The Hour of Our Nation’s Agony: The Civil War Letters of Lt. William Cowper Nelson of Mississippi
Edited by Jennifer W. Ford

Illustrated, notes, appendix, index, 336 pp., 2008. The University of Tennessee Press, 110 Conference Center, 600 Henley St., Knoxville, TN 37996-4108, $48.50 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Robert L. Durham
Robert L. Durham is a computer specialist. A longtime Civil War buff, he is also interested in Old West history and has written articles and book reviews for Alamo Journal, True West, Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association, and Alamo de Parras web site at www.flash.net/~alamo3

Review:
This collection of letters begins on Aug. 7, 1857, with a letter from William F. Stearns, law professor at the University of Mississippi, to 16-year-old William C. Nelson, attempting to persuade him from transferring to Yale.

Among Stearns’ entreaties: “how can you endure … the studied insults which your fellow students, your instructors, and the fanatical people of Connecticut will be continually heaping upon you, and upon the land of your birth, and its people and institutions?”

Will Nelson, the son of a well-off family in Holly Springs, Miss., took Professor Stearns’ advice and remained at the University of Mississippi until March 26, 1861, and the outbreak of the Civil War.

He joined the Marshall County Home Guards, a company that would soon be incorporated into the 9th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, sent to defend Pensacola, Fla.

He served with the 9th until the expiration of his one-year term of enlistment, taking part in the battle of Santa Rosa Island, Fla., on Oct. 9, 1861.

In March of 1862, Nelson enlisted in the 17th Mississippi Infantry, serving in Virginia from the battles on the Peninsula until the surrender at Appomattox Court House. Eventually, on Jan. 27, 1863, he earned promotion to Ordnance Officer in General Carnot Posey’s Brigade.

Perhaps to spare his family glimpses of the realities of the harshness of war, Nelson’s letters dwell mainly on his social life, which was quite active. He was well-liked and was often invited to dinner by his superior officers, treated as an equal even when he was a private soldier. He had advantages that were probably not shared by many of his fellow Mississippians.

With family in the Richmond area with whom he could store trunks, Nelson was able to acquire vast amounts of clothing. Many of his letters are devoted to this accumulation, requesting various articles of clothing, money to buy clothing locally and cloth that for local tailors to fashion into uniforms and trim.

Except for the battle of Santa Rosa Island, which he described in great detail, Nelson’s depictions of other battles lack a personal touch. He seems more concerned with telling of the marches that led up to the battles than with the battles themselves.

Jennifer W. Ford, the editor, sees a gradual change during the war, with Nelson losing his idealism and hardening as he went through the trials of combat. My perception is of a privileged, spoiled young man and I don’t see the same maturation she sees.

An early letter is a request for his family to send a slave to prepare his meals and wash his clothes because those menial tasks are beneath him. A later letter, from the Army of Northern Virginia, complains because the government will no longer provide rations for both him and his servant.

In his last letter, written three weeks before the surrender at Appomattox, he speaks of bringing a brass band to serenade President Davis, and asks his mother to send his silver watch with a gold seal and some blue cloth, so he could have a vest and pair of trousers made. The hardships he must have experienced do not come through in his letters.

Ford has done a great job putting Nelson’s letters in context with the times and she excelled with the end notes, writing detailed descriptions of most of the people Nelson mentions in his letters.

She has also included “Notes on Mississippi Soldiers and Politicians” that will come in handy for genealogists. Many of these notes are identical to those at the end of the book, but having them in alphabetic order will make them easier to access.

The book could have used a good proof reader; there are no spelling errors, but there are quite a few places where wrong words are used,  such as “form” instead of “from.”

The Hour of Our Nation’s Agony should find a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in Mississippi soldiers during the Civil War. Nelson was a good writer and there are some gems to be found in its pages. For general Civil War students, the main value is in his descriptions of Pensacola and Mobile.