered out of service on November 12 or 13, 1861, and elected colonel of the 37th North Carolina Troops on November 20, 1861] In November 1861 he was promoted to Colonel and assigned to command the 37th North Carolina Infantry regiment. He led his men in the March 1862 New Berne Campaign and the May-June 1862 Peninsular Campaign, commanding a demi-brigade at the Battle of New Berne on March 14 and at the Battle of Hanover Court House on May 27. He was in command of his regiment during the Seven Days Battles in the last week of June 1862, and was mortally wounded on June 30, 1862 at the Battle of Glendale [Frasier's Farm, technically] when he was struck by an artillery shell while leading his men in a charge on Union positions. His father, Stephen Lee, commanded the 16th North Carolina Infantry during the war, and his cousin, Stephen Dill Lee, would finish out the war as a Lieutenant General in the Confederate Army. Interred in Elmwood Cemetery, Charlotte, North Carolina, his family erected a cenotaph for him in Riverside Cemetery, Ashville, North Carolina. [The "cenotaph" in Riverside Cemetery is actually the gravemarker for his father, Stephen Lee. It has the names of his sons on it.]

Fort Anderson Celebrates the "Navy Way" Feb. 15-16

WINNABOW, N.C. -- Take to the high seas and explore the "Navy Way" during the 149th Anniversary of the Fall of Fort Anderson Feb. 15-16, at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site. Visitors can experience the life of sailors on land during the American Civil War.

 

Some sailors were attached to the torpedo service and others to posts not shipboard, but on shore. Demonstrations will include weapons, equipment and torpedo firings. Civil War torpedoes were not today's self-propelled explosives, but fixed water mines, and will be detonated throughout the day. In addition to the navy, the North Carolina Artillery Battalion will demonstrate the role of field artillery with maneuvers and firing guns during the day.

 

There will also be cavalry, civilians and sutlers to sell period merchandise. In addition, there will be an unveiling ceremony Feb. 15 for two new wayside exhibits: "Yankee Catchers & Infernal Machines" (Obstructions and Torpedoes in the Cape Fear) and "The Big Guns of Fort Anderson."

 

Brunswick Town was the first permanent settlement on the Lower Cape Fear River, established in 1726 as a port town. The town was attacked and captured by Spanish privateers in 1748 and was the site of the Stamp Act Rebellion in 1766. Partially burned by British in 1776, it was abandoned by the end of the Revolutionary War. In 1862, Confederate forces constructed Fort Anderson on part of the town. 

 

Today, one can tour ruins of buildings and houses that lie along the shaded scenic tour trail.  Other attractions include the majestic ruins of St. Philip's Anglican Church, featuring three-foot thick brick walls that recall the splendor of a bustling colonial port, and the remains of Russellborough, where North Carolina colonial governors once lived. Brunswick once was the unofficial capital of colonial North Carolina. 

 

For more information, please call (910) 371-6613, email brunswick@ncdcr.gov or visit its www.nchistoricsites.org/brunswic.

 

Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson is located at 8884 St. Philip's Road S.E. in Winnabow. Take Interstate 40 east to Wilmington where the interstate ends and becomes College Road. Then take U.S. 17/74 south/west through Wilmington. Remain on this highway to the Southport/Leland exit. Take this exit and follow N.C. 133 south for approximately 17 miles and follow the signs to Brunswick Town. From Southport take N.C. 133 north approximately 15 miles to the site.

Revisiting Branch-Lane brigade flags.

I'm perplexed. In the past, I have always written that Branch's brigade carried either state flags or First Nationals until issued battle flags in November/December 1862. Everyone remembers these flags, and one, that of the 37th NCT, was chosen to stand watch over the mausoleum of Lee at Lee Chapel in Lexington, Virginia.

Well maybe I was wrong, but I'm not sure.

One thing that has always led to this line of thinking is a general order from Branch, dated July 20, 1862, stating which battle honors were to be inscribed on the flags of the brigade. Branch ends the missive with: "The Quartermaster of the Brigade will furnish flags inscribed as above." To me, that means they received new flags.

However, I received something the other day that has me perplexed. Nicholas Gibbon, who served as a staff officer in the 28th NCT and on Branch-Lane brigade staff, wrote in his diary/memoir : "on the 26th [of June] just before our Brigade left camp the battle flags were handed out."

So, did the brigade get battle flags in June 1862, and again in November/December 1862? What happened to the June 1862 issue? Out of five regiments, you would think that we could find a reference to at least one of those flags being captured, sent back to Raleigh when the new flags arrived, or something.

I will confess - this is so very frustrating....

Writing about Hanover Court House (again) and site visits.

For the fourth time in my writing career, I'm chronicling the events of the battle of Hanover Court House, fought May 27, 1862, just north of Richmond, Virginia. The battle pitted an augmented North Carolina brigade under Brig. Gen. Lawrence Branch against Fitz-John Porter's V Corps. I first wrote about Hanover in my 2003 book, The Thirty-seventh North Carolina Troops: Tar Heels in the Army of Northern Virginia. This was followed by an article on the battle that appeared in America's Civil War in 2006, and a book that same year entitled The Battle of Hanover Court House: Turning Point of the Peninsula Campaign. Since Hanover was the first official battle of Branch's brigade, it will feature prominently in this new history of the Branch-Lane brigade on which I am currently working.

