LEE'S YOUNG ARTILLERIST : William R.J. Pegram by Carmichal, Peter S

Charlottsville 1995, Un of Va, US First edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 6x9, Fine/Fine condition, x11, 209 pages, illus, maps, notes, bibliog, index. -------------------------------------------------------------------------WILLIAM R. J. PEGRAM FORGED A RECORD AS one of the most prominent artillerists in the Army of Northern Virginia. He participated in every major battle in Virginia and rose from sergeant to full colonel by the end of the war. Pegram entered Confederate service to defend a way of life that he believed to be ordained by God, a belief that was shared by many of his contemporaries. Lee's Young Artillerist looks at Pegram as a case study exemplifying the world view of slave holders whose formative years were the 1850s.Political turmoil over slavery, the emphasis on a Southern education for Southern youth, and rapid modernization provided Pegram and his generation with a unique perspective on their society's place within a world embracing free labor. By the 1850s the ideological explanation of the South's way of life had fully matured. Religious leaders offered a scriptural interpretation of society that emphasized human inequality as part of a social hierarchy and made support of slavery a Christian duty for all white Southerners. Pegram firmly believed in a religion of action, that God demanded he and his men do everything in their power to defeat the enemy He equated losing faith in the Confederacy with abandoning God, family, and community and could not conceive of defeat at the hands of ungodly Northerners.Rather than being considered fanatic, Pegram's values were shared by other young Confederate officers, the South's ruling elite. They witnessed the sacrifices of their comrades and saw Federal soldiers becoming in their view more ungodly, engaging in acts of terror against civilians and employing black soldiers. They believed these depredations would ultimately put God on the side of the South. Lee's Young Artillerist challenges the thesis of some Civil War historians that a weakening Confederate belief in slavery and a loss of morale contributed to the South's defeat. Carmichael proposes instead that Pegram and thousands of other young Confederates interpreted their world through a religious prism that made the defense of slavery appear a just cause for which to die.,