Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
Rebel Private Front and Rear - cover

Rebel Private Front and Rear

William Andrew Fletcher

Publisher: University of Texas Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

A Confederate soldier shares a candid and harrowing account of his varied experiences on the frontlines in this Civil War memoir. William Fletcher joined the Confederate Army in 1861, serving with the Army of North Virginia’s Texas Brigade. Overtaken with a “bad case of cowardly terror” at Gettysburg, he later sustained wounds at Chickamauga. Unable to continue as an infantryman, he was transferred to Company E, Eighth Texas Rangers, where he served with Terry’s Rangers until the end of the war.  Fletcher set down his experiences some forty years later, recounting thrilling skirmishes, punishing marches, and combat in which being wounded was a worse fate than death. Told with the artlessness of the natural raconteur, the memoir is alive with Fletcher’s eye for detail, straightforward language, and sense of humor. It is also sprinkled with dissertations on unexpected subjects, such as God, justice, and war.  One of the most frequently cited narratives written by soldiers of Lee’s army, Rebel Private: Front and Rear derives its value as a historical source mainly from Fletcher’s honesty, his close observations, the richness and variety of his experiences, and the sharpness of his memory.
Available since: 09/06/2013.
Print length: 197 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Facing Down the Furies - Suicide the Ancient Greeks and Me - cover

    Facing Down the Furies - Suicide...

    Edith Hall

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    An award-winning classicist turns to Greek tragedies for the wisdom to understand the damage caused by suicide and help those who are contemplating suicide themselves 
     
    In Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the Tyrant, a messenger arrives to report that Jocasta, queen of Thebes, has killed herself. To prepare listeners for this terrible news, he announces, “The tragedies that hurt the most are those that sufferers have chosen for themselves.” Edith Hall, whose own life and psyche have been shaped by such loss—her mother’s grandfather, mother, and first cousin all took their own lives—traces the philosophical arguments on suicide, from Plato and Aristotle to David Hume and Albert Camus. 
     
    In this deeply personal story, Hall explores the psychological damage that suicide inflicts across generations, relating it to the ancient Greek idea of a family curse. She draws parallels between characters from Greek tragedy and her own relatives, including her great-grandfather, whose life and death bore similar motivations to Sophocles’ Ajax: both men were overwhelmed by shame and humiliation. 
     
    Hall, haunted by her own periodic suicidal urges, shows how plays by Sophocles and other Greek dramatists helped her work through the loss of her grandmother and namesake Edith and understand her relationship with her own mother. The wisdom and solace found in the ancient tragedies, she argues, can help one choose survival over painful adversity and offer comfort to those who are tragically bereaved. 
     
    Edith Hall is a professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. She is the author of more than thirty books, including Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life. She lives in Cambridgeshire, UK.
    Show book
  • Good Indian Daughter - cover

    Good Indian Daughter

    Ruhi Lee

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Long before Ruhi fell pregnant, she knew she was never going to be the 'good Indian daughter' her parents demanded. But when the discovery that she is having a girl sends her into a slump of disappointment, it becomes clear she's getting weighed down by emotional baggage that needs to be unpacked, quickly.So Ruhi sets herself a mission to deal with the potholes in her past before her baby is born. Delving into her youth in suburban Melbourne, she draws a heartrending yet often hilarious picture of a family in crisis, struggling to connect across generational, cultural and personal divides. Sifting through her own shattered self-esteem, Ruhi confronts the abuse threaded through her childhood. How can she hold on to the family and culture she has known and loved her whole life, when they are the reason for her scars?Good Indian Daughter is a brutally honest yet brilliantly funny memoir for anyone who's ever felt like a let-down.‘To every desi girl who has felt the struggle of being a good daughter, combating the weight of expectations, self doubt and familial angst, this book will hit home.' Tasneem Chopra OAM, author, broadcaster and director.‘Told with humour and a light touch, Good Indian Daughter lays bare the experience of growing up in a family and culture that requires its daughters to be dutiful, compliant and silent. Good Indian Daughter is a book for our times – a reminder that respect for women starts at home.'  Pip Williams, bestselling author of The Dictionary of Lost Words and One Italian Summer.‘A courageous, unflinching and ultimately redemptive account of the terrible cost of being a good Indian daughter.'  Roanna Gonsalves‘Ruhi Lee's memoir made me laugh hard and then catch my breath with hurt. It is a privilege to be taken deep into Lee's experiences and past, and to understand all the ways in which she both tries to be and rails against the notion of a Good Indian Daughter. '  Kate Mildenhall, author of The Mother Fault and Skylarking'Good Indian Daughter lays out the complex expectations of immigrant parents who made sacrifices for the sake of family, yet thwart their children's attempts to live lives of their own. The laugh-out-loud moments make Lee's accounts of childhood trauma and her fierce and intelligent observations on Indian culture – particularly with regard to girls and women – all the more powerful as she searches and finds who she really is beneath the guise of the Good Indian Daughter.' Katherine Tamiko Arguile, author of The Things She Owned.
    Show book
  • Famous Cold Cases - Digitally narrated using a synthesized voice - cover

    Famous Cold Cases - Digitally...