To be honest, there might be more about the battle of Hanover in this new book than any other battle. After Hanover, Branch's brigade became an official part of the Light Division. At most battles after this, the brigade functioned as a whole. At Hanover, the Twenty-eighth Regiment was fighting near the Kinney Farm house, while the Thirty-third, Eighteenth, and Thirty-seventh Regiments were fighting a disjointed action near Peak's Turnout and the intersections of the New Bridge and Ashcake Roads. And, for the Twenty-eighth and Eighteenth regiments, this was the first time they experienced combat: lots of material to draw from.

Last year, I wrote a great deal about steps to take for writing a regimental history. One of those steps I might not have reiterated enough is this: when writing, it is extremely important to visit as many places as your regiment might have fought. Visiting sites gives you a greater understanding of the land on which these men fought. For the Thirty-seventh Regiment (and for the Branch-Lane brigade), I believe I have visited every battlefield, save Chantilly. From the maps I have seen, their portion of the field of battle is in a subdivision, likewise for the 58th NCT. I visited every field, save some of the non-existent trenches around Atlanta. While in some cases the fields themselves have changed (take the famous charge on July 3, 1863, at Gettysburg), visiting these places (with maps in hand) is really important.

What's so special about the 7th Regiment?

I recently sat down and looked through the rosters of the regiments in the Branch-Lane Brigade during the months (February - April 1862) that they were re-organizing, transitioning from twelve-month regiments to three-years-or-the-war regiments. Part of the Conscription Act was the provision that regiments could re-organize, electing new officers.

In the 33rd NCT, there was a small amount of movement, none of which I can say for certain was a part of the re-organization of that regiment.

In the 37th NCT, seven officers were defeated during the re-election process. The highest ranked was Maj. W. R. Rankin. Once again, this would not be any large-scale disruption.

Not so with the 28th and 18th Regiments: fifteen (15) officers of the 28th NCT were defeated, one resigned at election time, one resigned to go into medical service, and one other was court-martialed. The highest-ranked officer to loss his re-election bid was Maj. R. E. Reeves.

The 18th NCT wins the highest turnover award. Twenty-six (26) officers were defeated, while two resigned. Two others were transferred. Defeated were Col. J. D. Radcliffe, Lt. Col. O. P. Meares, and the adjutant C. D. Myers. Seven (7) of the ten (10) company captains lost their positions.

But, what has me stumped, is the 7th NCST. Not one of the regiment's field grade or company grade officers lost his position in that time frame due to being defeated during the re-election campaign. Did the 7th Regiment not re-elect new officers? Were they not eligible? Were they all totally amazing officers that the men adored? Time to go do some more reading and digging!

Underwriter Expedition Symposium and Navy Living History at CSS Neuse Feb. 1

KINSTON, N.C. – The CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretive Center will host the USS Underwriter Expedition Symposium and Navy Living History Saturday, Feb. 1, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The program will commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the Underwriter Expedition. Registration is now open until Jan. 24 and has limited seating. A boxed lunch from Our Picnic Basket will be included in the $10 registration fee due by Jan. 24. Please call 252-522-2107 or email cssneuse@ncdcr.gov to register.

In this exciting expedition in February 1864, the Confederates sought to challenge Union control of New Bern. Since 1862 the Federals had occupied the coastal town and limited Confederate operations in the region. This spectacular naval attack on the USS Underwriter was the most daring undertaking of many of the crew of the CSS Neuse and proved that, even late in the war, Union control could be challenged.

The symposium will feature a presentation by Jeff Bockert at 10 a.m. about the larger campaign the USS Underwriter Expedition was a part. Andrew Duppstadt will speak about the naval attack and involvement of crewmembers from the CSS Neuse at 1 p.m. At 2:30 p.m., Matthew Young will address the attack on the USS Water Witch in Georgia, a similar operation to the Underwriter Expedition, in which CSS Neuse sailors had been involved. Registration is required.

The Carolina Living History Guild will provide Civil War naval displays, living history and costumed interpretation. The living history is free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

At the CSS Neuse Interpretive Center, learn about the ironclad gunboat and watch as a new museum takes shape. The Confederate Navy launched the ill-fated CSS Neuse in a futile attempt to regain control of the lower Neuse River and the city of New Bern.

The CSS Neuse Interpretive Center is located at 100 N. Queen St., Kinston, N.C. Hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Gov. Caswell Center is located at 2612 W. Vernon Ave., Kinston, N.C. Hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. 4 p.m. The sites are closed Sunday and Monday, and most major holidays.

For information, please contact Holly Brown at 252-526-9600 ex. 222 or email cssneuse@ncdcr.gov. Visit the site on Facebook at the “CSS Neuse” or “Gov. Richard Caswell Memorial State Historic Site” pages. The sites are administered by the Division of State Historic Sites within the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

Publishing your regimental history

Over the past few weeks, I've endeavored to share what I have learned in writing regimental histories. As you probably know, I've written two, one on the 37th NCT (ANV) and one on the 58th NCT (A of T). Both of these received several good reviews.  And right now, I am working on my first brigade-level history. In many ways, it is harder. I now have five regiments to keep up with, instead of just one. It has been my hope through this blog series to help you realize the amount of background work that goes into the process, and maybe inspire one or two folks to try their own hands at writing regimental histories.

