Reminiscences of the Civil War (Signed)

General John B. Gordon

Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903

[Inscribed by Confederate General and Georgia Governor John B. Gordon on front end page.] Rebound in red buckram cloth. Gilt lettering. Hardcover. Good binding and cover. Shelf wear. Some foxing. Bookseller's sticker of D.A. Bulen on rear verso. "Among the most entertaining of generals' memoirs," Freeman opined; however possessed of numerous exaggerations.  xiii, 474 p., 22 cm. References: Nevins I, p. 95; Dornbusch II-2756; In Tall Cotton 71; Eicher 223  *Autographed by author.* "Gordon had a way of putting things to the men that was irresistible, and he showed the men, at all times, that he shrank from nothing in battle on account of himself." - Lt. Gen. Thomas Stonewall Jackson.   "Among the most entertaining of [generals'] memoirs," Freeman opined in Nevins, p.95, v.1.

General John Brown Gordon was born on February 6, 1832 in Upson City, Georgia. In early May of 1861 Gordon was commissioned a captain of the 6th Alabama Infantry Regiment and rose to the rank of Colonel by April 28, 1862. Colonel Gordon was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General on November 1, 1862. He was then put in charge of General Jubal Early's Division in the Army of Northern Virginia from April 11, 1863 to May 8, 1864. On May 14, 1864 General Gordon was promoted to Major-General and was given the command of Johnson's Division in the Army of Northern Virginia. General Gordon fought at the Battle of First Bull Run. He also led the 6th Alabama at the Battle of Antietam.  General Gordon  was wounded in the head at the Battle of Antietam, and he later he showed how a hole in his hat, from a different bullet during the battle, kept him from drowning in his own blood. After General Gordon returned he was put in command of a Georgia brigade at the Battle of Chancellorsville and the Battle of Gettysburg. General Robert E. Lee would praise General Gordon on his attack on the Union right flank at the Battle of the Wilderness. During the Battle of Spotsylvania General Gordon earned the rank of Major-General. General Gordon also led the last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. A hero to Georgians at the age of just 33, Gordon returned to his home state and began to practice law once again. He vigorously opposed federal Reconstruction policies, but, when he ran for governorship as a Democrat in 1868, he was defeated by his Republican opponent. Unquestionably a symbol of the age of white supremacy to his Georgian constituents, Gordon was rumored to be a Grand Dragon in the Ku Klux Klan. Gordon was elected to the U.S. Senate (1873-79). Though he was reelected, he resigned in 1880 to take an important position with a railroad company, thereby leading the shift of the New South to commercialism and industrialism. He returned to politics in 1886 for one term as governor and, at the conclusion of that term in 1890, was sent back to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1897. When the United Confederate Veterans organization was formed in 1890, Gordon was made commander in chief, a position he occupied until his death. He published memoirs of his military exploits in Reminiscences of the Civil War (1903).