Illustrated Confederate Reader
by By Gragg, Rod
Category: History , United States , Civil War Period (1850-1877)

Here is the Southern story of the War Between the States—in the words of the men and women who experienced it. Enhanced with almost 200 period photographs and illustrations—including many never before published—this is a personal, firsthand account of the Southern soldiers and civilians caught in the deadliest, most destructive war ever to be fought in America.From the war's romantic, heady first days, when the men of the South rushed to don the gray, to the final collapse of the Confederacy, when much of the South lay smoldering in grim ruins, The Illustrated Confederate Reader captures the reality and the drama of that terrible, memorable era of American history.The book opens with a parade of period photographs depicting the soldiers of the South as they appeared, and concludes with a pictorial essay on the South's aging veterans—young Confederates grown old, holding on to the memories of the Lost Cause.  In between—in the words of the participants, accompanied by contemporary photographs and illustrations—are depicted the daily life of Johnny Reb, the sacrifices and perils of the South's civilian population, the unforgettable elements of combat in the nation's bloodiest war, the agony of Northern prison camps, and the fiery destruction wrought against the South by Sherman's victorious, vengeful army.  Featured, too, is a biographical album of famous Confederates—Lee, Jackson, Cleburne, Morgan, Semmes, Stuart, Davis, Longstreet, and Forrest—first-person accounts of the Legends in Gray.Unique in the historiography of the War Between the States, The Illustrated Confederate Reader is a handsomely designed, freshly researched study of the epic Southern struggle for independence.  It will enthrall and delight Civil War buffs, fascinate partisans of the South, and captivate anyone interested in real-life stories from American history.