So, supposedly you decide to write a regimental history. First, make sure no one has written about that regiment in the past twenty or thirty years. If they have, it will be hard to pitch it to a publisher. We'll talk more about that in a minute.

I'll not comment much on the actual writing process. When you write and how you do it is up to you. However, I will make these two observations. Back up  frequently. Go invest in some type of external hard drive - if something happens to your main computer, you'll be glad that you did (I learned this the hard way). Second, notes, like end notes or footnotes, are mandatory!!! We readers want to know where you got your information. A regimental history without these tools is worthless. If you cannot take the time to document what you are dong, please do not even start. Personally, I create a note for almost every paragraph that I write. And, I create the note while I am writing the text. I simply stick the documentation in brackets at the end of each paragraph. Right before the book goes to the publisher, I go back and take the information that is in brackets, assign the note a number, and drop the note into a separate document. Once I have all of that done, I copy the document and drop it into the end of the manuscript.

At some point in the writing process, you'll need to start thinking about a publisher. You can either go a traditional route with a "real" publisher, or you can publish it yourself through a Print on Demand (POD) company. The traditional publisher offers some advantages, like catalogs that go to libraries and the ability to get your book into distribution companies that serve places like Barnes and Noble. They will also do the set up and provide some level of editing and proofreading. They should also send out review copies, and might occasionally run an ad in one of the glossy magazines. All of that sounds great - except, there are very few publishers who will want to publish a regimental history. These types of books have small interest among readers, and many publishers will shy away from publishing them. Another problem is that most traditional publishers only pay authors 10% royalties on the price for which they sell the book. If your book has a $21.99 list price, then the wholesale price is $13.20. You as the author make $1.30 per book sold at Barnes and Nobles. Most  publishers will sell you the same book for 40 percent of the list price, meaning you now make more $$$ (but you usually only get the 40 percent if you buy in bulk).

Considering that you will need to do the majority of the work when it comes to marketing and selling your book, PODs can be an alternative.  (In the publishing workshops that I have taught, I tell folks that writing and publishing a book is the easy part; selling is the hard part!) A disclaimer - while I have used PODs on a couple of small projects, I have never tried to POD a regimental history. With POD publishers, you can either do all of the work (layout, covers) yourself, and upload it to the company, or, you can purchase a packaged deal that will design and layout the book for you. Most PODs sell from their own storefronts, and most PODs will get your book listed on Amazon. Unlike the old vanity presses, you can order one book from a POD company, or you can order 1,000 books from a POD company. And you can order at any time. In the long run, you will make more money, but you also have to send out your own review copies and do your own marketing.  The problem that almost every reviewer has with POD book is poor proofreading, or the lack of editorial services.

So I guess this leads me to my final point in this series. Regardless of whether you choice a traditional press or a POD, you need readers. You need someone who will read the entire manuscript and give you an honest opinion about the work. It is best to use friends, and not family. Your mom is probably going to think the whole thing is wonderful. A reviewer well versed in the war is going to nail you on having the battle of Gettysburg in 1683 instead of 1863 or a prominent general's name spelled wrong (is it Breckinridge or Breckenridge?).  A good reader will help you catch silly typos created at the whim of the spell checker, like the nefarious bridge/brigade trap, and will tell you if there are parts of the manuscript that simply do not make sense. I always ask my readers to make sure it make sense - it all makes sense in my head. I've lived with certain projects for years, and I'm able to make leaps of logic because I see the story before (and as I am) writing it. Sometimes, you might want to approach other historians who are experts on certain battles or campaigns and ask them to read portions of the book. This type of feedback is critical. And finally, especially if you chose the POD route, you need to have someone (or maybe two someones) read the manuscript for grammar.  Personally, I always want someone to catch something that is wrong, or not clear, or wordy before it goes out into the general public. After finishing a manuscript, I always try and let it sit for a week or two or three and then go back, print it out, and re-read it, often out loud. It is amazing what you can catch.

Well, I guess that is about it. Maybe, as I work on the Branch-Lane project, I will discover some other tidbits that I can share.

Happy research and writing!

Rooting around online, or, looking for digital resources

Back when I was working on my first book, the internet was just becoming popular. At the same time, I was working in the library at the Watauga Campus of Caldwell Community College. One of the biggest pieces of advice we gave our patrons was that unless the information came from a credible source, they should not use it. While I left the library a number of years ago, the same thing is still true: be very wary of information, generally speaking, that you find online.

That being said, there are a few online resources that are incredibly helpful to a researcher/writer. I will not cover every site that I use, just a few of them.

Probably the two most useful are the Making of America site and fold3.

The Making of America (MOA) is a "digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction." I use this site the most to access the War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, often referred to simply as the ORs. There are 128 volumes of ORs, and, thanks to this web site, they are all searchable. You will find within the ORs the reports of officers after the battles, general and special orders, and communications between officers. Of course, not everything is in the ORs. Some of it is still lost, but I would consider this source indispensible. You can access that database here, and it is free! As an aside, several years ago, Broadfoot published a Supplement to the Official Records, but that is currently not online.

