Journey to the Wilderness

On the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War, award-winning author Frye Gaillard reflects on the war-and the way we remember it-through letters written by his family, including his great-great grandfather and his two sons, both of whom were Confederate officers. As Gaillard explains in his introductory essay, he came of age in a Southern generation that viewed the war as a glorious lost cause. But as he read through letters collected by members of his family, he confronted a far more sobering truth."e;Oh, this terrible war,"e; wrote his great-great-grandfather, Thomas Gaillard. "e;Who can measure the troubles-the affliction-it has brought upon us all?"e;To this real-time anguish in voices from the past, Gaillard offers a personal remembrance of the shadow of war and its place in the haunted identity of the South. "e;My own generation,"e; he writes, "e;was, perhaps, the last that was raised on stories of gallantry and courage . . . Oddly, mine was also the one of the first generations to view the Civil War through the lens of civil rights-to see . . . connections and flaws in Southern history that earlier generations couldn't bear to face."e;