History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford.

Daniel OakeyProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
34K words
Chapters
4

Tags

English Originals World HistoryMilitary Military ArchivesRegimental HistoryCivil WarHistorical ReappraisalMilitary StrategyHeroismBattle ChronicleDocumentary Narrative

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford. by OakeyAuthor: Oakey, Daniel,Language: English, Class: E456: History: America: Civil War period (1861-1865), Release Date: Sep 12, 2007

Editor's review

This is a regimental history of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment's combat experience at Beverly Ford during the American Civil War, in which author Daniel Oakey, writing as a participant, records the unit's marches, engagements, and casualties. Its value lies not in grand war narrative but in detail at the regimental and company level: how the unit was deployed, how soldiers experienced the fighting, and how losses were counted afterward. For readers studying Civil War military organization, local unit history, or the microhistory of battle, it is usable primary material; general readers may find the account narrow and short on background. As a public-domain English ebook from Project Gutenberg, it is best read alongside a general history of the Civil War, using regimental experience to calibrate one's macro understanding of the campaign. Readers should first know the basic background of the Battle of Beverly Ford, or they will easily get lost among unit designations and place names.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Look up the background and timeline of the Battle of Beverly Ford before reading the regimental history itself.
  2. Prepare a reference table of Civil War unit designations and place names to consult while reading.
  3. Read alongside a general history of the Civil War, using regimental detail to confirm or correct the macro narrative.
  4. Focus on casualty, deployment, and march records, which can be excerpted as micro-historical source material.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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  3. 3
  4. 4

FAQ

Is this regimental history suitable for beginners in Civil War history? Not very. It focuses on the specific experience of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry at Beverly Ford, offers limited background, and is dense with unit designations and place names. Beginners without a general outline of the Civil War will find it fragmentary. It is better to read a general history of the Civil War first, then use this as supplementary regimental-level detail.
Does the book include overall analysis of the campaign? From the material, it is a history of the 2nd Infantry Regiment, focused on the unit's own marches, fighting, and casualty records rather than overall campaign analysis. Those who need strategic discussion should look for campaign studies; this book is better suited to observing how a regimental unit experienced a specific battle.
What preparation is needed to read the original English edition? First learn the basic background of the Battle of Beverly Ford, prepare a reference table of unit designations and place names, and have a dictionary on hand. The original is a public-domain English document with a documentary style; readers need to be comfortable checking names, unit designations, and places in order to place regimental detail within the larger course of the war.

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About the author

Daniel Oakey Author

Daniel Oakey is an author about whom little public information is available; his nationality, dates of birth and death, and personal background are all unknown, and only one of his works is held in the collection. His known representative work is History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford. As the title indicates, it belongs to the genre of American Civil War regimental history, focusing on the experiences of the Second Massachusetts Infantry at Beverly Ford, and combines military history with a documentary account of a local unit. Works of this kind are usually compiled from official reports, soldiers' recollections, and unit archives, emphasizing accurate records of dates, places, and combat actions, with narration and documentary arrangement prevailing and little literary embellishment. Given the limited information, the book's specific contents, sources, and standing in similar regimental studies remain difficult to assess; readers should regard it as a basic reference text for studying the regiment and Civil War military history.