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A Southern Soldier Boy (hardback)-The Diary of Sergeant Beaufort Simpson Buzhardt 1838-1862. Annotated and Edited by H.V. Traywick, Jr. The wartime diary of a Confederate infantryman who served from the outbreak of the War Between the States until he was killed in one of the Seven Days' Battles near Richmond in 1862. The diary has been illuminated with pertinent maps and illustrations, and its day-to-day immediacy has been embellished throughout with lively and colorful excerpts from D. Augustus Dickert's "History of Kershaw's Brigade" to put the diary into a broader context. Chapters include South Carolina's secession, the call to arms and the march to Virginia, the first Battle of Manassas, winter quarters in Northern Virginia, the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days' Battles around Richmond. This work gives the reader a portrait of Southern hopes in the early days of the War and introduces to the reader the stormy birth of General Lee's legendary Army of Northern Virginia. -
During the Civil War, few men had seen camels on the battlefield. But one Mississippi infantry marched into battle with Old Douglas, who served with the Bloody 43rd and died in the Siege of Vicksburg. The regiment became known as the Camel Regiment, and its soldiers carried memories of Old Douglas through the end of the war and until the end of their own lives. They went on to fight in fourteen battles, including Corinth, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Atlanta, Franklin, Nashville and Bentonville before they surrendered at war's end. Author W. Scott Bell's fascination with the Camel Regiment began because his great-great-grandfather fought with them.