    John D. Wright

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    This recording has been digitally produced, by DeepZen Limited, using a synthesized version of an audiobook narrator’s voice under license. DeepZen uses Emotive Speech Technology to create digital narrations that offer a similar listening experience to human narration. 
    This exciting true-crime compendium brings together the details of a range of more than 50 challenging criminal cases that were either only recently solved or remain unsolved despite intensive investigations and appeals to the public. Many investigations end up as ‘cold cases’ when files are closed, but DNA advances and other new forensic technologies are causing more and more dormant files to be reopened. DNA has also overturned many guilty verdicts, and each time a prisoner has his or her conviction quashed, another unsolved crime is created. Famous Cold Cases presents each case in a dossier format that describes the crime and lays out the clues collected by investigators. Each chapter concentrates on a specific criminal activity and has numerous vivid case examples arranged chronologically and boxes highlighting famous cases, techniques used to solve them, why the trails went cold – and how, in some cases, the crime was solved. From murders and assassinations to kidnappings, robberies and fraud, Famous Cold Cases invites the reader to review each case, analyze the evidence and arrive at the most probable solution.
    Show book
  • Stories Behind the Greatest Hits of Christmas - Uncover the Secrets and History of Beloved Holiday Classics - cover

    Stories Behind the Greatest Hits...

    Ace Collins

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Much like The Stories Behind The Best-Loved Songs Of Christmas, The Stories Behind The Great Traditions of Christmas and More Stories Behind The Best Loved Songs of Christmas this new Collins Christmas book will fill a void in the book world.  With a look at these secular classics, people who love the music of the season will finally have a source that gives the stories behind the creation of these wonderful songs, the way they found their way into the hands of those who made them famous and the reason they climb the charts.	The Stories Behind the Greatest Hits of Christmas is really a guide or a map that connects Christmas past with Christmas present.  It will be a time machine that connect the past to the present and makes the experience of hearing Christmas classics even more special.  Completed with thoughts of those who penned these classics, along with the artists, such as Brenda Lee, who made them famous, this will be a book that is sure to generate fan interest.
    Show book
  • A Question of Freedom - A Memoir of Learning Survival and Coming of Age in Prison - cover

    A Question of Freedom - A Memoir...

    Reginald Dwayne Betts

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    At the age of sixteen, R. Dwayne Betts—a good student from a lower-middle-class family—carjacked a man with a friend. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. In Virginia, carjacking is a "certifiable" offense, meaning that Betts would be treated as an adult under state law. A bright young kid, he served his nine-year sentence as part of the adult population in some of the worst prisons in the state.A Question of Freedom chronicles Betts's years in prison, reflecting back on his crime and looking ahead to how his experiences and the books he discovered while incarcerated would define him. Utterly alone, Betts confronts profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system. Confined by cinder-block walls and barbed wire, he discovers the power of language through books, poetry, and his own pen. Above all, A Question of Freedom is about a quest for identity—one that guarantees Betts's survival in a hostile environment and that incorporates an understanding of how his own past led to the moment of his crime.
    Show book
  • Crisis Convoy - The Story of HX231 A Turning Point in the Battle of the Atlantic - cover

    Crisis Convoy - The Story of...

    Sir Peter Gretton

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    In April 1943, Commander Peter Gretton was in charge of escorting a vital Allied trade convoy from New York to Great Britain across the North Atlantic. Over the course of the voyage, the sixty-one merchant ships of convoy HX231, along with the six ships of B7 Escort Group, were continuously shadowed and attacked by a German wolf pack of twenty U-boats.With the aid of air support, the convoy and defending escort fought valiantly across hundreds of miles of ocean and, despite poor weather conditions, managed to sink and severely damage several enemy submarines. Tragically six merchant ships were torpedoed and with no rescue vessel any survivors were left stranded in the freezing waters of the Atlantic as the convoy continued on its journey.Drawing on reports from both sides, Gretton details the sequence of events as convoy HX231 battled its way through a large wolf pack and offers an authoritative post-battle analysis of the strategies, decisions, and actions taken that would ultimately see the tide of war turn in favor of victory for the Allies.Crisis Convoy takes the listener to the heart of the action and is a thrilling account of naval warfare during World War II.
    Show book