History of Kershaw’s Brigade

The name of Kershaw’s Brigade of South Carolinians is familiar to all who wore the gray and saw hard fighting on the fields of Virginia, in the swamps of Carolina and the mountains of Tennessee. This was ＂the First Brigade of the First Division of the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia,＂ and many of its members volunteered for service before the first gun was fired at the Star of the West, while its ragged regimental remnants laid down their arms at Greensboro not till the 2d of May, 1865, nearly a month after the fateful day of Appomattox. Its history is a history of the war, for, as will he seen, there were few pitched battles in the East that did not call forth its valor. The chief merit of Captain Dickert’s book is that it presents the gay and bright, as well as the grave side of the Confederate soldier’s experience. It is full of anecdote and incident and repartee. Such quips and jests kept the heart light and the blood warm beneath many a tattered coat.