By Sam Watkins
Even before it was prominently featured in Ken Burns’ award
winning documentary, The Civil War,
Sam Watkins’ memoir Co. “Aytch” The First
Tennessee Regiment or a Side show to the Big Show, was a classic of Civil
War literature, and widely heralded my many historians as one of the best
memoirs of the war written by a common soldier.
At the outset to the Civil War Watkins was one of 120 men
who enlisted in Company H of the 1st Tennessee Infantry. He and his comrades were in virtually every
major battle of the war in its Western theater.
By the time the war ended in April 1865, Watkins was one of seven
members of the company who were still alive when General Joseph E. Johnston
surrendered the Army of Tennessee to Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Soon after his return home Sam Watkins began to write his
memoir. His engaging narrative captures
the pageantry and monotony, the glory and misery, the humor and drama, the
pride and horror experienced by a common soldier of the Confederate in the
Western Theater.
Zenith Press has pulled Watkins’ dusty and well worn volume
from the shelf and republished it in a new and glorious illustrated
edition. Every word of Sam Watkins’ text
has been preserved and supplemented with 175 color photographs, illustrations
and maps. Period photographs and illustrations
of politicians and military men, places and landmarks, camp life and battle
scenes take their place beside post-war artworks, modern photographs of
artifacts, battlefields, monuments, and reenactments which have been gathered
from the Library of Congress, the George Eastman House, the National Parks
Service, the National War College, as well as many other of this country’s major
Civil War collections.
Supplementary text is added from the Civil War generals such
as James Longstreet and William T. Sherman as well as modern Pulitzer Prize
winning historians Doris Kearns Goodwin, James M. McPherson, Allan Nevins and
Bruce Catton.
Zenith Press’ Co.
"Aytch": The First Tennessee Regiment or a Side Show to the Big Show:
The Complete Illustrated Edition breathes new life to Watkins’ memoir for
its 21st Century readers. It would be a
welcome addition to any Civil War student’s library, even if he already owns an
earlier, and I’m sure dog-eared and well read, edition.
ISBN 978-0760347751, Zenith Press, © 2015, Hardcover, 9.5 x
10.5 x 1 inches 256 glossy pages, Maps, Photographs
& Illustrations, Index. $35.00. To purchase a copy of this book
click HERE.
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