While MOA is free, fold3 is a subscription database. It is the best money I spend every year. Fold3 has an incredible amount of material on it, but I primarily use it to access the Compiled Service Records of Confederate soldiers. In the past, if you wanted the look at your ancestor's compiled service records, you had to either write the National Archives, or visit one of the libraries that had the information on microfilm. For me, that meant going to Salisbury or Raleigh. Fold3 has all of that information digitized. You go to the site, and click on Civil War, compiled service records, Confederate, North Carolina, Thirty-seventh regiment, and say, the letter B to access all of the soldiers in that regiment whose surname start with the letter B. If you are going to write a regimental history, you need to go through every single slip of paper. You can find returns for equipment and food, extracts from court cases, resignation letters, and all kinds of bits and pieces that will make your project that much more interesting. You can also access the Compiled Service Records for generals and their staffs - do not over look these files! Is it time consuming? Yes! But it pays off. You can access that site here.

Probably the other sites I use often are historic newspaper databases. There are several. There is the Library of Congress site, which is very easy to use, but they have no North Carolina newspapers on it right now. There is also a site from Archives and History that has the war-time Salisbury newspapers, but I find this site hard to use. These two sites are free. Other sites, such as www.newspaperarchive.com and http://www.genealogybank.com/ are also good and have North Carolina newspapers, but these are subscription sites. I use as many different sites as possible, and I look broadly. At times, veterans moved off to other states after the war, and left reminisces of their service in their new hometown newspapers. Once again, this is very time consuming, but it often pays off!

The other set of resources that I find really helpful are online book databases, like Google books and NetLibrary. When I was researching the Civil War Charlotte book, I sat down with Google books, and typed in "Charlotte, North Carolina, 1861." I went through every year of the war, while also using terms like "Civil War," "Reconstruction," etc., etc. There are tidbits hidden in books to which I normally do not have access. Once again, it just takes time to find them. At times, Google books will only give you a rough idea of what is in the book, but at least I know that the book exist, and I can go and find the book through traditional means (like a library).

A final set of online sources might the family surname and county list. With both my projects on the 37th NCT and 58th NCT, I sat down with genforum.com and posted the names of every single soldier that served in those two regiments, telling folks what I was working on and asking for their help. It took months (there are somewhere around 4,100 men who served in those two regiments). However, I found unpublished letters, diaries, family stories, and photographs that are not in the traditional places (like libraries). Plus, I generate a list of people who might be interested in purchasing the book. You will need to think about this type of time commitment; maybe just posting the names of officers and/or NCOs will be enough. The biggest thing here is getting the word out about what you are working on.

Be careful about using information found on general web searches. There are a whole lot of people who write things about their ancestors and post it online who really do not have a clue about the war/military life/civilian life, etc. They mean well, but may not have the background to properly interpret what they have read or been told. For example, I once read that times were really hard during the war years because this person's ancestor only got paid every two months.... Well, the war years were hard, but according to military regulations (North and South), everyone only got paid every two months.

Happy hunting!

Looking for primary sources

In 2004, Robert K. Krick reviewed my first book, The Thirty-seventh North Carolina Troops, a review that appeared in America's Civil War. In this review, Krick wrote: Michael C. Hardy's The Thirty-seventh North Carolina Troops: Tar Heels in the Army of Northern Virginia (McFarland & Company, Jefferson, N.C., 2003, $45) mines such hidden riches in gratifying detail. The author unearthed dozens of accounts, from a wide range of locations, by the soldiers in a regiment that fought steadily at center stage throughout America's Civil War."  I have always believed that this is one of the highest honors ever paid to a piece of my work.

So how do you find these "dozens of accounts, from a wide range of locations?" You do some serious digging.

The big libraries are the easiest. If you are working on a Confederate regimental history, you need to research the collections of the Southern Historical Society at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Perkins Library at Duke, and the North Carolina Archives in Raleigh. If you are working on a regimental history from another state, you still need to look at Duke and at UNC-Chapel Hill. These are the best collections around. For the collections at Universities, go to your local library (or use NCLive) and look at a database called WorldCat. You will need to do a subject search on your regiment. That should produce a list of materials at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and other institutions. You can also use the MARS database online from the North Carolina archives. All of that being said, don't limit yourself by a subject search. Also search for persons, like the names of the field and staff of each regiment. For instance, when I was working on the 37th NCT book, I discovered they had the letters of Major Bost, but his service in the 37th NCT was not listed on the subject search. And they were good, 1864 letters. It can be difficult to find 1864 materials. It is extremely important that you have as much of this material on hand before you begin writing. You don't want to have to go back and write material because you found something new. It is also unavoidable. I was humming along on the 37th NCT project, about half-way finished, when I discovered the letters of Dr. John B. Alexander at UNC-Charlotte. Alexander wrote his wife about once a week from late 1861 through mid-1863. This was an incredible find, and I was forced to go back and re-write portions of the book I had already finished. In all of my travels, I have never really found an institution that was not helpful. That being said, keep this in mind. Most institutions will not allow photocopies of their material. You will need to take a digital camera and photograph the items. It was not always this way, but it is now.

