My Dear Nelly

Description

An epistolary chronicle of love and reflection from the Civil War front More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, West Point engineer and Brevet Brigadier General Orlando M. Poe (1832-1895) remains one of the Union's most unsung heroes. He served the Union in uniform from day one of the conflict until the Confederate surrender in North Carolina in late April 1865, and he used his unparalleled ability to predict Confederate movements to lead multiple successful campaigns that turned the tide of the war. Accordingly, the roar of battle permeates this collection of 241 highly literate and previously unpublished wartime letters to his wife, Eleanor Brent Poe.Yet readers will discover more than just Poe's battlefield experiences. His observations to his wife regarding sense of duty, marital responsibilities, societal issues, and broader home front matters also provide a unique window into the nature of husband-wife relationships in the mid-19th century. The raw intimacy of these letters, coupled with Poe's strong sense of social awareness, illustrates the contrasting forces of "manliness" and domesticity during this time period, exemplified by vivid descriptions of both the dynamics between a soldier and his wife and between the home front and the battlefield.This collection of letters from the front lines offers a bird's-eye view of some of the Civil War's most hard-fought military campaigns. Coupled with Paul Taylor's insightful editorial notes and annotations, Poe's private Civil War letters are set firmly within the broader context of the war and the home front, revealing unique and moving insights into America's bloodiest war.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• United States of America
• History of the Americas
• American Civil War
• États-Unis
• Guerre de Sécession

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 13 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631014253
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

PRAISE FOR MY DEAR NELLY
“This meticulously edited collection of letters showcases the frank reactions and clear-eyed observations—on matters ranging from the engineering of battle fortifications to the travails of family life at a distance—of a uniquely compelling figure in the military history of the Civil War.”
—C HRISTOPHER H AGER , author of I Remain Yours: Common Lives in Civil War Letters
“The letters of Orlando M. Poe will be a gold mine for all who have an interest in the Civil War. His private correspondence offers marvelous descriptions of what he experienced in several theaters of the conflict, from the Virginia Peninsula in 1862 to the long marches with William Tecumseh Sherman that finally pushed the Confederates to surrender. Poe’s candid assessments of the war’s great battles and leaders are illuminating and engaging. Paul Taylor has done a tremendous service in bringing this collection to the public.”
—J ONATHAN W. W HITE , coauthor of “Our Little Monitor”: The Greatest Invention of the Civil War
“ My Dear Nelly is a rich and beautifully edited collection of 241 letters written by Orlando M. Poe, a talented West Point–trained US Army engineering officer in the Civil War, to his fiancée and later wife, Eleanor Brent Poe. The texts document Poe’s extensive service in several military theaters as well as the love and loneliness of a husband and father at war. Poe’s correspondence underscores his intense ambition, ego, professional pride, sense of his God-given duty, and sensitivity to sleights, real and imagined. As chief engineer with several Union armies, he had a keen eye for battlefield landscapes, structures, and the war’s physical destruction. Readers will value My Dear Nelly as a welcome companion to Paul Taylor’s excellent Poe biography. They chronicle the life of a career soldier and the cultural, gender, and military conventions of the mid-Victorian age. A terrific work.”
—J OHN D AVID S MITH , coeditor of Dear Delia: The Civil War Letters of Captain Henry F. Young, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry
“Orlando Poe was a top West Point graduate serving on the Great Lakes before the Civil War brought him east to help fortify Washington, DC, and then lead a Union brigade at Second Bull Run. Returning west to become William Sherman’s chief engineer, he expressed pity for Southern refugees and condemned the plunder of Atlanta, but nonetheless orchestrated destruction of the city’s military stores, and devised the roads, bridges, pontoons, and even maps on which Sherman’s ruthless Savannah and Carolinas campaigns depended. Two hundred forty-one of Poe’s graceful letters to his new, young wife Eleanor, ‘Nelly,’ selected and expertly annotated by historian Paul Taylor, document these obscure but vital aspects of Union victory. They also reveal how Poe reconciled secret ambition for recognition with obligation to honorable duty and straddled roles of mathematician, combat commander, and absent husband and father. My Dear Nelly is a fine expression of the complexities of manliness among the Civil War’s professional soldiers.”
—T IMOTHY M ASON R OBERTS , editor of “This Infernal War”: The Civil War Letters of William and Jane Standard
My Dear Nelly
INTERPRETING THE CIVIL WAR
Texts and Contexts
EDITOR
Angela M. Zombek
University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Aaron Astor Maryville College
Wiliam B. Kurtz University of Virginia
Joseph M. Beilein Jr. Pennsylvania State University
Brian Craig Miller Mission College
Douglas R. Egerton Le Moyne College
Jennifer M. Murray Oklahoma State University
J. Matthew Gallman University of Florida
Jonathan W. White Christopher Newport University
Hilary N Green University of Alabama
Timothy Williams University of Oregon
The Interpreting the Civil War series focuses on America’s long Civil War era, from the rise of antebellum sectional tensions through Reconstruction.
These studies, which include both critical monographs and edited compilations, bring new social, political, economic, or cultural perspectives to our understanding of sectional tensions, the war years, Reconstruction, and memory. Studies reflect a broad, national perspective; the vantage point of local history; or the direct experiences of individuals through annotated primary source collections.
My Dear Nelly

