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Author Rhea, Gordon C.

Title Carrying the flag : the story of private Charles Whilden, the Confederacy's unlikely hero / Gordon C. Rhea.

Publication Info. New York : Basic Books, [2004]
©2004

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Plainville Public Library - Non Fiction  973.736 RHE    Check Shelf
Description v, 279 pages : maps ; 25 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents The fate of two nations -- A city by a harbor -- Life among scoundrels and grasshoppers -- A desert blasted by fire -- General Lee's shock troops -- An eerie, inhospitable region -- Like a Saturday evening market in Augusta -- A mortifying disaster -- Death was always present -- The mule shoe -- A human flag pole -- Under a spreading oak.
Summary "For forty years, Charles Whilden lived a life more noteworthy for a series of near misses. Born to a prominent South Carolina family that had fallen on hard times, he tried his hand at a number of doomed ventures, from practicing law to copper speculation, from Detroit to Santa Fe. Repeatedly turned down for service in the Confederate Army, he did not enlist until the desperate days when anyone capable of locomotion was brought on to fill the ranks. He was subsequently plunged into the very regiment destined to see the worst of Grant's brutal spring 1864 campaign.
But in the little time allotted to him, and thanks to a remarkable chain of events, Whilden would go on to discover a courage within that nothing in his former endeavors suggested he possessed - and change the course of one of the Civil War's most significant battles. Against the epic backdrop of the antebellum South, Grant and Lee's strategic maneuvering, and some of the bloodiest fighting this country has seen, historian Gordon C. Rhea brings us this story of courage and endurance, terror and heroism."
"Carrying the Flag is both a battle story and a panoramic view of history at a critical crossroads, one that takes us beyond the frontlines, and shows us how individual decisions can resonate in unforeseen and dramatic ways."--BOOK JACKET.
Subject Spotsylvania Court House, Battle of, Va., 1864.
Whilden, Charles Edmonston, 1824-1866.
Soldiers -- South Carolina -- Biography.
Confederate States of America. Army. South Carolina Infantry Regiment, 1st.
Virginia -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns.
South Carolina -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Regimental histories.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Regimental histories.
Charleston (S.C.) -- Biography.
Other Form: Online version: Rhea, Gordon C. Carrying the flag. New York : Basic Books, c2004 (OCoLC)607031961
Online version: Rhea, Gordon C. Carrying the flag. New York : Basic Books, c2004 (OCoLC)607892177
ISBN 0465069568 alkaline paper
9780465069569 alkaline paper
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