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Conspicuous Gallantry - The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of James W. King, 11th Michigan Volunteer Infantry (Hardcover)
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Conspicuous Gallantry - The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of James W. King, 11th Michigan Volunteer Infantry (Hardcover)
Series: Civil War in the North Series
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A unique and fascinating collection of letters from a soldier,
planter, and journalist The Union states of what is now the Midwest
have received far less attention from historians than those of the
East, and much of Michigan's Civil War story remains untold. The
eloquent letters of James W. King shed light on a Civil War
regiment that played important roles in the battles of Stones
River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge. King enlisted in the 11th
Michigan in 1861 as a private and rose to the rank of quartermaster
sergeant. His correspondence continues into the era of
Reconstruction, when he tried his hand at raising cotton in
Tennessee and Alabama and found himself caught up in the social and
political upheavals of the postwar South. King went off to war as
an obscure nineteen-year-old farm boy, but he was anything but
average. His letters to Sarah Jane Babcock, his future wife,
vividly illustrate the plight and perspective of the rank-and-file
Union infantryman while revealing the innermost thoughts of an
articulate, romantic, and educated young man. King's wartime
correspondence explores a myriad of issues faced by the common
Federal soldier: the angst, uncertainty, and hope associated with
long-distance courtship; the scourge of widespread and often fatal
diseases; the rapid evolution of views on race and slavery; the
doldrums of camp life punctuated with the horrors of combat and its
aftermath; the gnawing anxiety while waiting for mail from home;
the incessant gambling, drunkenness, and profanity of his comrades;
and the omnipresent risk of death or crippling disability as the
cost of performing his duty: to preserve the Union. Through
meticulous research and careful editing, Eric R. Faust presents a
story that does not cease with King's muster out, or even with
Lee's surrender at Appomattox. King's postwar correspondence
illuminates the struggles of a soldier disabled by wounds, trying
to find his place in a civilian world forever changed by war. Like
thousands of other Northern soldiers, King traveled south to raise
cotton. The letters he penned on the plantation defy the timeworn
stereotype of carpetbaggers as ruthless opportunists who deprived
the South of its capital and dignity after the war. A kind twist of
fate boosted King to prominence in his home state as editor of
Michigan's foremost Republican newspaper and set him on a path to
national notoriety. Through King's remarkable rise to the national
stage, the reader gains insight into the heated political climate
of the Reconstruction era and the Gilded Age, and more generally
into the deeply complex legacy of the American Civil War.
General
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