Customer Reviews

A Thrilling Narrative: The Memoir of a Southern Unionist (Civil War in the West)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is well known that during the Revolutionary War there was a substantial portion of the population that remained loyal to England. Even though I was born and grew up in Louisiana I did not know that there were 'Unionists' in the area that remained loyal to the United States.

Captain Dennis E. Haynes was one such individual. Born in Ireland in 1819, he came to the US sometime in the early 1830's. This makes him a 45 year old man by the time the enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1864. By the standards of the time, he was an old man. By the standards of an Army he was an old man.

Besides the shock of seeing the names of towns near where I grew up (and where I thought nothing had ever happened), I was surprised to see how much and how far Capt. Haynes traveled. He was always on the move, going hundreds of miles to New Orleans or Texas. In one case, trying to get to Port Hudson (near Baton Rouge) he walked in a little over a day and a night 52 miles having had only one small meal.

This book is reprinted from the original which was published in 1866 and of which only two copies are known to exist. As such it is written in the style of the time and reads a bit differently than a current book. Still, it is one of the very few personal memoirs from a southern Unionist, and the only one known from Louisiana. To the Civil War reader, this is a book on a little known aspect of the war.

While at times the book is difficult to read it illustrates an important point you cannot just draw a line in the dirt and expect everyone on one side to be loyal to this country or that country. There were people in the south that supported the Union a lot of people and the same holds true for Confederate sympathizers in the north. The Civil War is not and never was a crusader like story of armies of light from the north and soldiers of darkness from the south it is the story of incredibly human people who had to make an incredibly difficult choice. Also as the narrative will show America during the time of the Civil War was not nearly as romantic as everyone wishes it was.

The tragic part about the course of history and the passage of time is that none of those people thought to write an account as Captian Dennis E. Haynes did.

Overall-I would like to thank the captain for his account and Arthur W. Bergeron Jr. for preserving it for future generations.

A Thrilling Narrative: The Memoir Of A Southern Unionist is the memoir of Captain Dennis E. Haynes, and a rarity indeed - the true tale of a Southern unionist. Few Southern Unionists wrote of their experiences after the American Civil War, and A Thrilling Narrative is the only publication of Louisiana Unionist, and the only account of the First Louisiana Battalion Cavalry Scouts, a unit that existed for less than three months and only saw action during the Red River Campaign of 1864. In A Thrilling Narrative, Haynes speaks of how he opposed the secession of Texas and became a hunted man for it, his terrible journey to reach Union troops in Louisiana, and the cruelty that he and other Union sympathizers suffered at the hands of the Confederates. Notes and an index round out this powerful glimpse at the harrowing difficulties of taking a stand that is unpopular to one's neighbors.