On your check list should be:
Southern Historical Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill

Perkins Library, Duke University

The United States Army Military History Center

Museum of the Confederacy

University of Virginia

National Archives/Library of Congress

(and state archives)

So, those are the big institutions. You also need to visit every community ibrary and local historical society for places that had a company or large body of men in the regiment. You can try to email them and ask what they have, but library staffs are stretched thin these days. The person answering the email might not be familiar with the local history sections. Some libraries have great local history collections - the public libraries in Burke, Iredell, Wilkes, and Rowan come to mind. Sometimes you will find a local history librarian who can help you with your search, but often, you will need to jump in yourself.

County histories might have information on the enlistment of local companies, or, even better, copies of war-time letters. Occasionally, you will find a Civil War history of a particular area, but these are rare. Some libraries have files of newspaper clipping related to the war in that area. These can be (but not always) treasures that need to be mined. Probably the greatest un-mined resource, and the most daunting, are family histories. At the minimum, you need to look at the men who served as officers and see if there are hidden letters and/or reminiscences in these books and file folders. You may need to look through 30 or 40 folders to find one little piece, but it may be a good piece. A personal story - I was recently at a public library and was cruising through published family histories, very carefully putting them back on thes helves. A well-meaning librarian walked in and asked me not to re-shelve the books. I asked her if she was sure, and she said yes, that that was their policy, showed me that there were signs to that effect, and implied that I probably could not read. Ok I said, and I continued my search, not re-shelving the books. I thumbed through two entire book cases of family histories, looking for letters, and I found a few. I wonder, when she returned, she regretted that, as I left them all on three different tables.

An additional place to look are the publications of local historical societies. At times, they will publish letters from local soldiers.

A final type of place on this list are the National Battlefield Parks. If you are researching something in the western theater, check with the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Park. If your project is in the Eastern Theater, the offices at Richmond and Fredericksburg have incredible resources. I always try to take things to share - letters that I have uncovered that they might not have.

Part two of this discussion will cover online resources.

 

Writing a regimental history: Academic versus Interpreter

So who is best suited to write a regimental history, a professor, or maybe a historical interpreter? Well, both, and neither. But before we tackle that question, let's look at another: who is going to be reading that regimental history?

There are only a handful of really famous regiments from the war years. Those that come to mind off hand are those of the 20th Maine and the 15th Alabama, famous because of Shaara's Killer Angels and the later Gettysburg movie; the 26th North Carolina, once again because famous actions at Gettysburg; the 1st/11th North Carolina (the Bethel Regiment), the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry (because those fellows carried lances), the 5th New York Volunteer Infantry, and the 54th Massachusetts. And each of those regiments already has a history of some type.

Since the list of regiments that might have a broader appeal is so limited, who is going to buy this book? The answer to that one is simple: the descendants of the men who served in that regiment. Yes, there might be a few scholars interested because of something that they are working on, and yes, there are a few collectors out there who collect just regimental histories, but the vast majority of people will have some tie to the regiment on which you are working.

Back to the original question: who is best suited to write a regimental history? An academic is going to have an edge on the research process. An academic will understand all of the places that he or she will  need to go to conduct the research and the necessary historiography hierarchy.  What does that mean? Furay and Salevouris in their 1988 book The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide define historiography as "the study of the way history has been and is written – the history of historical writing... When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians." That is what is taught to inspiring new historians in our Universities today. You do not study and chronicle the events themselves, just how our interpretations change regarding those events.  

While it is of some importance to understand how the interpretation of events has changed over time, the people who are really interested in a regimental history could care less. They are interested in how their great-great grandfathers survived the War, what he experienced, how he coped. So what an academic (in this situation) fails to bring to the table in this instance is an ability to effectively communicate to the public the  tactile information that they desire.

Someone who is an interpreter, or living historian, or re-enactor will bring a different set of skills to the process. An interpreter is highly specialized in the minute details of a soldier's life, the gear he carried, the way he lived, and often times, interpreters can effectively communicate those details to the general public. Why? Because they do on a regular basis - five days a week working with school kids at a historic site, or on weekends working with the general public.  And an interpreter will have some research skills.

While I am college educated, I believe that being an interpreter better prepared me for writing about the lives of soldiers than a college education did. I was more than just an interpreter. I planned events and living history scenarios, researched sites, and for six years, commanded an infantry battalion. Since I was so immersed in how a regiment operated, I could understand to what the soldiers were referring in their letters home and after-action reports.

Do you have to be an academic to write a good regimental history that the general public wants to read? No, but you must go a mile in the soldiers' shoes. Find a good living history group and learn what it is like to march wearing brogans and how to handle a musket or rifled-musket. Do you need to be an interpreter to write a good regimental history? No, but you must learn the academic process, how to find those good sources. We'll have more on that topic in the next post.

Last two

Friends, my last two book signings of the year are:

Thursday, December 5, 2013 - The Market on Oak, Spruce Pine, 6:00 pm.

