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Four chapters of an unpublished Confederate memoir. Four gatherings, each ribbon-bound at the top margin, measuring approximately 7˝" x 12". 29pp. (i.e. [10, 7, 6, 6]ff.), written on rectos only, about 6,000 words in a legible hand. With later (1888) authorial ink edits and touch-ups (see below) and several pencil edits. Some staining and light edgewear, final leaf with some creasing and a tear causing a tiny bit of loss, very good. An extraordinary Confederate officer s account of the chaos in Northeastern Arkansas and Southern Missouri in the winter of 1863-64, with tales of banditry, extra-judicial execution, and a firsthand account of the Battle of Fitzhugh s Woods (here called the Fight at Golightly s Farm). An inked note added to the final leaf of the first gathering, dated December 4, 1888 (very likely when the edits and touch-ups were done), states: "The above was written in July, 1866, two years after the occurrences narrated. I got my facts from the firing party [see below]. Capt. Rutherford still lives at Batesville. I showed the sketch to Gen. McRae, a few years ago, to get his recollection of the matter. Herewith I send you his account. J.N.S." An additional short note on the first leaf, also in black ink and likely the same hand, states: "Written in 1866. Never published." The author, "J.N.S.," otherwise unidentified, was one of General McRae's Staff Officers, but we have not been able to decisively identify him (Crute's *Confederate Staff Officers, 1861-1865* does not list any of McRae's officers with similar initials). The fall of Little Rock to Union forces in September 1863 was devastating to the morale of Arkansas confederate soldiers, and desertion was rampant. As the main Confederate army headed southwest from the city, General Dandridge McRae was sent northeast to recruit new soldiers, see to the consolidation of the irregular forces roaming the land (many indistinguishable from bands of robbers), and to attempt to bring a measure of peace to a part of the state verging on anarchy. The soldiers under McRae's command included 46 commissioned officers who had been left without troops because of desertions, and many were irregulars. The author of this 29-page reminiscence, Staff Officer to General McRae during this chaotic time, figures into several of the stories. A synopsis of each chapter follows: Gathering One: "Introduction" / "Death of Lieut. Col. Brand and Capt. Edwards" The story of two formerly upstanding officers descent into "jayhawking": robbery, torture, and murder, ending with their sanctioned wilderness executions. The author sets the scene in the introduction: "Anarchy and mob law reigned supreme in this distracted portion of the country at that time. Such protection as our irregular and disorganized body of raw troops could afford the citizens in the rear of an enemy, was extended to them, but it was so meager and unreliable as to afford by little relief." He cites both the daily incursions of Union troops, and "jayhawkers" ("lawless bands of desperadoes that infested the country"), as leaving the inhabitants little peace. "It is my intention to give a brief sketch in this series of letters, of some of the most important events of this period, and to delineate as nearly as possible the terrible condition into which this unhappy portion of the country was precipitated… ." According to the author, McRae s forces at the time varied from 200 to 600 men, but could reach up to 1,000. "It was a rather nominal command," he wrote, "as the enemy occupied Batesville, Jacksonport, Pocahontas in fact all the principal points in the district, and it was a hard matter at any time to keep from being gobbled up by the Yanks, as the boys familiarly termed the process of capturing… ." Short backgrounds are given for Lieutenant Colonel [J. F.] Brand and Captain [John] Edwards, who, by the author's lights, were fine humans and Southern patriots, to boot. Brand, who was from an old Kentucky family and later mo.
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