The Civil War Letters of Joshua K. Callaway

Product Description

From the Kentucky Campaign to Tullahoma, Chickamauga to Missionary Ridge, junior officer Joshua K. Callaway took part in some of the most critical campaigns of the Civil War. His twice-weekly letters home, written between April 1862 and November 1863, chronicle his gradual change from an ardent Confederate soldier to a weary veteran who longs to be at home.Callaway was a schoolteacher, husband, and father of two when he enlisted in the 28th Alabama Infantry Regiment at the age of twenty-seven. Serving with the Army of the Tennessee, he campaigned in Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, and north Georgia. Along the way this perceptive observer and gifted writer wrote a continuous narrative detailing the activities, concerns, hopes, fears, discomforts, and pleasures of a Confederate soldier in the field.Whether writing about combat, illness, encampments, or homesickness, Callaway makes even the everyday aspects of soldiering interesting. This large collection, seventy-four letters in all, is a valuable historical reference that provides new insights into life behind the front lines of the Civil War.

Review

These unusually revealing Civil War letters vividly convey the hardships of camp life, the emotional highs and lows of the battlefield, and the various attachments to home, family, and community. Callaway was an articulate and perceptive observer of the conditions and people around him. This is a rich and very readable collection, superbly edited. — John Inscoe ―
author of Mountain Masters: Slavery and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina

With gripping clarity and insight, Callaway’s Civil War letters detail a soldier’s life in camp and on campaign. . . . A wonderful treasury of Civil War lore; highly recommended for libraries, historians, and Civil War buffs. — Library Journal

Callaway proved a perceptive and thoughtful witness to the crisis. His letters home are rich and incisive, not only because they detail soldier life in the Army of the Tennessee, but because they highlight painful separations endured by countless husbands and fathers on both sides of the war. —
Civil War History

Book Description

Personal insights into the daily life of the common Civil War soldier

About the Author

Joshua K. Callaway (1834-1863) joined the 28th Alabama Regiment, Army of Tennessee, Confederate Army as a lieutenant. Callaway participated in Braxton Bragg’s invasion of Kentucky and fought in the battles of Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge.