Pictorial History of the American Civil War

[Alastair]

by John Laird Wilson (1881)

I was doing some research on a Scottish General in the American Civil War and came across this book by another Scotsman. I found it very interesting and then found a small bio on the author so decided to make this available on the site.

As you may know there were a lot of Scots in the army on both sides so the biographies included with this publication make is a good resource.

The full title of the book is...

The pictorial history of the great Civil War: its causes, origin, conduct and results; embracing full and authentic accounts of its battles by land and sea, with graphic descriptions of heroic deeds achieved by armies and individuals; narratives of personal adventure; thrilling incidents; daring exploits; wonderful escapes; life in camp, field, and hospital; adventures at sea; blockade life, etc., etc.; containing carefully prepared biographies of the leading generals and naval commanders of both the North and the South / by John Laird Wilson (1881)

You can get to this at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ilwar/cw59.htm

Alastair

[FriedaKateM]

Re: Pictorial History of the American Civil War

Alastair....I've been "studying" the Civil War (American) since I was a junior in high school. Some in college as well, & lived down in the South in Virginia when back from England.

However, I've just started having some of it "sink in" with me. Found it interesting about the name of the fellow you mentioned....John Laird Wilson. My grandfather on paternal side was a Wilson, & his people were supposed to have come over from Scotland, plus some of the maternal side on my dad's line were Huguenots, too. Supposed to have ties back to New Paltz in New York State. I'm a mixed bag, so to speak!!! Thanks. Joan

[Alastair]

Re: Pictorial History of the American Civil War

Well like he says at the start he'd came to this a bit later than others so felt he had a better perspective of the war with not being tied to either side.

Did you note he was writing a book about the Huguenots? I don't know if he finished it but might be worth doing a search.

Alastair

[Diane]

Re: Pictorial History of the American Civil War

Hey All,
This is sort of off topic, however, while watching the history of the old west, my husband wishes he lived back then, there were many references to Scottish land-owners and many of their business adventures. Wondered how so many were so successful, why they came here, and how they were treated!!

[Alastair]

Re: Pictorial History of the American Civil War

We do have quite a large section on the site about Scots in the USA. In fact right now we're doing Scots Poets in America. See http://www.electricscotland.com/usa/index.htm

Alastair

[Diane]

Re: Pictorial History of the American Civil War

Hey Alastair,
Just wanted to thank you for the above link. There is so much information there. I really need to look more fully at all the sites on ES. This will keep me reading for a long time.

[Alastair]

Re: Pictorial History of the American Civil War

We do have tons to read on the site Diane. In fact I doubt anyone could read it all in a lifetime. I guess you need to decide on a topic to home in on and then do a search. Should you be interested in American History then we go to the Scots Diaspora column in our menu and select USA. We have a history of America, also a history of the Southern States.

Part of what I was trying to do was give a reference to those intersted in Scots who emigrated to various parts of the world. I thought it would be useful to put up these countries histories to give some context of what they were like when Scots moved there.

You can find this page at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...rica/index.htm

While building the site I tended to work on topics. Like I wanted to find out more about what the Pioneers went through to settle the land so ended up adding quite a few books on that subject. When I felt I'd done enough I moved onto something else.

Like right now I'm working on histories of places in Scotland.

However I'm also working on a Gazetteer of Canada for the new Electric Canadian site and have to say it's going to be weeks of work to get that up. There are around 14,800 place names and 3,000 names of lakes. To do a decent job of this gazetteer I need to type all those names in and many are difficult to spell so need to keep cross checking to ensure I have the spelling correct. Mind you it will be a wonderful resource once it is all up.

Alastair