Last to Join the Fight: The 66th Georgia Infantry

by Daniel Cone

Raised and commanded by early-war veteran James Cooper Nisbet, the 66th Georgia Infantry assembled at Macon in summer 1863, suffered through a winter of discontent in Dalton, charged into enemy fire at Peach Tree Creek and Atlanta, and slogged through the rain and mud of Franklin and Nashville before surrendering. Drawing on newspapers, letters, and diaries, this book details the hard realities of service in a Civil War regiment, the often-flawed memories of Colonel Nisbet, and also plumbs census records to reconstruct the social makeup of the 66th. A sample group of more than 500 men displays the extent of poverty in the ranks, and considers how variables in a soldier's age, family status, home location, or economic background determined devotion or desertion, as well as survivors in the postwar period, amidst hard times and historical forgetfulness. This story offers not a noble epic about valiant fighting men, but rather the bloody-ground truths about the Civil War.

• ISBN13: 9780881464757
• Publish Date: 31 March 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Mercer University Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 277
• Language: English

Reviews

[talismanbrett]

[b:Last to Join the Fight: The 66th Georgia Infantry|20665630|Last to Join the Fight The 66th Georgia Infantry|Daniel Cone|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391411430l/20665630._SY75_.jpg|39963990]

I will start by saying that Civil War, Historical Non-Fiction is not really "my thing", however, if it IS "your thing", then this book is 100 percent what you need to be reading. Daniel Cone cut no corners on his research and left no stone unturned when it came to amassing the information required to create a book as informative and factual as "Last to Join the Fight: The 66th Georgia Infantry".

The book follows the arc of the creation and eventual destruction (Sorry for spoiler warning, but The South lost the war) of the 66th Georgia infantry. Cone takes ample time to teach the reader about the highest ranking officers like Nisbet to the lowly privates and really delve into what made up the group. He includes several charts and tables that show the severe disparity of the regiment. but also throws in constant reminders of just how eclectic this company was.

The coolest thing I found was, being from Georgia myself, MANY of the physical destinations and battle sites were very familiar to me. It was an interesting experiment to cast one's mind back to the 1860's and think about how this area has changed so much over time. I found it haunting to try and connect with the ghosts of our past especially a group so intrinsically different. The names here are aplenty, but you can actually form some understanding of their reasons for war.

Overall, the book will inform you of the often overlooked 66th infantry and at least give you a open-eyed view of war life in the South during America's Civil War. I recommend for history buffs, civil war enthusiasts, and even, to some extent, genealogy tracers.