This is the story of Collett Leventhorpe (1815?1889), an Englishman and former captain in the 14th Regiment of Foot. Leventhorpe came to North Carolina about 1843, settled there, and later served the Confederacy as a colonel in the 34th and 11th N.C. and brigadier general commanding the Home Guard in eastern North Carolina. Though he trained as a physician at the College of Charleston in the late 1840s, he never practiced and was a restless man, endlessly in search of fortune?before the war in the gold fields of North Carolina and Georgia, and after it in the pursuit of lost estates, art treasures and inventions. But he excelled first and foremost as a Confederate soldier. As a field commander he was never defeated in battle, and his record was marred only by his own rejection of a much deserved but very late promotion to CSA brigadier. He lies buried in the beautiful Happy Valley section of Caldwell County.

The correspondence gathered in this extraordinarily rich collection were penned by Confederate Colonel Alexander Carey McAlister and his wife, Adelaide-both of whom descended from among North Carolina's most distinguished families. These messages illustrate how extended relations supplied loved ones on the frontlines with food and clothing, while the soldiers struggled to provide for the dependents they left behind. Coping with profound hardship, these letters illustrate the McAlisters' resilience and their belief in divine providence.