Friday, December 6, 2013 - The Museum of Burke County History, Morganton, 11:00 am - 5:00 pm.

If you are in the area, please stop by and tell me about your Confederate ancestor!

Unpacking your toolbox (historically speaking), part two.

Looking back over my shelves, I've noticed a few other tomes that you might want to consider for your toolbox. One might be Tracy Powell's Lee's Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox. When it was released, Robert Krick believed that "This is one of the dozen best books ever written about Lee's fabled army."

Another book along those lines might be Joseph Glatthaar's General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse. I have not finished reading this book, but I can say that I disagree with his research sample. Glatthaar analyses 600 soldiers from the ANV: 400 infantry, 100 cavalry, and 100 artillery. In my opinion, a truer glimpse of the ANV's population using just six hundred men could be gained by using 500 infantry, 75 cavalry, and 25 artillery. I wonder how this tweak would have changed the final outcome?

In the past post, I failed to mention anything about prisons. I have several books on prisons North and South. I believe the standard book on the subject would be Lonnie Speer's Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War.  Another book that I have found helpful over the years is Mauriel Joslyn's Captives Immortal: The Story of Six Hundred Confederate Officers and the United States Prisoner of War Policy. This latter book explores the lives of 600 Confederate officers used as human shields by the Federal army.

As with the subject of prisoners, there are a few books that deal with the problem of desertion and/or conscription within the Confederate army. I've used Mark Weitz's More Damning than Slaughter: Desertion in the Confederate Army as my standard go-to book on the subject. An older book is A. B. Moore's  Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy.  When writing about North Carolina, I find Walter Hilderman's They Went into the Fight Cheering: Confederate Conscription in North Carolina very helpful.

Another very useful book, although not quite for regimental studies, is Buff Facings and Gilt Buttons: Staff and Headquarters Operations in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865, by J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. A second book along these lines is The Right Hand of Command: The Use and Disuse of Personal Staffs in the Civil War by R. Steven Jones. While these books deal with larger organizations, like armies, each regiment had its counterparts to the staff assignments - adjutants, assistant quartermasters, assistant commissary of subsistence, surgeons, ordnance sergeants, etc. To my knowledge, there is no modern book that covers these areas.

I've not said much about small arms. You can probably get enough details out of Nosworthy's The Bloody Crucible of War. If you want to go a little deeper, there are several books just on firearms. I've always found Joseph B. Bilby's Civil War Firearms: Their Historical Background, Tactical Use and Modern Collecting and Shooting to be more than adequate.

There are a couple of other books I would like to mention. These are the reprints of manuals of the time. I've already mentioned using the Confederate Regulations. Besides the regulations, the ones that I found most useful over the years are Kautz's Customs of Service for Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers; Campbell's The 1862 Army Officer's Pocket Companion: A Manual for Staff Officers in the Field; and, the U.S. Army's 1863 Laws of War. Each of these is a reprint. There are others, like reprints of Hardee's Light Infantry Tactics, Scott's on the same, etc., etc., but that is another post.

For background reading on a regiment, I believe that this about covers it. What have I missed?

Unpacking your toolbox (historically speaking)

This is the second part of a series on writing regimental/brigade histories, and this post is all about what you need to have in your "toolbox." Many writers have used this phrase in their discussions of the craft. When I teach writing workshops, I recommend people pick up a copy of Stephen King's On Writing. It is an autobiographical account of his writing life, along with steps and tools that he uses in crafting his books. And, On Writing is funny!

In the world of literary criticism, scholars spend a great deal of time studying about just whom an author reads. Why? Because what we read has a great deal of influence on the way we write and what we write about. When writing about a regiment, you need to have certain items in that toolbox; these tools will help you to understand the men themselves, and to some degree, how a regiment functioned. The first book on the list:

The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy by Bell Irvin Wiley. Originally released in 1943, this book has not been supplanted by any other work. Different chapters cover the men in camp, in battle, religion, letters home, etc., etc. Back in my younger years, I read this book every year. I actually re-read it last year, prepping for Watauga County, North Carolina, in the Civil War. A regiment is composed of 100 officers and 900 common soldiers, hence the importance of the book. Wiley also wrote The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union, which I also have, but I since I doubt that I will ever write a Union regimental history, we'll stick to the Confederate side. A runner-up to The Life of Johnny Reb would be Soldiers Blue and Gray by James I. Robertson.

As an aside, if you are going to be writing about the Army of Tennessee, I would recommend picking up a copy of Larry J. Daniel's Soldiering the Army of Tennessee.

Military Justice in the Confederate States Armies by Jack A. Bunch might come next on my list. Regiments contain many different facets. There are some good books out there that cover different parts of a regiment. A regiment was regulated by the Articles of War, a series of "military laws" that defined what was expected of a soldier and outlined how he was expected to act.  Bunch's book breaks down the background of military justice, charges, findings, sentencing, and punishments. Bunch published a supplemental volume, an index of men brought up on charges, and what their punishments were. As an aside, a copy of the Regulations for the Army of the Confederate States (1863) is really handy. This was the "bible" that governed day-to-day lives of regiments. This volume has been reproduced several times, so finding an original will not be necessary.

