REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR. BY JUDGE JNO. W. STEVENS. A SOLDIER IN HOOD'S TEXAS BRIGADE, ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA.
Hillsboro, Texas: Hillsboro Mirror Print, 1902. Original pale blue cloth with minor wear. Title stamped in gilt on front cover and spine. Portrait frontis of the author on glossy paper, followed by 213, [1 blank] pp. Occasional minor ghosting, inner hinges a bit tender. Very Good plus.
Stevens dedicates his book to "The Women of the South, The True Heroines of the War, Who Kept House while we Fought." Seven "old soldiers of Lee's army" attest to the accuracy of "these sketches, as to events, marches, battles and movements of the army." The Seven "were either members of Hood's Division" or "in Northern prisons at the same time Judge Stevens was, or subsequent to the times he writes about."
"Instead of the usual battle accounts, Stevens gives a personal view of life in Hood's Brigade, providing numerous anecdotes and colorful observations" [Parrish]. "The work is a classic, both among Texas Civil War literature specifically and Civil War literature in general" [Sloan].
"As I look back over the intervening years, and contemplate the scenes of that day, it brings up many sad memories. Some things in that list I could wish had never occurred, others are held as sacred memories in the mind-casket, only to be looked at occasionally, as we would look at a lock of hair or some other little trinket, once possessed by a dear one long since gone" (p. 7).
"Stevens was promptly made a captain once the war was imminent and raised a company in Liberty County; they eventually marched to Richmond as part of Hood's 5th Company. His first significant engagement was in Lee's defeat of McClellan in that area and in the subsequent battles which ensued as the Federals retreated to Washington. By the time the fighting reached Winchester, Virginia, he notes, 'two-thirds of our brave Texas boys have gone down in battle and. . . their remains now lie buried in soldiers graves on the field of Sharpsburg' (p. 76). He then participated in the Confederate victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
Stevens was captured at Gettysburg's Little Round Top on 2 July. His War ended then and there with the bayonet charge of Colonel Joshua Chamberlain’s Union troops. "At this point in the narrative the most unusual aspect of the story begins, when Stevens is imprisoned at Fort Delaware and then Point Lookout, a situation that occupies several chapters and is replete with interesting details on life in federal prisons, including remarks on turncoats and the African-American troops used to guard them" [Sloan].
Beginning at page [199], with a separate title page, Stevens offers his 'Analysis of the Negro Problem, a Result of the War.' He considers "the race question" a "monster, and, like Banquo's Ghost, it will not down. No country on earth has ever had just such a monster to contend with." Granting suffrage to the freedmen has been "a great mistake," conferred "not for the benefit of the negro, but as a move on the chess-board of party politics." He argues that "We of the South dealt more successfully with the negro up to 1865 than any race has ever dealt with another race on the same soil since the dawn of history."
FIRST EDITION. 22 Dorothy Sloan 132. Howes S970 'aa.' 2 Dornbusch 1093. Parrish, Civil War Texana: A Bibliography of Outstanding Rare Books 94. Not in LCP or Nevins. Item #41563
Price: $2,000.00