THE SELECTED CIVIL WAR LETTERS OF GENERAL ORLANDO M. POE TO HIS WIFE ELEANOR

EDITED BY PAUL TAYLOR

THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS  Kent, Ohio
© 2020 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2020028264
ISBN 978-1-60635-407-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Taylor, Paul, 1959-editor.
Title: My dear Nelly : the selected Civil War letters of General Orlando M. Poe to his wife Eleanor / edited by Paul Taylor.
Other titles: Selected Civil War letters of General Orlando M. Poe to his wife Eleanor
Description: Kent : the Kent State University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020028264 | ISBN 9781606354070 (cloth) | ISBN 9781631014253 (epub) | ISBN 9781631014260 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Poe, O. M. (Orlando Metcalfe), 1832-1895. | Poe, O. M. (Orlando Metcalfe), 1832-1895--Correspondence. | United States. Army--Officers--Biography. | United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives. | United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Campaigns. | Military engineers--United States--Biography. | Poe, Eleanor Carroll Brent.
Classification: LCC E467.1.P65 M925 2020 | DDC 973.7/81092 [B]--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020028264
24 23 22 21 20 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword by Earl J. Hess
Preface
Introduction
1 “This Is a Holy War”: From the Great Lakes to Regimental Command, October 3, 1860–December 26, 1861
2 “There Is No Justice to Be Found in This Army of the Potomac”: The Virginia Peninsula and Career Frustration, January 12–June 7, 1862
3 “We Have Gone through Terrible Scenes within the Last Ten Days”: Union Calamity at Second Bull Run and Fredericksburg, August 2–December 18, 1862
4 “God Grant That We Give Them the Deliverance They Seek”: Congressional Disaster to Western-Theater Redemption, February 10–August 28, 1863
5 “My Praises Are in Every Man’s Mouth”: The Hero of Knoxville, September 4–December 7, 1863
6 “You Can’t Imagine a More Perfect Picture of War’s Devastation”: Headquartered in Tennessee and Preparing for Georgia, January 28–May 5, 1864
7 “You Never Saw Men in Such Spirits as Ours Are Now”: The Atlanta Campaign, May 6–September 3, 1864
8 “We Have Left Nothing but Desolation behind Us”: Fortifying Atlanta and the March to the Sea, September 7–December 26, 1864
9 “The Enemy Is More Desperate Than Ever”: The Carolinas Campaign, January 1–April 26, 1865
Postscript
Bibliography
Index
I find him so thoroughly qualified that I would be lost without him.
— MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM T. SHERMAN ,
December 1864, regarding Orlando M. Poe
Previously unpublished images of Orlando M. Poe and Eleanor C. Brent, 1860, the year of their marital engagement. (Julie C. May Collection, West Chester, PA)
Foreword
O rlando Metcalfe Poe was the most famous military engineer to emerge from the Civil War. Unlike other West Point graduates whose grades entitled them to serve in the Corps of Engineers, Poe did not win fame for commanding large bodies of troops in military operations, although he tried very hard to achieve success in that line. A consummate professional, he performed the varied duties of a military engineer during most of the conflict with success that prompted his superiors to help him negotiate the difficult task of achieving advancement by working in a support service rather than leading men in battle.
It is ironic that, during the antebellum years, serving in the Corps of Engineers was the ultimate in career advancement within the US Army. But that was not so during the Civil War. Gaining command of large units from brigade up to field armies was seen as the ultimate in career advancement. Men who were lieutenants or captains in the engineers could become brigadier and major generals in the volunteer army. If one performed well at these elevated levels of responsibility, fame and renown was the reward.
What reward, then, for the capable engineer when, during a time of lifeand-death struggle for the republic, he was digging fortifications, laying pontoons, or working on a railroad? That was the dilemma for bright young graduates of the US Military Academy, whose grades counted for little when there was a war to be won. The further irony is that these seemingly mundane tasks were of fundamental importance for the success of an army in the field, yet they received little attention among the public or even the politicians in Washington, DC, responsible for sanctioning rewards to officers in the field. The problem was shared by all other officers and men who worked in support services, including quartermasters, commissaries of subsistence, ordnance officers, signalmen, and other vital branches of the army. They faced severely restricted opportunities for rank advancement within their branches and often were desperate to get out of them and into infantry command.
Poe exemplified this dilemma. He had served as an engineer early in the conflict but soon moved into infantry command by accepting the colonelcy of the 2nd Michigan Volunteer Infantry. Before long he moved up to leadership of a brigade and even, for a brief time, of a division, while still officially holding his commission as colonel of the regiment. His hopes for promotion to brigadier general of volunteers, a rank temporarily conferred in the field, were dashed because he ha