Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War

This collection of Civil War correspondence chronicles the lives and concerns of three Confederate families in Piedmont, South Carolina.

The letters in Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War provide valuable firsthand accounts of both battlefronts and the home front, sharing rich details about daily life as well as evolving attitudes toward the war. As the men of service age from each family join the Confederate ranks, they begin writing from military camps in Virginia and the Carolinas, describing combat in some of the war’s more significant battles. Though they remain staunch patriots to the Southern cause until the bitter end, the surviving combatants write candidly of their waning enthusiasm in the face of the realities of combat.

The corresponding letters from the home front offer a more pragmatic assessment of the period and its hardships. Emblematic of the fates of many Southern families, the experiences of these representative South Carolinians are dramatically illustrated in their letters from the eve of the Civil War through its conclusion.