An Honor Unearned
From the Streets of Collierville, Tennessee, to Edgefield, South Carolina
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A HISTORICAL ARGUMENT
In 1861, a company of Collierville volunteers took the name of Louis Trezevant Wigfall. This book follows the documentary record — his own words, his contemporaries’, the wartime press — to ask whether that name was ever earned.
By Michael Louis Meece · Paperback & Kindle · About 230 pages
“The deeper I went into Louis Trezevant Wigfall’s life, the clearer it became that his commemoration was an honor unearned.”
“The deeper I went into Louis Trezevant Wigfall’s life, the clearer it became that his commemoration was an honor unearned.”
— From the Preface
What the record shows
What the record shows
The Man
The Man
A senator with real political talent — and, by his contemporaries’ own accounts, a record of heavy drinking, erratic conduct, and self-serving improvisation, including at Fort Sumter itself.
The Record
The Record
Diarist Mary Chesnut, private letters, and official reports tell a fuller story than the one the wartime press printed in 1861 — and the two accounts do not agree.
The Alternative
The Alternative
Corporal Merritt R. Brown of the Wigfall Grays was voted onto the Confederate Roll of Honor by his own comrades after Murfreesboro. This book asks why his is not the name remembered.
The Other Collierville
The Other Collierville
In the summer of 1863, more than one hundred Black men enlisted at Collierville to fight for the Union. No marker in the town yet names them.
A Better Namesake
A Better Namesake
Corporal Merritt R. Brown earned his place on the Confederate Roll of Honor. Wigfall never earned his.
Corporal Merritt R. Brown earned his place on the Confederate Roll of Honor. Wigfall never earned his.
The Collierville company that carried Wigfall’s name marched, fought, and lost men in the field. Brown came home, worked at the Collierville depot, and died in the yellow fever of 1878. This book asks Wigfall Greys Camp 1560 to consider remembering the company under a name that reflects its own service.
Why I Wrote It
Why I Wrote It
“Joining the Wigfall Greys, though, meant carrying a name I hadn’t examined. I knew T.F.’s record; I did not yet know Wigfall’s. So, I did what I’d just spent two years doing for my own great-grandfather — I went looking for the record. What I found was not what I expected.”
— Michael Louis Meece, from the Preface
Get the Book
Get the Book
Ten parts. Fifteen appendices. Twenty plates. Every claim sourced.
Ten parts. Fifteen appendices. Twenty plates. Every claim sourced.
Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
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