Second Lieutenant, Seventy-Second New York, Detailed Superintendent Of The Mails Of The Army Of The Potomac, United States Marshal, District Of Virginia, Chief Post Office Inspector.

This is a compendium of Southern witticisms by the Confederacy's most famous humorist. First published in 1873 Bill Arp's ""Peace Papers"" collects some of the Southern humorist's best writings from the Civil War and Reconstruction era. Charles Henry Smith (1826-1903), a lawyer in Rome, Georgia, took the penname 'Bill Arp' following the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, when he wrote a satiric response to Abraham Lincoln's proclamation ordering the Southern rebels to disperse. In his letter addressed to 'Mister Linkhorn' and written in a semiliterate backwoods dialect, Smith advised the president, 'I tried my darndest yesterday to disperse and retire...but it was no go'. The 'Linkhorn' letter was reprinted in many Southern newspapers, and Smith followed it with dozens of other similarly comic pieces, all signed by 'Bill Arp'. During the war he mocked Lincoln and praised the bravery and sacrifice of the Confederates, but he also turned a disapproving eye on those Southerners - from draft dodgers to Georgia governor Joe Brown - whose actions he viewed as detrimental to the war effort. Afterward he turned his attention to criticizing Reconstruction efforts. This Southern Classics edition makes Smith's witticisms as Arp available once more, augmented with a new introduction by David B. Parker, which places the writings and their author in historical and literary context.

Second Lieutenant, Seventy-Second New York, Detailed Superintendent Of The Mails Of The Army Of The Potomac, United States Marshal, District Of Virginia, Chief Post Office Inspector.

Second Lieutenant, Seventy-Second New York, Detailed Superintendent Of The Mails Of The Army Of The Potomac, United States Marshal, District Of Virginia, Chief Post Office Inspector.

A volume in the series Economy and Society in the Modern South

From 1861 to 1903 humorist Charles Henry Smith, writing as Bill Arp, a sly Georgia back-woodsman, was the South's most widely read newspaper columnist. Knowing the immense popularity of Smith's writings historian have suggested that southerners saw him as a voice for their concerns. While the idea that Bill Arp spoke for his region is sound, the intent of the writings has been misconstrued over time, argues David Parker. In Alias Bill Arp, Parker shows that Smith was not a contented observer of the post-Reconstruction New South as is widely inferred from his most widely read work--his syndicated weekly column in the Atlanta Constitution that he began writing in 1878. Considering the full range of Smith's work, Parker says, shows him to be one of the South's harshest critics. After a brief survey of Smith's life, Parker surveys the Bull Arp writings, highlighting their major topics, and explaining what they meant to readers of that era.

An examination of the understudied, yet significant role of Florida and its populace during the Civil War. In many respects Florida remains the forgotten state of the Confederacy. Journalist Horace Greeley once referred to Florida in the Civil War as the "smallest tadpole in the dirty pool of secession." Although it was the third state to secede, Florida's small population and meager industrial resources made the state of little strategic importance. Because it was the site of only one major battle, it has, with a few exceptions, been overlooked within the field of Civil War studies. During the Civil War, more than fifteen thousand Floridians served the Confederacy, a third of which were lost to combat and disease. The Union also drew the service of another twelve hundred white Floridians and more than a thousand free blacks and escaped slaves. Florida had more than eight thousand miles of coastline to defend, and eventually found itself with Confederates holding the interior and Federals occupying the coasts--a tenuous state of affairs for all. Florida's substantial Hispanic and Catholic populations shaped wartime history in ways unique from many other states. Florida also served as a valuable supplier of cattle, salt, cotton, and other items to the blockaded South. A Forgotten Front: Florida during the Civil War Era provides a much-needed overview of the Civil War in Florida. Editors Seth A. Weitz and Jonathan C. Sheppard provide insight into a commonly neglected area of Civil War historiography. The essays in this volume examine the most significant military engagements and the guerrilla warfare necessitated by the occupied coastline. Contributors look at the politics of war, beginning with the decade prior to the outbreak of the war through secession and wartime leadership and examine the period through the lenses of race, slavery, women, religion, ethnicity, and historical memory.