Reminiscencies of a Confederate Soldier of Co. C, 2nd Va. Cavalry

Peck, Rufus H., 1839？-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
221K words
Chapters
23

Tags

English Originals Military Civil WarWar MemoryCavalry UnitSoldier LifeSoldier's MemoirComradeshipPersonal NarrativeBattlefield Report19th Century AmericaVeteran Perspective

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.Reminiscencies of a Confederate soldier of Co. C, 2nd Va. Cavalry by Rufus H. PeckAuthor: Peck, Rufus H., 1839?-,Language: English, Class: E456: History: America: Civil War period (1861-1865), Release Date: Sep 5, 2015

Editor's review

This is a Civil War memoir by a soldier of a Virginia cavalry regiment, recounting marches, battles, and camp life in the first person—a classic soldier's-eye source. Peck's company belonged to the 2nd Virginia Cavalry; the appeal lies not in grand strategic analysis but in concrete, granular immediacy: supplies, horses, march routes, and comrades-in-arms form the substance of the narrative. A public-domain e-book of modest length, it offers primary material for studying Confederate cavalry operations and the mindset of the ordinary soldier. Readers should keep in mind the date of composition and the fallibility of memory; the author writes from a Confederate perspective, and the text should be read with a critical eye toward sources, used alongside military histories and archival records from both sides rather than taken as a neutral, panoramic account.

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Reading tips

  1. Familiarize yourself with the 2nd Virginia Cavalry's basic operational trajectory before reading, to better situate the memoir.
  2. Annotate dates, places, and unit designations as you read, keeping simple notes on march routes.
  3. Read alongside a general Civil War history to fill in the strategic background the memoir omits.
  4. Note the author's tone toward the enemy and civilians as a starting point for analyzing the source's standpoint.

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

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FAQ

Which phases of the war does this memoir cover? The text follows the author's personal experience in his company, recording the marches, battles, and camp life of his period of service. The exact start and end dates must be inferred from statements in the book; the source material does not provide a complete time span, and readers may verify against the regiment's military history.
Why does the title appear to be misspelled? The spelling "Reminiscencies" in the title is the form preserved from the original book, an original title of a historical document rather than a transcription error in this edition. Cataloging and citation generally retain the original title for retrieval and edition comparison.
What background knowledge is needed before reading? Readers are advised to have a basic timeline of the Civil War and familiarity with its major battles, as well as a general understanding of Confederate army organization. With this background, the names, unit designations, and place names in the memoir will not become obstacles to reading.

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About the author

Peck, Rufus H., 1839？- Author · 1839

Peck, Rufus H. (born 1839?, date of death unknown) is an author about whom very little biographical information is publicly available; his place of origin, education, and career are not clearly documented. The library holds only one work by him, "Reminiscencies of a Confederate soldier of Co. C, 2nd Va. Cavalry," a memoir of his service in the Confederate army during the American Civil War. As the title indicates, the book belongs to the genre of Civil War reminiscences, in which the author recounts his firsthand experiences as an ordinary soldier. Works of this kind are typically written in the first person and focus on the details of marching, combat, and camp life, making them valuable primary sources for the study of the common soldier's experience. Because records concerning him are scarce, his writing style and broader influence remain to be further examined.