Yankee Rebel: The Civil War Journal Of Edmund Dewitt Patterson (Voices Of The Civil War) [Hardcover]

John G. Barrett (Author)

Book Description

Series: Voices Of The Civil War | Publication Date: March 12, 2004

This reprint is the journal of an Ohioan who served in the Ninth Alabama Regiment and rose from private to company commander. Describes participation in the battles of Seven Pines, Seven Days, and Fredericksburg, among others, and provides accounts of his capture at Gettysburg and his imprisonment on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie. Now with an index.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"I do not know of any other soldier account which gives a more realistic and vivid representation of what a Civil War battle was like. . . . It is of exceptional merit and interest. Its excellence is so outstanding as to set it apart from the general run of published (and unpublished) personal narrative." —Bell Irwin Wiley

"Richard B. Harwell, who knows as much about Confederate lore as anyone, finds Patterson’s diary ‘the finest personal narrative of Confederate experiences since Henry Kyd Douglas’s I Rode with Stonewall.’ Happily, Yankee Rebel, long out of print, can now be shared with new generations of readers." —from the Foreword by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr.

From the Inside Flap

Edmund DeWitt Patterson was nineteen when the Civil War began. Born in Ohio, he had left home just after his seventeenth birthday and gone south to seek his fortune, first as a book salesman, then as a schoolmaster and clerk. When the war broke out, he volunteered for the army of the Confederacy, much to the dismay of his Unionist family. The day he enlisted he began a diary that, for the sharpness of its observations and the literary force of its narration, makes it a splendid firsthand account of the Civil War. Patterson, who later had a distinguished career as a lawyer and judge in Tennessee, was more than a soldier. He was a scholar, reporter, humorist, and everyday philosopher of surprisingly mature views—for he was not old enough to vote until the war was half over.

Patterson’s journal, originally published in 1966, moves through his participation in the major battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Seven Days, Fredericksburg, his capture at Gettysburg, and his months in a Federal prison within a few miles of his Northern family. The accounts of combat are vivid and moving, not only telling in detail what happened in battle but also giving a clear and realistic account of the author’s reactions to combat. Engaging and valuable information on morale, religion, diversions, food, shelter, clothing, attitudes toward Federals, and relations with comrades—all enlivened with Patterson’s delightful sense of humor—make this a journal of outstanding quality. The latter portion of the diary provides a fresh and absorbing account of his prison life on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie and his exchange and return to Richmond in the final days of the war.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press; 1 edition (March 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157233245X
• ISBN-13: 978-1572332454
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,184,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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