Perhaps no experience is more fulfilling for a historian than becoming immersed in contemporary first-person chronicles, viewing dramatic happenings through the eyes of those who lived them.
Thankfully, our Civil War ancestors were avid and literate recorders of that fascinating era. We are blessed with an embarrassment of riches in diaries, letters, newspapers, memoirs, articles, reports, etc. ranging from the commander-in-chief to the lowliest soldier, sailor, and citizen.
Our challenge is to empower their voices to tell their story, distilling vivid accounts into insightful narrative history. But taken individually, these sources furnish constricted and dim views of little pieces of huge, complex events—like looking through a telescope backwards. They are subject to human vagaries of memory, perspective, bias, and personal agenda. We must interpret, fill in gaps, and provide context.
This author’s experience in writing his first book manifested the joys and struggles of dealing with these voices from the past. A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2015) relates the story of the last Confederate commerce raider.
It’s 21 degrees in Lexington, Virginia—a cold morning for a cemetery visit. It’s Stonewall Jackson‘s birthday, though, and I’m passing through town on my way to St. Louis, Missouri, for a talk later this week. (I’ll pass through Lexington, KY, later today.) I thought I should take a quick stop in Stonewall Jackson’s hometown to pay my respects. Born in 1824, he would be 195 years old today.
