Customer Reviews

Broken Fortunes: South Carolina Soldiers, Sailors and Citizens Who Died in the Service of Their Country and State in the War for Southern Independence, 1861-1865

5 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mr. Kirkland has done an excellent job of taking the often inconsistent data available on the Civil War dead from a Confederate state and put it into a format that provides a good foundation for anyone researching Confederate soldiers/sailors/citizens of South Carolina. Paging through this book is akin to the feeling one has when visiting the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. The supreme sacrifice is evident with each name and place of death. If you are researching a South Carolina Civil War unit, or soldier who was killed during the War, this book is an important addition to your library.

The previous note is obviously misplaced. Broken Fortunes is not a narrative book, but a list of 18,666 men who died while in service to South Carolina. This book is an excellent resource for researchers. John Rigdon

This is the only reference book on this topic that I have seen with such a complete compilation of data, from so many contemporary sources.

As a librarian, I rarely ever purchase a copy of reference books for myself, since I have a library right there for me to use! But this book is so good and so useful to my research into genealogy and local history that I have been looking for a copy of it to buy as a personal copy. {Hint, Hint!}

This is one of the worst books I've ever read on the Civil War or any war for that matter. The authors go on and on about points that most readers would understand after reading it once. Poorly researched, poorly written and poorly edited. Very poor all around. Terrible book.