Sources & Purpose

Why this book was written, and what it rests on

A Note on Sources and Purpose

This book presents a historical argument, not an official position of the Sons of Confederate Veterans or any of its camps, chapters, or divisions. The author is an independent researcher and descendant of a Confederate soldier, writing in that capacity alone.

Every factual claim in this book is drawn from cited primary and secondary sources—contemporary newspapers, military and government records, personal letters, and published scholarship—listed in the footnotes and bibliography. Where the surviving record is incomplete or a source could not be independently verified to the author’s full satisfaction, this is noted in the text. Conclusions and judgments about historical figures represent the author’s own interpretation of that record, offered for consideration rather than asserted as beyond dispute.

“I have no interest in erasing Louis Wigfall from the historical record, or in pretending the Civil War did not happen, or in taking down anything that tells its story honestly. This book does the opposite — it asks readers to look more closely at the record, not less.”

— Michael Louis Meece, from the Preface

A Sample of the Sources

A few from each category. The complete bibliography — about 185 sources — is in the book.

Primary

Chesnut, Mary Boykin Miller. A Diary from Dixie. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1905.

Confederate States War Department. General Orders No. 131: Inscription to the Soldier’s Roll of Honor. Richmond, October 3, 1863.

Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. 2 vols. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885–1886.

Keating, J. M. A History of the Yellow Fever: The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878, in Memphis, Tenn. Memphis: Howard Association, 1879.

Secondary

Heidler, David S. Pulling the Temple Down: The Fire-Eaters and the Destruction of the Union. Stackpole Books, 1994.

King, Alvy L. Louis T. Wigfall: Southern Fire-Eater. Louisiana State University Press, 1970.

Link, William A. The Last Fire-Eater: Roger A. Pryor and the Search for a Southern Identity. Louisiana State University Press, 2022.

Ural, Susannah J. Hood’s Texas Brigade. Louisiana State University Press, 2017.

Local, Genealogical & Archival

Morton Museum of Collierville History. Town History Archives.

National Archives. Compiled military service records, 4th Tennessee Infantry (C.S.A.) and 61st U.S. Colored Infantry.

Shelby County, Tennessee. Chancery and Probate Court records. Shelby County Register of Deeds and Archives, Memphis.

Trezevant, John Timothée. The Trezevant Family in the United States. 1914.

With thanks to the Morton Museum of Collierville History and to Neecole Gregory.

Get the Book

About 185 sources — newspapers, official war records, court files, census pages, and museum archives — appear in full in the book.

Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.