A grandson of the Captain who wrote these letters to his wife has
edited the material (privately printed in 1894) which gives a
detailed diary of four years of Civil War. Captain Blackford of the
Second Virginia Cavalry gives an account of the marches,
encampments, actions in which he took part; personal portraits of
Stonewall Jackson and Loe the long years of fever and dysentery,
cold and hunger, which culminated with the fall of Vicksburg,
Chickamauga's "River of Death" and Grant's taking of Richmond. Mrs.
Blackford records the civilian concomitants of war, the scarcities
and inflation, lack of housing and transportation, the death of two
children from "fever", the premature, stillborn third, ending with
bankruptcy and loss of home and belongings....Authentic material
with a documentary value, one questions much general interest
beyond Civil War literatures addicts, and the southerners who are
still figuratively fighting that war. (Kirkus Reviews)
Charles Minor Blackford was a Virginia aristocrat who fought for
the Confederacy as much out of obligation to his class and region
as for political reasons. "Letters from Lee's Army" presents the
correspondence between Captain Blackford and his wife, Susan Leigh
Blackford, during the war. While Captain Blackford writes of the
rigors of campaigning--the dramatically bad food, the constant
dysentery, the cold and wet--we see the stoic Susan Blackford
gradually relying less and less on her husband to make decisions.
During the course of the war Susan Blackford lost her home, three
children, and her belongings to the struggle, all without the
camaraderie and sustaining sense of purpose known to the soldier.
These letters emphasize the stresses that war and separation can
place on a marriage.
Blackford enlisted in the Second Virginia Cavalry at the outset of
the war and in 1863 was posted to Longstreet's Corps. Most of his
service was in northern Virginia around the Rappahannock and the
Rapidan Rivers, in the Shenandoah Valley, and with Lee's army at
Gettysburg. In 1864 Blackford went west with Longstreet's army to
Chattanooga, and he returned with Longstreet for the war's final
days.
General
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