"A project of the New Georgia Encyclopedia"

The year 2011 marks the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and so the time is right for this indispensable collection of 150 key places to see and things to do to remember and to honor the sacrifices made during America’s epic struggle. Covering dozens of states and the District of Columbia, this easy-to-use guide provides a concise text description and one or more images for each entry, as well as directions to all sites.

The author of Haunted North Georgia stalks the Civil War ghosts that populate the top of the Peach State. Though Georgia was spared the hard hand of war for two years, combat arrived with a vengeance in September 1863 with the Battle of Chickamauga in north Georgia. It was the second largest battle of the Civil War and has become one of America’s most haunted battlefields, producing a long history of bizarre paranormal events that continue today. From Sherman’s notorious march to Confederate general James Longstreet’s continued inhabitance of his postwar home, Georgia is haunted by many of those who fought in America’s deadliest war. Join author Jim Miles as he details the ghosts that still roam Georgia’s Civil War battlefields, hospitals, and antebellum homes. Includes photos! “He’s a connoisseur of Georgia’s paranormal related activity, having both visited nearly every site discussed in his series of Civil War Ghost titles . . . Miles has covered a lot of ground so far from the bustling cities to the small towns seemingly in the middle of nowhere. This daunting task takes an inside look to the culture and stories that those born in Georgia grow up hearing about and connect with.” —The Red & Black

Darling, I never wanted to gow home as bad in my life as I doo now and if they don’t give mee a furlow I am going any how. Written in December 1862 by Private Wright Vinson in Tennessee to his wife, Christiana, in Georgia, these lines go to the heart of why Scott Walker wrote this history of the Fifty-seventh Georgia Infantry, a unit of the famed Mercer’s Brigade. All but a few members of the Fifty-seventh lived within a close radius of eighty miles from each other. More than just an account of their military engagements, this is a collective biography of a close-knit group. Relatives and neighbors served and died side by side in the Fifty-seventh, and Walker excels at showing how family ties, friendships, and other intimate dynamics played out in wartime settings. Humane but not sentimental, the history abounds in episodes of real feeling: a starving soldier’s theft of a pie; another’s open confession, in a letter to his wife, that he may desert; a slave’s travails as a camp orderly. Drawing on memoirs and a trove of unpublished letters and diaries, Walker follows the soldiers of the Fifty-seventh as they push far into Unionist Kentucky, starve at the siege of Vicksburg, guard Union prisoners at the Andersonville stockade, defend Atlanta from Sherman, and more. Hardened fighters who would wish hell on an incompetent superior but break down at the sight of a dying Yankee, these are real people, as rarely seen in other Civil War histories.

Requiem for a Lost City shows us the reality of Civil War Atlanta from the eve of secession to the memorials for the fallen, through the memories of a participant. Sallie Clayton would have been the same age as the fictional Scarlett O'Hara during the Civil War. Sallie Clayton's memoirs, however, are not a work of fiction but bittersweet reminiscences of growing up in a doomed city in the midst of losing a war. Although her memoirs provide invaluable detail on Civil War Atlanta, they also tell of her personal experiences on a plantation in Montgomery, Alabama, and in postwar Augusta and Athens. Sallie Clayton belonged to one of Georgia's wealthiest and most prominent families. Her memoirs are colored by the losses suffered by her family. Robert Davis's introduction to this work illustrates the background of the Claytons, Sallie's writings, and Civil War Atlanta, providing a balanced account of life at "the crossroads of the Confederacy." The introduction also provides a corrective to the popular, Gone With the Wind view of Civil War Atlanta.

In 1861 Captain James J. Morrison resigned his commission in the United States Cavalry, returned to his home in Cedartown, Georgia, and was soon authorized by the Confederate War Department to raise a regiment of cavalry. This book is the first complete history of the First Georgia Cavalry, who saw action in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and North Carolina. A regimental roster includes more than 1,600 names with details of service provided, along with pre-war service, death and burial information in some cases.

Confederate scout and sharpshooter Berry Greenwood Benson witnessed the first shot fired on Fort Sumter, retreated with Lee's Army to its surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, and missed little of the action in between. This memoir of his service is a remarkable narrative, filled with the minutiae of the soldier's life and paced by a continual succession of battlefield anecdotes. Three main stories emerge from Benson's account: his reconnaissance exploits, his experiences in battle, and his escape from prison. Though not yet eighteen years old when he left his home in Augusta, Georgia, to join the army, Benson was soon singled out for the abilities that would serve him well as a scout. Not only was he a crack shot, a natural leader, and a fierce Southern partisan, but he had a kind of restless energy and curiosity, loved to take risks, and was an instant and infallible judge of human nature. His recollections of scouting take readers within arm's reach of Union trenches and encampments. Benson recalls that while eavesdropping he never failed to be shocked by the Yankees' foul language; he had never heard that kind of talk in a Confederate camp! Benson's descriptions of the many battles in which he fought--including Cold Harbor, The Seven Days, Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg--convey the desperation of a full frontal charge and the blind panic of a disorganized retreat. Yet in these accounts, Benson's own demeanor under fire is manifest in the coolly measured tone he employs. A natural writer, Benson captures the dark absurdities of war in such descriptions as those of hardened veterans delighting in the new shoes and other equipment they found on corpse-littered battlefields. His clothing often torn by bullets, Benson was also badly bruised a number of times by spent rounds. At one point, in May 1863, he was wounded seriously enough in the leg to be hospitalized, but he returned to the field before full recuperation. Benson was captured behind enemy lines in May 1864 while on a scouting mission for General Lee. Confined to Point Lookout Prison in Maryland, he escaped after only two days and swam the Potomac to get back into Virginia. Recaptured near Washington, D.C., he was briefly held in Old Capitol Prison, then sent to Elmira Prison in New York. There he joined a group of ten men who made the only successful tunnel escape in Elmira's history. After nearly six months in captivity or on the run, he rejoined his unit in Virginia. Even at Appomattox, Benson refused to surrender but stole off with his brother to North Carolina, where they planned to join General Johnston. Finding the roads choked with Union forces and surrendered Confederates, the brothers ultimately bore their unsurrendered rifles home to Augusta. Berry Benson first wrote his memoirs for his family and friends. Completed in 1878, they drew on his--and partially on his brother's--wartime diaries, as well as on letters that both brothers had written to family members during the war. The memoirs were first published in book form in 1962 but have long been unavailable. This edition, with a new foreword by the noted Civil War historian Herman Hattaway, will introduce this compelling story to a new generation of readers.

The author of the Civil War Explorer series unearths the ghostly legends and lore that haunt Georgia’s capital city since the War Between the States. The Atlanta metropolis is one of America’s most modern and progressive cities, it’s easy to forget that 150 years ago it was the scene of a long and deadly campaign. Union general William T. Sherman hammered relentlessly against Atlanta at Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, Ezra Church, and Jonesboro. Months later, as he began his infamous March to the Sea, much of Atlanta was destroyed by fire. Thousands died in the fighting, and thousands more succumbed to wounds and disease in large hospitals constructed around the city. Today, ghosts of Atlanta’s Civil War haunt battlefields, hospital sites, cemeteries, homes, and commercial structures, all a testament to the tragic history of the city. Join author Jim Miles as he details the Civil War spirits that still haunt Atlanta. Includes photos! “He’s a connoisseur of Georgia’s paranormal related activity, having both visited nearly every site discussed in his series of Civil War Ghost titles . . . Miles has covered a lot of ground so far from the bustling cities to the small towns seemingly in the middle of nowhere. This daunting task takes an inside look to the culture and stories that those born in Georgia grow up hearing about and connect with.” —The Red & Black