William R. J. Pegram: Lee’s Young Artillerist.
signed
1995 · Charlottesville
by Carmichael, Peter S.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, (1995). Review copy, with publisher’s note laid-in. Signed and inscribed by the author. Octavo, red cloth (hardcover), gilt letters, xii + 209 pp. Fine, in a Near-Fine, mylar protected dust jacket. From dust jacket: William R. J. Pegram forged a record as one of the most prominent artillerists in the Army of Northern Virginia. He participated in every major battle in Virginia and rose from sergeant to full colonel by the end of the war. Pegram entered Confederate service to defend a way of life that he believed to be ordained by God, a belief that was shared by many of his contemporaries. Lee’s Young Artillerist looks at Pegram as a case study exemplfying the worldview of slaveholders whose formative years were the 1850s. Political turmoil over slavery, the emphasis on a Southern education for Southern youth, and rapid modernization provided Pegram and his generation with a unique perspective on their society’s place within a world embracing free labor. By the 1850s the ideological explanation of the South’s way of life had fully matured. Religious leaders offered a scriptural interpretation of society that emphasized human inequality as part of a social hierarchy and made support of slavery a Christian duty for all white Southerners. Pergram firmly believed in a religion of action, that God demanded he and his men do everything in their power to defeat the enemy. He equated losing faith in the Confederacy with abandoning God, family, and community and could not conceive of defeat at the hands of ungodly Northerners. Rather than being considered fanatic, Pegram’s values were shared by other young Confederate officers, the South’s ruling elite... (Inventory #: 5790fd)