Description
Dear Sallie: The Letters of Confederate Private James Jewel, Echols Light Artillery, Oglethorpe County, Georgia
First letters ever published from his battery! First edition includes no tax for website and mail orders! James Jewel enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862 with numerous friends from Oglethorpe and Greene counties, east of Athens, Georgia. He briefly served in the Atlanta area before spending most of the war guarding the “backdoor of the Confederacy.” There he and his fellow soldiers protected the valuable salt works along the Florida Gulf Coast and defended the local rivers from Union gunboats. His 114 letters present a new and unreported perspective on war life in the Tallahassee and Quincy, Florida areas. Most of these letters are written to his sister, Sallie, and they provide a glimpse into war deprivations suffered by enlisted Confederate soldiers and their families in Georgia. Jewel never returned home and is unofficially listed as missing in action during the Battle of Averasboro [North Carolina] in March 1865. The editor has filled this book with a large amount of Georgia and Florida genealogical information. BRAND NEW!
John Fox –
Reading these letters from a Confederate Private to his sister is as close as we can get to what war was like for the members of Georgia’s Echols Light Artillery, ironically called the “Life Insurance” posting. From the letters we get insights into the personal interactions of the soldiers, the difficulties of getting food supplies, the rampant illnesses and the longing for leave to go back home. We knew about mosquitoes and rain, but who knew that the soldiers, when posted to Florida, took up hat-making from palm fronds? I was glad that the author also includes a section following up on the subsequent lives of some of the friends and family we come to know through the letters. – Lynne B. Williamson on July 21, 2013 (Amazon Review)