This OUTSTANDING book is about the Florida Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia. It fills the crucial history of the overlooked Florida Regiments that played an important part in the ANV. Zack C. Waters has truly written a valuable history about this hard fighting brigade. This excellent book by Zack C. Waters and James C. Edmonds is a welcome addition of excellent books about the Army Of Northern Virigina under General Robert E. Lee. When Florida seceeded from the Union, it was the smallest in population, and one of the most rural and remote locations in the Confederacy. However, it sent thousands of men into the various armies of the Confederacy to fight the Union. Some regiments were sent to fight in the Army of Northern Virigina that was far away from the mens homeland in Florida. Two days after being in the Confederate Army, the 2nd Florida Regiment began its journey north to be a part of the Army of Northern Virginia (AoNV). More men from Florida were sent north to be a member of the AoNV, and not to long afterwards experienced their first battles of Seven Pines and the Seven Days Battles which stopped the Army of the Potomac under the command of George McClellan. During these battles, the Florida Brigade were at the front and in the most fiercest fighting during these battles. The Florida Brigade had some horrendous losses. The Confedrate Generals in the field spoke highly of the brigades bravery and ferosity in combat. The brigade then participaed in the battle of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and of course Gettysburg. The brigade was almost always in the thickest of the fighting and experiencing terrible losses of the enlisted men and officers. During Gettysburg, the men were exposed to almost continuous firefights, losing so many men. It was confusing to the men why they were always the brigade that was exposed to the fiercest fighting and had shed so much blood. A controversy which overshadowed the rest of the war began when the brigade was accused of cowardise in some high command reports, when in actuality they fought to the end and only withdrew when orders came in from headquarters. General Robert E. Lee even said that this brigade was always as the forefront of the battle and was always the most fiercest to fight. The Union Officers also noted the same thing in their after battle reports as well. This was noted all the way to the brigades surrender at Appomattox. The remaining chapters in this book tell about how after the Civil War, veterans of the Florida Brigade were trying to stop the wrong assumptions made about them and their supposed cowardice in key battles. Due to the regiment being small compared to the other brigades in the AoNV, the history of the brigades history was comparatively unknown, and their records to few. Thus the stigma about the brigade was around until the early 1900s. Then afterwards, the history of the Florida Brigade in the AoNV was forgotten over time. Zack C. Waters and James C. Edmonds, spent almost 20 years researching official army records, personal diaries of the soldiers in the Florida Brigade, reading thousands of articles in Civil War magazines, secondary sources, newspapers, official records, and state records piecing together the history of this fine brigade. Finally, in 2010 they published this excellent book and brought to light how courageous they were in battle, and how important the brigade was in the AoNV. This book is an essential part of the history of the AoNV, and is also essential to be a part of any Civil War Historians personal library about the AoNV and the Civil War overall. It is an important historical book about Floridas involvement in the Confederacy. It is also important that this book be read to counter the false assumptions that this brigade was unimportant in the AoNV. I cant stress enough how interesting this book is and I HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND this great book!
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 03:09:11 +0000