Red Clay to Richmond is a thoroughly researched book dredged from Civil War trenches, family attics and dusty archives. John Fox has skillfully woven together the never-before-told-story of the 35th Georgia Infantry Regiment as these Southern patriots signed up for what most thought would be a short war. Using many previously unpublished primary accounts, Fox follows these men as they moved from their red clay homesteads in the Great State of Georgia to the Confederate capital at Richmond. Come tramp with these brave men on bone-wearying dusty marches as part of Stonewall JacksonA’s "foot cavalry." Follow these green infantrymen into the sulphurous mouths of Federal cannon spewing canister at Seven Pines. Then follow the trail of the 35th Georgia over the once quiet but now sacred fields of Mechanicsville, Gaines Mill, Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and many more bloody places.
This story, unlocked after some 140 years, reveals a veteran stalwart regiment struggling to survive amidst growing obstacles. These men continued to perform their duty despite the odds. Learn how these men who belonged to A.P. HillA’s famous Light Division dealt with illness, exhaustion, starvation and death. These pages bring the men and boys of the 35th Georgia alive and show average men doing above average things.
This saga not only reveals the thoughts of their Georgia born and educated commander, Edward Lloyd Thomas, but the truth is heard from the trenches of the lowliest mud-encrusted private. Find out the true meaning of honor and duty in the words of eighteen-year-old Private James Garrett as he struggles to survive at the war front while worrying about the survival of his widowed mother and four younger siblings on their Heard County farm. Hear the excitement of thirty-three-year-old farmer Benjamin Moody handpicked to be the new regimental color-corporal at the beginning of the 1862 Seven Days Battles. His body soon rested in an unmarked grave along MechanicsvilleA’s Beaver Dam Creek A– his wife, Martha, and four children would never receive another letter from this noble man.
Based on numerous letters, diaries and records, this book is much more than a mere battlefield account because it details the daily life and voice of the average Confederate soldier. It reveals the true American spirit of courage exhibited through deprivation and hardship, not only at the battlefront for the soldiers but also for the family members at the hearth. More than twenty maps and over seventy photographs grace the pages to further aid the reader in understanding the epochal struggle of these Georgians.
Red Clay To Richmond is a story that needed to be told A– a very personal story of the horrors of war. Come follow the battle flag of the 35th Georgia as these men perform some of the hardest fighting in Robert E. LeeA’s Army of Northern Virginia. Traverse with these Georgians the hills and canyons of exhilaration and despair - of life and death.