|
Showing 1 - 2 of
2 matches in All Departments
Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War chronicles the lives and
concerns of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore families of piedmont
South Carolina during the late-antebellum and Civil War eras
through 124 letters dated 1853 to 1865. The letters provide
valuable firsthand accounts of evolving attitudes toward the war as
conveyed between battlefronts and the home front, and they also
express rich details about daily life in both environments. As the
men of service age from each family join the Confederate ranks and
write from military camps in Virginia and the Carolinas, they
describe combat in some of the war's more significant battles.
Though the surviving combatants remain staunch patriots to the
Southern cause until the bitter end, in their letters readers
witness the waning of initial enthusiasm in the face of the
realities of combat. The corresponding letters from the home front
offer a more pragmatic assessment of the period and its hardships.
Emblematic of the fates of many Southern families, the experiences
of these representative South Carolinians are dramatically
illustrated in their letters from the eve of the Civil War through
its conclusion.
This title features Civil War letters to and from Spartanburg,
South Carolina, rich with details on the battlefront and home
front. ""Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War"" chronicles through
correspondence the lives and concerns of prominent families in
piedmont South Carolina during the late-antebellum and Civil War
eras. The 124 letters presented here were written by members of the
Anderson, Brockman, and Moore families of Spartanburg County,
neighboring planter-class families united by their shared
Scots-Irish ancestry and their membership at Nazareth Presbyterian
Church. Edited by Tom Moore Craig, a descendant of the volume's
subjects, and augmented with an introduction by Southern historian
Melissa Walker and Craig, these letters offer valuable firsthand
accounts of evolving attitudes toward the war as conveyed between
battlefronts and the home front. The majority of the letters were
written by or to John Crawford Anderson, Andrew Charles Moore, and
Thomas John Moore - contemporaries drawn together by their common
dedication to the Confederate cause. The earliest letters in this
collection were written by these young men and their relatives from
boarding schools, South Carolina College, the Citadel, Limestone
College, and the University of Virginia Law School. Andrew Charles
Moore's letters describing his travels to Washington, D.C., and New
York in the spring of 1860 give insight into the prevailing
politics of the nation on the cusp of division. The wartime
correspondence begins in 1861 as the men of service age from each
family join the Confederate ranks and write from military camps in
Virginia and the Carolinas. Letters describe combat in the battles
of Five Forks, First and Second Manassas, the Wilderness,
Secessionville, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and Seven Pines. Though
the surviving combatants remain staunch patriots to the Southern
cause until the bitter end, their letters show the waning of
initial enthusiasm in the face of the realities of combat, loss of
lives, and supply shortages. The letters from the home front offer
a more pragmatic assessment of the period and its hardships.
Embedded in this dialogue are valuable elements of social and
economic history, including references to popular music and
literature, accounts of fundraising efforts to sustain the war, and
laments on the fluctuating prices and availability of staple crops
and commodities. Included as well are two letters by family slaves
who accompanied their masters to war, rare finds as it was illegal
in South Carolina to teach slaves to read and write. The collection
ends with John Crawford Anderson's letter home from Appomattox,
Thomas John Moore's poignant story of his return from a prison camp
on Johnson's Island on Lake Erie, and a letter from cousin John
Cunningham outlining his plan to implement a sharecropping system
on his plantation. Emblematic of the fates of many Southern
families, the experiences of these representative South Carolinians
are dramatically illustrated in their letters from the eve of the
Civil War through its conclusion.
|
|