It was forty-two years ago last spring since the first mutterings of the Civil War alarmed the country. Already several of the Southern States had withdrawn from the Union, and in the early part of 1861 it was evident that others would soon follow.

As I was born a Marylander, my early education and training pointed in one direction. My family for many years, especially on my mother’s side, had owned slaves, and I had never been taught to believe that slavery was a sin or a crime. All my early sympathies and associations were decidedly averse from these opinions.

Therefore, when the question as to the right of these States to separate peaceably from the compact formed by their forefathers was resisted and denied by one section of the country, I was not long in deciding the question for myself. I determined at once which cause to espouse, and to take up arms to defend it. I was a mere boy at the time, scarcely nineteen years of age. Two years before my mother had sent me to the University of Virginia, hoping that my education would some day fit me, in some small degree, to follow in the footsteps of my illustrious father, who, although dead ten years before the outbreak of the war, had left behind him an enviable reputation for high character and distinguished services to his State as a jurist and useful citizen.

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Reminiscences of Four Years as a Private Soldier in the Confederate Army
112 pgs.
Paperback - $12.00
CD-ROM - $15.00

Reminiscences of Four Years as a Private Soldier in the Confederate Army Paperback - $12.00
Reminiscences of Four Years as a Private Soldier in the Confederate Army CD-ROM - $15.00