"A gentleman and an officer" : a military and social history of James B. Griffin's civil war / Judith N. McArthur, Orville Vernon Burton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McArthur, Judith N.

Contributor:

Burton, Orville Vernon.

Griffin, James B., 1825-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Griffin, James B., 1825---Correspondence.

Griffin, James B.

Griffin, James B., 1825-.

Confederate States of America. Army--Officers--Correspondence.

Confederate States of America.

Confederate States of America. Army. Hampton Legion--Biography.

Confederate States of America. Army. Hampton Legion.

Confederate States of America. Army.

Biography.

Soldiers--South Carolina--Edgefield--Correspondence.

Soldiers.

History.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives, Confederate.

United States.

South Carolina--Edgefield.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Cavalry operations, Confederate.

Confederate States of America--Social conditions.

Edgefield (S.C.)--Biography.

Edgefield (S.C.).

Genre:

Personal narratives -- Confederate.

Physical Description:

xviii, 362 pages, 10 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.

Summary:

In 1861, James B. Griffin left Edgefield, South Carolina and rode off to Virginia to take up duty with the Confederate Army in a style that befitted a Southern gentleman: on a fine-blooded horse, with two slaves to wait on him, two trunks, and his favorite hunting dog. He was thirty-five years old, a wealthy planter, and the owner of sixty-one slaves when he joined Wade Hampton's elite Legion as a major of cavalry. He left behind seven children, the eldest only twelve, and a wife who was eight and a half months pregnant. As a field officer in a prestigious unit, the opportunities for fame and glory seemed limitless.

In A Gentleman and an Officer, Judith N. McArthur and Orville Vernon Burton have collected eighty of Griffin's letters to his wife Leila written at the Virginia front, and during later postings on the South Carolina coast. Extraordinary in their breadth and volume, the letters encompass Griffin's entire Civil War service. Unlike the reminiscences and biographies of high-ranking, well-known Confederate officers or studies and edited collections of letters of members of the rank and file, this collection sheds light on the life of a middle officer -- a life turned upside down by extreme military hardship and complicated further by the continuing need for reassurance about personal valor and status common to men of the southern gentry.

With a fascinating combination of military and social history, A Gentleman and an Officer moves from the beginning of the Civil War at Fort Sumter through the end of the war and Reconstruction, vividly illustrating how the issues of the Civil War were at once devastatingly national and revealingly local.

Contents:

1. "Without Counting the Cost" 3

2. Fort Sumter to Manassas 82

3. Guarding the Potomac Line 124

4. Retreat to the Rappahannock 166

5. The Peninsula Campaign 192

6. Tour of Duty Ends 242

7. On the Carolina Coast: Fifth Regiment South Carolina Reserves 248

8. Fear of Invasion: Colonel of the First South Carolina Militia 277

9. Edgefield and Texas: Rebuilding Identities 297

Family Tree 327

Table A-1 Census Profile 330

Table A-2 Wealth of Edgefield Household Heads 340

Figure A-1 Distribution of Slaves and Slaveownership 341

Table A-3 Total Tax Valuation, Tarrant County, Texas 342.

Notes:

Includes a collection of letters from James B. Griffin to his wife during his tenure in the Confederate Army.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Sheldon Hackney.

Storage copy has lengthy inscription from O.V. Burton to Sheldon Hackney on half-t.p.

ISBN:

0195093119

0195093127

OCLC:

35212771