Rebel Watchdog: The Confederate States Army Provost Guard by Kenneth Radley is another piece of the puzzle closely related to Bunch's Military Justice. Radley's volume breaks down the role of the provost, writing about the origins of the provost and his duties, like dealing with passports, stragglers, prisoners, etc. While this book is not geared toward the individual regiment, having this type of material in your toolbox will help you better understand how the soldiers dealt with furloughs, straggling while on the march, etc.

Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service by H. H. Cunningham is an older book, but still the standard on the medical service (There is also a Doctors in Blue). This book will give you the basics on the medical department, not only on the battlefield, but in camp as well. Along these same lines would be books about hospitals. I would probably recommend Chimborazo: The Confederacy's Largest Hospital by Carol C. Green or maybe Richmond's Wartime Hospitals by Rebecca Barbour Calcutt.

The Story of the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War by Thomas Lowry deals with the seedier side of soldiering. You will find in some records mentions of soldiers with certain venereal diseases, especially when a regiment was stationed near to a large city. To my knowledge, this is the only book that deals with this topic in (graphic) detail.

Christ in the Camp by J. William Jones deals with those who strove to keep on the straight and narrow. While Christ in the Camp is an older book (1887), could use an index, and is probably not laid out the best, I still find it extremely useful and written by someone involved in trying to bring Christianity to the troops. There are several other books on the role of chaplains, several of which I have read, but none that really jumped out at me. For background, I might recommend God's Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War, but, it is a dense read (I've still not finished it).

The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War by Brent Nosworthy is just one book that covers fighting during the war. There are several other books in this same genre: Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War by General Linderman and Battle Tactics of the American Civil War by Paddy Griffin are two others that haunt my shelves. I personally like Bloody Crucible of Courage. While soldiers spent a great deal of time in camp, it really was the battlefield that defined them (in my opinion).

More to come in part three.........

Studying brigade histories

In the past couple of weeks, I have read Waters and Edmonds' history of the Florida brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia (A Small But Spartan Band) and James I. Robertson's The Stonewall Brigade. I must say that I found both of these books a little "light" in the research department. Neither book had any discussion of how a brigade functioned, of staff officers, or of armament. I understand that Confederate records can be sparse, but they are not that sparse. Last night, I started reading Hess's Lee's Tar Heels, a book I have owned a while, but don't recall ever reading it. I was impressed by what Hess wrote in the introduction:

"A unit history is a unique part of Civil War historiography... The ideal unit history should be complete and definitive, covering all aspects of its subject. Thus it is more than a mere recounting of that units battles; it should also describe the mobilization of manpower, the organization of the units, their acclimation to camp life, their initial combat experience, and the changing nature of the men's attitudes towards the war and the cause they fought to uphold. Ties to the home front, food, medical care, logistical support, political attitudes, social background, postwar life experiences, and many other topics ought to be covered as far as the available sources will allow."

In both of the regimentals that I have written, I've striven hard to make sure every one of those little pieces of the puzzle is portrayed within the text. I would add to Hess's list this: good maps and plentiful war-time images of the soldiers who fought in those regiments/brigades. In the books I wrote on the 37th NCT and 58th NCT, I went as far to include photographs of relics as well: flags carried, uniforms worn, gear carried, and in the case of the 37th NCT, their general and special order books. Added to this, post-war veteran reunion images, monuments the veterans helped erect, and an occasional tombstone of interest. If space allows, modern photos of places the regiment fought might be good. I did not do this in the 37th NCT book, but I added a photo or two of places in the 58th NCT book.

Up front, I can go ahead and say that there will not be any modern battlefield photos in the Branch-Lane book. I should have a surplus of war-time images from which to choose.

Since many people mention to me their own desires to write a regimental history from time to time, I think I will do a series of posts on "Unpacking your regimental toolbox." It should be a good exercise as I work on the Branch-Lane project.

Passing over the river...

Someone mentioned to me last night that we lost Michael W. Taylor a few weeks ago. Taylor, a lawyer who was living in Chapel Hill, was the author of To Drive the Enemy from Southern Soil: The Letters of Col. Francis Marion Parker and the History of the 30th Regiment North Carolina Troops (1998) and The Cry is War, War, War: The Civil War Correspondence of Lts. Burwell Thomas Cotton and George Job Huntley, 34th North Carolina Troops (1994). I don't recall having ever met Taylor, but we did correspond a few times.  You can see a short obit here.

I also learned a few weeks back that Dr. John G. Barrett passed away earlier this year. For some reason, I thought he was long gone. Barrett, whom I never met, penned the classic or standard study of North Carolina and the war, entitled The Civil War in North Carolina  (1963), along with North Carolina as a Civil War Battleground (1987), and with Buck Years, North Carolina Civil War Documentary (1980).  You can see a tribute here by one of his former students.

Barrett was obliviously the first modern scholar when it comes to North Carolina and the War, and many of us who pick up the pen today to continue the struggle of chronicling North Carolina's history rely heavily upon his work for background information.

On the road....

