The Death of a Confederate: Selections from the Letters of the Archibald Smith Family of Roswell, Georgia, 1864-1956

The Univ. of Georgia Press, 1996. Hardback. Collectible: Very Good. 1st Edition / 1st Printing VERY GOOD in very good dust jacket. Large bump on the top edge of the cover. No marks in text. Light wear on dust jacket. Binding is tight and square. . . . . . . . . FROM THE DUST JACKET FLAP: Spanning nearly a century, the letters in this collection revolve around a central event in the history of a southern family: the death of the eldest son owing to sickness contracted during service in the Confederate Army. The letters reveal a slave owning family with keen interests in art, music, and nature and an unshakable belief in their religion and in the Confederate cause. William Seagrove Smith was a private in the signal corps of the Eighteenth Battalion, Georgia Infantry. Smith was part of the force defending Savannah until it fell in late 1864, and then marched with General William J. Hardee in his famous retreat out of the city and through the Carolinas. Like so many other soldiers on both sides of the conflict, William Smith fell not at the hands of an enemy but from disease. He died in Raleigh, North Carolina, on July 7, 1865. A parallel and complementary story about William's younger brother, Archibald, also emerges in the letters. As a cadet at Georgia Military Institute, Archibald was (as his parents fervently wished) exempt from service; however, he ultimately saw--and survived--action before the war's end.