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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Confederate Chronicle: The Life of a Civil War Survivor
Pamela Chase Hain
Illustrated, maps, appendix, notes, biblio-graphy, index, 275 pp., 2005. University of Missouri Press, 2910 LeMone Blvd., Columbia, MO 65201, $39.95 plus shipping.
A Confederate Chronicle tells the story of Thomas L. Wragg (1842-1889), a native of Savannah who served in both the Confederate Army and Confederate Navy. Born to a prominent family that had come down in the world somewhat due to the sale of its plantation lands, Wragg joined Company A of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry (OLI) in May 1861. Although much of the volume is told via Wragg’s letters and a scrapbook he kept, and the author has mined many sources, she offers no authority for her comment that “Thomas Wragg joined the OLI out of a sense of duty rather than to defend slavery,” other than the fact that the family didn’t own slaves at the time. The OLI was shipped to Virginia where Company A became Company B, 8th Georgia Infantry. Wragg served with them until December 1862, seeing action at First Manassas and possibly in all the other major engagements of the Confederate army during that period, but the records and Wragg’s letters home are unclear or missing. One letter does have an interesting comment about Wragg’s search of the First Manassas battlefield in an effort to unearth and send home a Yankee skull. His father being a doctor, perhaps Wragg wanted it for a study in comparative physiognomy by his father. Wragg was discharged to take a commission as a master’s mate in the Confederate Navy and was stationed aboard the CSS Georgia in Savannah, an ironclad whose engines were so poor the vessel was basically a floating battery. The reasons for Wragg’s acceptance by the Confederate Navy are not mentioned in the book — being from Savannah he may have had some experience “messing about in boats” and then again the Confederate Navy was generally actively seeking personnel and was not always picky. Wragg was transferred to the CSS Atlanta and took part in its battle with the USS Weehawken and USS Nahant. The Atlanta’s short, sharp fight with these Monitor-type vessels led to its grounding and ignominious surrender and Wragg’s imprisonment in Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Following his exchange in October 1864, Wragg was stationed aboard the CSS Fredericksburg and CSS Richmond on the upper James River until the fall of Richmond. Thereupon he became part of Admiral (and brigadier general, CSA) Raphael Semmes’ naval brigade that later surrendered in Greensboro, N.C., with Gen. Joe Johnston and the Army of Tennessee. Wragg’s name is apparently not on any of the surviving surrender rolls so when and where he ended his Confederate service is unknown. Following the war Wragg pursued a number of different careers in north Florida and Georgia, and the author makes a case for his suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Wragg was evidently a sensitive man — he wrote poetry (some is included in an appendix) and one of his surviving essays is apparently modeled on Grey’s “Elegy in a Country Graveyard.” Wragg eventually married and became a doctor like his father. He was murdered in broad daylight by an individual who thought Wragg had dishonored his family by getting a young lady in trouble (Wragg had not, he had merely delivered the baby) and in the sometimes curious way of Southern justice, nothing was ever done to the murderer. A Confederate Chronicle has some excellent parts. Confederate and Union naval enthusiasts will be especially interested in the “Naval Notebook” Wragg kept while aboard the CSS Georgia. This is akin to a qualification notebook and has many interesting drawings and comments about Civil War naval ordnance.
Joseph Derie
Joseph Derie is a VMI graduate and a long time Civil War buff and military book reviewer. A retired Coast Guard officer and licensed officer of the Merchant Marine, he is a boating safety consultant and marine surveyor.
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