Voices from Company D: Diaries by the Greensboro Guards, Fifth Alabama Infantry Regiment, Army of Northern Virginia [Hardcover]

G. Ward Hubbs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 2003

An unprecedented contribution to the field of Civil War history, Voices from Company D collects writings from the diaries of eight members of the Greensboro Guards, Fifth Alabama Infantry Regiment. Woven into a single chronological narrative, these writings provide a unique perspective not only on many of the war's battles and campaigns but also on aspects of life and culture in the nineteenth-century South, including friendship and kinship, duty and honor, and commitment and sacrifice.

As part of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Guards marched under Stonewall Jackson and Jubal Early and fought throughout the war in such battles as Seven Pines, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, and finally Petersburg, where all but one of the Guards were captured.

Readers will find singular descriptions of the towns and countryside the men saw, of battlefields and camps, of civilians caught in the path of the war. The diarists also commented on such topics as politics, religion, the home front, the presence of slaves alongside the troops, prices and inflation, troop morale, and leisure activities from reading to gambling. While the diaries impart a wealth of information about critical military engagements, they also convey the full range of the wartime experience: from terror to boredom, pride to regret, victory to defeat.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I know of nothing quite like this book—no comparable body of testimony from one Civil War company, North or South."--Gary W. Gallagher, author of Lee and His Army in Confederate History

"This is the most extensive and valuable set of documents on a single Confederate company that I have ever seen."--George C. Rable, author of Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!

"The strength of the journal entries, and thus of the book, is their thoroughness and, due to the educational background of some of the diarists, their clarity. Careful editing of the work of multiple diarists makes the end result a wonderfully detailed company history in the participants' own words . . . A significant contribution to the study of the South, the Civil War, and the meaning and importance of community in historical context."--Georgia Historical Quarterly

"Taken together, Hubbs’s books make important contributions to our understanding of both the region and the era."--North Carolina Historical Review

"G. Ward Hubb's two volumes . . . are fascinating testaments to the meaning of community in the Deep South. . . . Whether examined separately or in tandem, both works make a significant contribution to the study of the South, the Civil War, and the meaning and importance of community in historical context."--Georgia Historical Quarterly

"[An] excellent pair of companion volumes . . . Together these two books provide interesting concepts and useful resources that should be of value and interest to scholars of the Civil War and the South.”--Alabama Review

"Voices from Company D is an excellent and unique contribution to the personal histories of the soldiers of the Civil War."--Blue & Gray Magazine

"What is ingenious about G. Ward Hubbs's studies and really distinguishes them is that he places the main concern of the once new social history—community—at the heart of his Civil-War saga."--Florida Historical Quarterly

About the Author

G. Ward Hubbs is an assistant professor and archivist at Birmingham-Southern College and the author of a book about the Guards, Guarding Greensboro: A Confederate Company in the Making of a Southern Community (Georgia).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press (August 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820325147
• ISBN-13: 978-0820325149
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #599,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and Unique, January 26, 2004

By 

James N. Ezell II (Tuscaloosa, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voices from Company D: Diaries by the Greensboro Guards, Fifth Alabama Infantry Regiment, Army of Northern Virginia (Hardcover)

The editor did a fantastic job of combining these diaries into a chronologically coherent narrative. Additionally he was very wise to preserve the non-standard spellings and minimize annotations. By doing this he preserved the spontaneous quality of the writing.

The writing skills of these diarists is quite surprising. Time and again the reader will come across details and vignettes that are astonishing. In one instance the writer (a private) takes a late night stroll and in the moonlight passes another lone stroller...Robert E. Lee. In another instance a young doctor, fighting as a private, describes his heroic attempts to save his best friend from a protracted illness only to have him die in his arms. It may well be the most poignant thing I have ever read. Other descriptions will create images that will long remain with the reader. From now on when I hear bacon frying I will think of flying miniballs!

This book is unlike anything I have ever read concerning the War Between the States. I highly recommend it.