Attached is a "psychographic" essay from Confederate Portraits (1914) by the noted biographer, Gamaliel Bradford (1863 - 1932). It must have been written in order to expose to the reading public that softer, more sensitive Raphael Semmes (1809 - 1877) that no historian ever seems to consider. This vision of the American Civil War pirate comes off as a quiet, pious Renaissance man, with a flare for the dramatic.
"Semmes was not only a wide reader in his profession and in lines connected with it, but he loved literature proper, read much poetry and quoted it aptly. He was a singularly sensitive to beauty in any form."
This book review is a wonderful read, punctuated with interesting descriptions of the Civil War's most prominent players. The book in question is The Sunset Of The Confederacy by former Confederate General Morris Schaff (1840-1929), author of The Battle of the Wilderness (1910).
Attached is the The Dial Magazine book review of Elijah R. Kennedy's "The Contest for California in 1861". Kennedy maintained that "a large party in California and Oregon sought to deliver that region to the Southerners" and might have succeeded were it not for the efforts of one Colonel E.D. Baker.
Click here to print American Civil War chronologies. When the Civil War broke out, Alan Pinkerton (1819 - 1884) was given charge of the Union Intelligence Service, having previously gained tremendous credibility as a detective in Chicago. It was at this post, early in the war, that he was assigned a task by General George McClellan (1826 - 1885) to proceed south of the Ohio River in order to gain a more thorough understand as to the loyalties of those people. Pinkerton first wrote about this mission in his Civil War memoir, A Spy of the Rebellion.
Click here to read another account of Civil War spying.
A book review from 1911 covering the Civil War memoirs of the Confederate Brigadier General Johnson Hagood (1829 - 1898) who fought many battles during that conflict, most notably Cold Harbor and the battles of Weldon Road and Bentonville. At war's end he surrendered to General Sherman. On the first anniversary marking the American intervention into the First World War Charles Payne of Grenell College, Iowa, wrote to the editors at The Nation and cautioned his fellow-Americans to remember the conduct and humility of Civil War General Robert E. Lee.
Click here to read about the heavy influence religion had in the Rebel states during the American Civil War.
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