Memoirs & Autobiographies

[Highfly]

Lately I've put aside my usual history books and become very interested in various memoirs and autobiographies. I've just finished "From Manassas to Appomattox" by Gen. Longstreet, which I thought was a good read, and was wondering what other things people could recommend.

I was thinking of starting "Mosby's Memoirs." Has anyone else read this?

~ Highfly

 

[johan_steele]

Hardtack & Coffee by Billings
All for the Union by Rhodes
Marching with Sherman by Hitchcock
"Co Aytch" A Side Show of the Big Show by Sam Watkins

I tend to avoid favoring those written by high muckity mucks...

 

[samgrant]

Lately I've put aside my usual history books and become very interested in various memoirs and autobiographies. I've just finished "From Manassas to Appomattox" by Gen. Longstreet, which I thought was a good read, and was wondering what other things people could recommend.

I was thinking of starting "Mosby's Memoirs." Has anyone else read this?

~ Highfly

Campaigning with Grant by Horace Porter

also Grant's memoirs.

 

[gary]

Read Lafayette McLaws' papers. Longstreet loves to throw blame at the expense of others. McLaws was one of the objects of Longstreet's attacks. McLaws (and his editor) shows that Longstreet was wrong and talks about Longstreet's later (but not largely published) admission and apology to McLaws.

John B. Gordon's book and E. P. Porter's two books (Military Memoirs of a Confederate and Fighting for the Confederacy), Richard Taylor's Destruction and Reconstruction are also worthwhile. If you want to understand Hood, Advance and Retreat (or Attack and git beat) is interesting (and naturally self-serving).

Don't pass up on reading General Grant's memoirs. HE IS A GOOD WRITER and much more enjoyable than Sherman (who fails to mention Pickett's Mill where he gawt whupped).

 

[gary]

Besides Billings (Hard Tack and Coffee), you should also read the Sad Sack of the Wa-oh, How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion. Do a search on this site and you'll find a link to the first 10 chapters. It's the calvaryman equivalent to Billings or Confederate Sam Watkin's Company Aytch.

 

[samgrant]

Read Lafayette McLaws' papers. Longstreet loves to throw blame at the expense of others. McLaws was one of the objects of Longstreet's attacks. McLaws (and his editor) shows that Longstreet was wrong and talks about Longstreet's later (but not largely published) admission and apology to McLaws.

John B. Gordon's book and E. P. Porter's two books (Military Memoirs of a Confederate and Fighting for the Confederacy), Richard Taylor's Destruction and Reconstruction are also worthwhile. If you want to understand Hood, Advance and Retreat (or Attack and git beat) is interesting (and naturally self-serving).

Don't pass up on reading General Grant's memoirs. HE IS A GOOD WRITER and much more enjoyable than Sherman (who fails to mention Pickett's Mill where he gawt whupped).

Sherman's got to be better than Sheridan's - what a disapointment!

 

[samgrant]

Read Lafayette McLaws' papers. Longstreet loves to throw blame at the expense of others. McLaws was one of the objects of Longstreet's attacks. McLaws (and his editor) shows that Longstreet was wrong and talks about Longstreet's later (but not largely published) admission and apology to McLaws.

John B. Gordon's book and E. P. Porter's two books (Military Memoirs of a Confederate and Fighting for the Confederacy), Richard Taylor's Destruction and Reconstruction are also worthwhile. If you want to understand Hood, Advance and Retreat (or Attack and git beat) is interesting (and naturally self-serving).

Don't pass up on reading General Grant's memoirs. HE IS A GOOD WRITER and much more enjoyable than Sherman (who fails to mention Pickett's Mill where he gawt whupped).

Isn't that E. Porter Alexander? he has been regarded as one of the most impartial, objectives chronicler of the war (and Gburg in particular) of all former Confederate generals who wrote about that war.

(Looks like an author with 'Porter' in his name is a good bet for a good read. But avoid any books by Porter Wagoner.)

 

[gary]

Yep Sam Grant, E. Porter Alexander, the artilleryman. I agree that Sherman's memoirs is better history than Sheridan.

For McLaws, the book I referenced earlier is "A Soldier's General: The Wartime Letters of Lafayette McLaws" edited by Oeffinger.

 

[Highfly]

Thanks for the suggestions, all...

I just finished Grant's Memoirs and to be honest wasn't all that impressed. For being the man who practically won the war and the 18th president, I would have expected more. It was good (much better than Sherman's indeed), but I felt it was superficial, like he tried to cover as much information as possible in the shortest space.

At the moment I'm reading Hancock the Superb by Glenn Tucker and am enjoying it...

 

[owilliams]

Campaigning with Grant, by Horace Porter, is one of my favorites. I have read it three times. Gracefully written and very informative.

Hancock the Superb is very good. Grant's Memoirs, of course. Frederic Lander, a natural leader, is interesting about a fairly peripheral figure who died too soon for the union. Hard Marching Every Day is worth a read. Billy Yank, about the common soldier, is some work, but worth it. If you like everyday soldiers stories, Richard Skidmore's book about Billy Davis of the Seventh Indiana Infantry is interesting. There are so many....

 

[gary]

Pvt. Henry R. Berkeley's, "Four Years in the Confederate Artillery" and William Owen's, "In Camp and Battle with the Washington Artillery of New Orleans" are both good for the perspective of an artilleryman on the Corn-fed side. Henry Kyd Douglas', "I Rode With Stonewall" is another classic in Civil War literature. Unionman Silliker's, "A Volunteer's Adventures: A Union Captain's Record of the Civil War" is a Union classic.

 

[Highfly]

Has anyone read "Rebel Private Front and Rear"?

 

[gary]

Rebel Private Front & Rear? Bought my copy at Pamplin Historic Park near Petersburg and loved it. BTW, another classic for Confederate webfoots is Worsham's, "One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry."

 

[mobile_96]

Thanks for the suggestions, all...

I just finished Grant's Memoirs and to be honest wasn't all that impressed. For being the man who practically won the war and the 18th president, I would have expected more. It was good (much better than Sherman's indeed), but I felt it was superficial, like he tried to cover as much information as possible in the shortest space...

You do realize that when Grant wrote him memoirs, he was dying of throat cancer, barely finishing before passing away. It was also written well after the war using records rounded up for him, and from his memory, something we all know is affected by time.
Maybe a journal or diary written at the time everything was happening would have been better reading, or not. He wrote in the same manner of the orders he had written up, straightforward and concise.
I've read it at least twice and enjoyed it. Even with its 'errors' the Memoir has been rated very highly by many scholors and historians.
Just an opinion, from one that has read many memoirs and diaries.
Chuck in IL.

 

[Highfly]

You do realize that when Grant wrote him memoirs, he was dying of throat cancer, barely finishing before passing away. It was also written well after the war using records rounded up for him, and from his memory, something we all know is affected by time.
Maybe a journal or diary written at the time everything was happening would have been better reading, or not. He wrote in the same manner of the orders he had written up, straightforward and concise.
I've read it at least twice and enjoyed it. Even with its 'errors' the Memoir has been rated very highly by many scholors and historians.
Just an opinion, from one that has read many memoirs and diaries.
Chuck in IL.

I know, but unfortunately I didn't take that into account while reading and I should have, but for whatever reason, it wasn't what I was expecting. Given the circumstances under which it was written, it was good. Perhaps I'll give it another go in a couple of months.