Friends, we'll have a few more occasions to get together and talk about the War before my almost hibernation mode sets in for the winter. Here's my schedule:

November 7 - Gen. James B. Gordon Camp, SCV, Wilkesboro, NC

November 9 - North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh

November 12 - Col Stowe Camp, SCV, Dallas, NC

November 13 - Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte

November 16 - Black Bear Books, Boone

November 19 - Elbert Ross Camp, SCV, Charlotte

December 6 - The History Museum of Burke County

I think I finally figured it out.

For years, people have asked my why I got into writing. Well, it surely isn't for the money.... Someone asked me the other day this very question, and I think I finally gave a good answer. I got into writing because I saw a need, a need to take all of these fragments of history from a hundred different sources and to put them together and tell a story. So often I say that this is their story (the people of the past), I'm just trying to get the people telling it into some type of context.

When I started working on the book on the 37th North Carolina Troops, which, by the way, came out ten years ago this year, there were what, two other modern regimental histories of Confederate regiments in North Carolina? (Those two would be the book on the 6th NCST and the book on the 11th NCT.) While there are now about a dozen modern North Carolina regimental histories, there is still a need. When I wrote that first nationally published article on Brig. Gen. Collet Leventhorpe, I saw a need. One afternoon, we were out on a ramble and stumbled across the general’s grave at the Chapel of Rest in Caldwell County. I wanted to know more about him. This new book on Watauga County and the Civil War is the same way. I saw a need.

So, as I embark on this new book venture on the Branch-Lane brigade, I am trying to fill a void - to get information from hundreds of different places, weave it together into a story, and get it into the hands of as many people as possible. It is just who I am.

North Carolina churches.

You would think, after so many years of doing this, I would still not be dumbfounded at the lack of material in some aspects of our history. Yet once again, here I am, doing a heap of background research.

For some time, I've wanted to work on a paper about the role of churches in western North Carolina and how they viewed the war, or what role they played, locally or nationally, in the war effort.  

A few months back, I read Bruce Gourley's Diverging Loyalties: Baptists in Middle Georgia During the Civil War. In looking through Gourley's bibliography, there are several articles on the role of Georgia churches during the war. Yet, in looking at places like JSTOR and NCLive, I find nothing that deals with denomination, nor any geographical area, in North Carolina, during the "Late Unpleasantries."

Why is this? Is it because I'm really the only person interested in such topics? Or does it have more to do with North Carolina being a "Progressive" state, and Progressives really aren't all that interested in the past?

So, I've been working on this paper, looking at how the western (mountain) counties reacted to the War. Maybe one day it will appear in print.

What's next....

On Monday afternoon, I dropped off at the post office manuscript number nineteen. This is a manuscript I mentioned sometime back. It deals with Grandfather Mountain, and will be a part of the Images of America series for Arcadia Publishers.

I've been taking a little time to reflect as of late, trying to figure out where to go next. Yes, I already have that next contract, a book dealing with the Branch-Lane brigade to be published by Savas-Beatie. I've been looking beyond that. Almost seven years ago, I gave up my job in a library at a local community college to write full time. And it has been an increasable experience. I've been to hordes of neat (historic) places, and met great people, and I believe, or at least hope, that I have been able to make some type of contribution to enrich the lives of people by my obsession with the past.

But it has not always been the most profitable of exercises. No, I never expected to get rich, and my writing at least pays for itself. But ever since the economy tanked, it just seems harder and harder to sell anything, even good history. So, I've been trying to step back and evaluate where I am and what I need to do next. So here are the choices that I've come up with so far:

1. Keep doing what I am doing - plugging along trying to turn out well-researched books that help preserve the past.

2. Kick up my travels a notch. Last year, I did a little over seventy public appearances. Maybe I need to try doing more events, like reenactments and civil war shows, etc. The problem with these events is that that they wear me out. I have no problems jumping into the car and driving two hours to spend another two hours with a group before coming home. I can handle that. It is the two days of almost constant conversation that wear me down. Plus, there is the added expense of traveling. For my short jaunts, I drive a Honda Civic - gets great gas millage. For a weekend event at a reenactment, I drive an F150 (crew cab, 4x4) - not so great gas millage, plus, some events charge a fee for me to set up, so the chances to make a profit are slim. If I go to a show, then there is the added expense of hotel rooms.

3.  Change my focus. I write about the Civil War (mostly) because it is what I know, what I understand, what I am passionate about. But over the past two years I have become keenly aware of how other areas of history, and other locations, suffer greatly for someone with a pen to write about that place or time period. Maybe I am that person. Maybe diversifying even more would be better.

4. Go back to school and finish that MA in history. This would at least give me a chance to adjunct teach and make a dollar or two, while still researching and writing, to a degree. Of course, it would also limit my ability to travel. Any grad schools interested in a well-published, non-traditional student?

5. Become more of an activist. If you follow me on facebook, you probably know that from time to time, I post about the lack of historical education, the lack of interest, or about the lack of people who read. Maybe I need to cut back on my writing a little to work more on getting people involved. I'm not quite sure how this would work, but it is a possibility.

6. Go find a real job - park service or historic site or something. Anyone interested in someone who has a really good understanding of mid-nineteenth century American history, with a very strong concentration in North Carolina?

So, on this rainy, blustery, cold fall day in October, that is where I am. Thoughts? Suggestions? Job Offers?