Rufus Barringer fought on horseback through most of the Civil War with General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia; and rose to lead the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade in some of the war's most difficult combats. Fighting for General Lee: Confederate General Rufus Barringer and the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade details his entire history for the first time.Barringer raised a company early in the war and fought with the 1st North Carolina Cavalry from the Virginia peninsula through Second Manassas; Sharpsburg; Fredericksburg; and Chancellorsville. He was severely wounded in the face at Brandy Station; during the opening hours of the Gettysburg Campaign. Because of his severe wound; he missed the remainder of the Gettysburg Campaign; returning to his regiment in mid-October; 1863. Within three months he was a lieutenant colonel; and by June 1864 a brigadier general in command of the North Carolina Brigade; which fought the rest of the war with Lee and was nearly destroyed during the retreat from Richmond in 1865. The captured Barringer met President Lincoln at City Point; endured prison; and after the war did everything he could to convince North Carolinians to accept Reconstruction and heal the wounds of war.Fighting for General Lee by Sheridan R. Barringer draws upon a wide array of newspapers; diaries; letters; and previously unpublished family documents and photographs; as well as other firsthand accounts; to paint a broad; deep; and colorful portrait of an overlooked Southern cavalry commander. Despite its subject matter; the book is a balanced account that concludes Barringer was a dependable; hard-hitting warrior increasingly called upon to lead attacks against superior Union forces.This remarkable new biography teaches us many things. It is easy today to paint all who wore Confederate gray with a broad brush because they fought on the side to preserve slavery. Here; however; was a man who wielded the sword and then promptly sheathed it to follow a bolder vision. Barringer proved to be a bold champion of the poor; the black; and the masses―a Southern gentleman and man decades ahead of his time that made a difference in the lives of North Carolinians.
#256421 in Books 2015-03-10 2015-03-10Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.50 x 1.25 x 6.25l; .0 #File Name: 1610392957384 pages
Review
32 of 40 people found the following review helpful. Madison's "Method"...By VA Duck...or so it might have been titled. Author Michael Signer has discovered a system of tactics; actions and attitudes that James Madison used to overcome the great confrontations of the Founding Period and often accomplish his desired goal. Signer distills the "Method" to be a recipe of nine tactics and repeats them for the reader before each of nine instances in the book where Madison changes; or attempts to change the course of history. The book is biographic - i.e. it follows Madison's life from birth through death; but the emphasis; and the real purpose of the book is to understand Madison's accomplishments; his method of confronting them and by extension his nature; brilliance and essential goodness. And the book may have succeeded except for three; or maybe four faults.1) The new here is the "Method" - the biography has been told (many times) before; if this is a first read of Madison expectations are low and impressions are high; read after; as example Ketcham's; James Madison: A Biography; expectations will be high and unfortunately impressions low. 2) The "method"; while interesting in concept; is more allusion than actual demonstration. The author presents the nine-component "Method" before each fateful turn of history; but except for the broadest impressions; the reader is left to find for him or her self the evidence of the Method's application (and more often than not that is an impossible task using the evidence as presented). 3) There are enough historical inaccuracies to shake the reader's confidence - more by example later; 4) Last and perhaps applicable only to this reader; Signer himself becomes... well annoying! The book is full of: uncomfortably florid language; pretentious vocabulary and awkwardly cobbled mixed metaphors.The book tries to show-off with vocabulary - not the UNusual vocabulary cleverly used as Chernow does in Alexander Hamilton to evoke the language and feeling of the era; but awkwardly and occasionally even incorrectly to attempt exhibition: "vertiginous" for dizzying (pg. 82); "ineluctably" for irresistibly (pg. 113); "metier" for occupation (incorrectly used pg. 120); "leitmotif" for recurrent theme (pg. 140); "puissant" for influential (pg. 142); "fixity" for permanence (pg. 142); "epee" for a verbal jab or dig (pg. 205). The manner becomes distracting. Then there are the sophomoric mixed metaphors: "the weather mirrored their turgid mood" (swollen weather ? pg. 193); "instead of balance among its hinged parts; he saw a 'parious' (?) yaw" (balance~ weight: yaw~ attitude); (pg. 277) "There was a deep canyon between these two poles."; between these two hills; mounts?; (pg. 236) "Nearing the end