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Overview
Before the publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Mary Johnston's The Long Roll was one of the most successful Civil War novels ever written, hailed on its publication in 1911 as "the best fictional study of the Civil War that has yet been done" (North American Review). Unlike Mitchell's novel of the aristocratic home front, The Long Roll is set among the fighting armies and deftly blends fact with fiction. Capturing the epic scale of the war, Johnston follows the adventures of the fictional Richard Cleave of Virginia, a Confederate artillery officer, and of General "Stonewall" Jackson during the most decisive engagements in the years of Confederate supremacy: Manassas, the Seven Days, Malvern Hill, and Sharpsburg. She mixes the details of warfare - strategies, tactics, and logistics - with sweeping descriptions of raw courage and reckless abandon.The Long Roll, which succeeds brilliantly in bringing to life the differing motives for secession and war and in evoking the suspicions and battered consciences of both North and South, is followed by a sequel, Cease Firing.Synopsis
BCR's Shelf2Life American Civil War Collection is a unique and exciting collection of pre-1923 titles focusing on the American Civil War and the people and events surrounding it. From memoirs and biographies of notable military figures to firsthand accounts of famous battles and in-depth discussions of slavery, this collection is a remarkable opportunity for scholars and historians to rediscover the experience and impact of the Civil War. The volumes contained in the collection were all written within 60 years of the end of the war, which means that most authors had living memory of it and were facing the effects of the war while writing. These firsthand accounts allow the modern reader to more fully understand the culture of both the Union and Confederacy, the politics that governed the escalation and end of the war, the personal experience of life during the Civil War, and the most difficult and polarizing question in the history of the United States: slavery. The American Civil War Collection allows new readers access to the contemporary arguments and accounts surrounding the war, and is a vital new tool in understanding this important and pivotal chapter in American history.