For quite a long time I have wanted to read this book because Raphael Seemes seems like a very interesting person to me. Are his memoirs a work of self-defense like Hood or is saying exactly what happend? I also have heard that he wrote memoirs from the Mexican American War, is that a good book?
____________________ That old man...had my division massacred at Gettysburg!"
- George Pickett said these words to John S. Mosby shortly after paying Lee a visit in Richmond
"Well, it made you famous"
- Mosby's reply to Pickett
I haven't read them but they have a reputation of being more a lawyerly like defense of the Confederacy more akin to Jeff Davis' memoirs than a chronicle of his experiences.
What are his memoirs from the Mexican American War like?
____________________ That old man...had my division massacred at Gettysburg!"
- George Pickett said these words to John S. Mosby shortly after paying Lee a visit in Richmond
"Well, it made you famous"
- Mosby's reply to Pickett
I have mentioned before on another thread that I regard Semmes as one of the wars more interesting characters and I love his story, commerce raiding in command of the "Sumter" and "Alabama", his sinking by "Kearsarge", escaping in time to command the James River Squadron before ending his war as an hon. Brig. General. I do have the book you ask about and have tried to read it several times but unfortunately I find it a seriously heavy read and I have never yet got far with it.One day though.....
____________________ That old man...had my division massacred at Gettysburg!"
- George Pickett said these words to John S. Mosby shortly after paying Lee a visit in Richmond
"Well, it made you famous"
- Mosby's reply to Pickett
He appears to be telling it as it was but, as I say, it is a book that needs time to appreciate and that is something I don't have at the moment. There is an edited version called The Confederate Raider Alabama ( Philip van Doren Stern) which as its title suggests is mostly about the Alabama that is also sitting on the "to read pile".