of the symphonic outline; Madison charged towards the Constitution's summit." (symphonic summit? Maybe crescendo?) "...Virginia was turning restless and dyspeptic." (irritable through indigestion?) (pg. 237).There are errors in history in the book as well; enough to cause reader uncertainty of author veracity: "George Washington studied there"; William Mary College (pg. 33); in fact he received his surveyors license there - not quite the implication presented; "He [Madison] wanted; ...a federal republic through one legislative chamber that would give each state the same representation regardless of population. That would be the Senate" (pg. 190); exactly the OPPOSITE of Madison's wishes. He wanted BOTH houses of legislature to have representation weighted to their influence either by population or wealth and loosing that as part of the Great Compromise was a crushing defeat for him (see Res.2 of the "Virginia Plan"); "he joined the noxious compromise of counting slaves as 3/5 of a freeman" (pg. 206); left unsaid; however; is that Madison invented the 3/5 compromise four years earlier for the Confederation Congress of 1783. And; while there is some dispute at the academic level about the authorship allocation of the essays of the "Federalist"; the total is 85 not 88 as erred (pg. 219): Hamilton attributed 51; Madison 26 not 29 and Jay 5 not 8. And impossibly; Hamilton boards a "single masted schooner" for a ride up the Hudson; "With his quill wavering in his hand and the waves rolling underneath..." (pg. 216).As a Madison biography; the book is a distinct 3-stars; "It's OK"; there are manny better (Ketcham above; or more recently Stewart's; Madison's Gift). The "Method"; the centerpiece of the book lies flat by the end of the read; left as an allegation rather than demonstrated as fact. The rigor of research; or its subsequent editing in this book is inconsistent. The real virtue of this book is that it illustrates the great focus; civility and intellect of its subject - James Madison. And finally; Signer begins in very un-Madisonian style with needless digs (epees?) at a wing of contemporary politics - so conservative readers may avoid a mild irk by bypassing his introduction.4 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Windy introductions can often be annoying especially where stretched to 21 pages and especially when ...By E2RoseWindy introductions can often be annoying especially where stretched to 21 pages and especially when an author needlessly and perhaps boastfully injects his political allegiance at the outset naming as the last of our “statesman“ 11 senators (one republican; conveniently a female) including Ted “bridgegate†Kennedy and Robert Byrd who assembled his own KKK chapter. The author goes on to share “hostage-taking in the Republican Party was largely to blame†for the 113th Congress being “the least effective in historyâ€. A sense of scholarly independence and impartiality is lost and suspicion aroused before reaching chapter one.On page 8 the author brings us "Madison’s Method" (the author’s label); "an interlocking set of nine (negotiating) tactics" per the author which are presented without quotation marks or a footnote leaving doubt. The Method surfaces elsewhere. On page 27 we read: “And he would need to transcend the vulgarity of Virginia’s master-slave relationship in his own way†making us to believe this principle resonated with Madison as if trying to obscure that slave ownership; while it may have waned later; never ceased for Madison. Then there is one John Witherspoon where the case is not made for the lengthy treatment of Madison’s teacher at the College of New Jersey.While the deeply invested author cannot be separated from his work early on there is an ongoing sense of author “speculation†that accompanies this book. Michael Korda; the long time Simon and Schuster editor who counts David McCullough among his many great literary clients pointedly recommended shutting down and moving on or at the very least proceeding “very; very cautiously†when thoughts and feelings of the subject are honored as something more reliable than conjecture and possibility.For the age Madison led a very privileged life; not particularly noteworthy until and most importantly the Philadelphia Convention of 1987; an escape from the raw and consuming physical work of the age made possible by the family planter slave estate and elitist culture. Yet it was just this circumstance of heredity and chance that made it possible for the “statesman†Madison and his political brilliance to evolve and mature at one momentous and historical crossroads for the fledgling democracy.Overall the narrative is rather humdrum; reliability an irksome and tiring thread. Among the many publications devoted to James Madison there must be more interesting and inspiring choices.7 of 9 people found the following review helpful. HmmmmmmBy HistorianHmmmm... this book is tainted by modern day politics; which can be detected early on with references to today's political parties and leaders. There was no reason to do so; and it makes the book have a whiff of agenda history that ought to be avoided.
