On the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War, award-winning author Frye Gaillard reflects on the war--and the way we remember it--through Letters written by his family, including his great-great grandfather and his two sons, both of whom were Confederate officers. connections and flaws in Southern history that earlier generations couldn\'t bear to face.". . .
Oddly, mine was also the one of the first generations to view the Civil War through the lens of Civil rights--to see . . . "My own generation," he writes, "was, perhaps, the last that was raised on stories of gallantry and courage . "Who can measure the troubles--the affliction--it has brought upon us all?" To this real-time anguish in voices from the past, Gaillard offers a personal remembrance of the shadow of war and its place in the haunted identity of the South. "Oh, this terrible war," wrote his great-great-grandfather, Thomas Gaillard.
But as he read through Letters collected by members of his family, he confronted a far more sobering truth.
As Gaillard explains in his introductory essay, he came of age in a Southern generation that viewed the war as a glorious lost cause.
On the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War, award-winning author Frye Gaillard reflects on the war--and the way we remember it--through Letters written by his family, including his great-great grandfather and his two sons, both of whom were Confederate officers
