South Carolina Books
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Hilton Head & Bluffton readers will love this book!!!!!!!!!!Review Date: 2008-01-03
An absolute must-haveReview Date: 2006-12-15
What's not clear from Amazon's description is that this book has a unique format. Each page was originally an article in the local paper, so you get one page of info per critter or process. The pages are works of art, hand-drawn and lettered in pen and ink. Any one of them would be worthy of framing. The language is clear and easy to understand, written for laymen but with enough info to satisfy naturalists. In fact, they're so beautiful and well-written that I'm here today to buy a copy for a professor of mine who teaches college classes on the geology and natural history of the East coast. There's nothing in this book he doesn't know or can't look up in a normal reference book. It's the artwork that really makes this book pop.
Don't hesitate to buy this--you won't be disappointed!
Very enjoyable and useful resource for the Coastal CarolinasReview Date: 1999-06-11
WowReview Date: 2002-04-03

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Excellent Guide for an Overlooked Area During the WarReview Date: 2003-09-20
1. Fort Fisher - the largest sea fort in the war that protected the vital town of Wilmington NC and the blockade runners so important for supplying Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
2. Charleston - where the whole shootin' match started.
3. Bentonville - the last large scale battle of the war.
4. Outer Banks - early Union victories here were vital to capturing many parts of Eastern North Carolina from which the Union could launch several offensives.
5. Sherman's March - the destruction of certain towns in both Carolinas (particularly South Carolina) further weakened the South's will to continue the struggle.
I also enjoyed reading about the locations of various gravesites of Confederate generals and their Civil War service.
Indeed, if not for this book, this native North Carolinian and long-time Civil War buff may never have learned of and visited the sites of some of the lesser-known sites other than those mentioned above.
Johnson's writing style is smooth without being overly simplistic and contains several anecdotes (some humorous ones too)of the interesting events which took place during the Civil War years.
Highly recommended!
An ideal and essential travel guideReview Date: 2001-04-15
InvaluableReview Date: 1999-10-22
The guide to have when touring Carolinas' Civil War sitesReview Date: 1998-06-29

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Took me to places I would never have found otherwise.Review Date: 1999-10-19
A must-have guidebook for visitors, newcomers, and nativesReview Date: 1999-10-05
Entire series is ExcellentReview Date: 2007-07-31
Wonderful...Review Date: 2006-03-24

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amazing researchReview Date: 2007-01-29
Grandpa Scrugg's Civil War StoriesReview Date: 2007-02-02
Surviving ElmiraReview Date: 2007-02-01
In my opinion, however, as an avid student of the conflict rather than a professional historian, Scrugg's finest achievement was in his reconstruction of Judson's narrative within a quasi-fictional framework, in which he recreates not only the voice of his great-grandfather, but also that of the grandchildren who are auditors of the story. This teachnique not only creates a sense of immediacy in the flow of the narrative, but instills a kind of novelistic suspense which makes it enjoyable for the reader. This approach also permits Scruggs to render narrative as a truly "oral history," in that he has recreated the language of the period --- the regional dialect of 19th century Southerner. His handling of the artistic problem of the use of "eye dialect," moreover, is deftly handled: instead of generating pages of mangled orthography, Scruggs includes only occasional phonetic spellings, opting instead for the dialectal phrase, the idiom, and the speech rhythmns of his people. Professional historians may take issue with Scrugg's decision to treat his material in this way; other readers may enjoy it as thoroughly as I did.
Roger Cole
January 29, 2007
Tramping with the LegionReview Date: 2007-01-16
Almost nothing has been written about this effective fighting unit which was organized early in the war by Peter F. Stevens, a former superintendent of The Citadel. 'Shanks' Evans, whose brigade included the infantry regiment of the Holcombe Legion, regarded it as his best fighting unit. During Lee's 1862 campaign, the accomplished Stevens often led Evans' entire brigade on the many occasions when Evans was posted to the divisional level.
In his stories, Judson recalls training camps around Charleston, the battles of Malvern Hill, Rappahannock Station, Second Manassas, Lee's First Maryland Campaign, Kinston (NC), and Jackson (MS). In the summer of 1864, the Holcombe Legion was detailed to guard the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad and (luckily) was not with Evans' Brigade at the Battle of the Crater. However, Judson was captured while guarding the Stoney Creek (VA) station and bridge and sent to the infamous Elmyra (NY) Prison. Perhaps Judson's most interesting stories recount his tunnelling out of prison in October 1864 and his experiences of running, hiding, and working his way home by late May of 1865.
Gene Scruggs includes glimpses of the daily lives of his Spartanburg District ancestors as he fashions the war stories as if his great-grandfather was telling them to his grandchildren in nightly installations. This is a "good read" for anyone interested in this troubled time in American history.

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Excellent reference.Review Date: 1997-11-18
After a brief but useful essay on the history and manufacture of Army patches, the author proceeds to the heart of the work; the depiction of over 1500 patches in full color, with accompanying notes giving a brief history and current location of the unit, the design and wear dates of the emblem, campaign credits and unit decorations. With abbreviations, glossary, bibliography, and an excellent index, Stein's work will serve as a standard reference for patch collectors. The only notable shortcoming is a lack of information on reproduction patches, a number of which are depicted without comment.
(The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)
Very Valuable!Review Date: 1999-01-12
Perfect overviewReview Date: 1999-10-26
Excellent resourceReview Date: 2000-02-23


ExcellentReview Date: 2005-05-16
a "Must-Read" for prospective USC students!!!Review Date: 2005-02-28
An Informative PerspectiveReview Date: 2005-01-20
Great source!Review Date: 2004-12-27

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Wise WordsReview Date: 2008-05-10
In his book, The Words of War, Mr. Bracken takes a very novel approach to a discussion of the Civil War, contrasting the coverage of several wartime events by two newspapers from two disparate regions, The Charleston Mercury of South Carolina and the northeast's New York Times. The differences in the reporting are striking, with the tenor and the details differing greatly.
How interesting it is to read news reports from over a century ago against current events. The politics, the war, the economy and the specific issues might vary; now it's not the North and the South, as much as it is the red states and the blue states.
This book serves as a terrific reminder that we must continue to question the objectivity and validity of the information we get. I highly recommend it.
Will appeal to manyReview Date: 2007-08-20
In his introduction to the book, Bracken writes, "When the Civil War started, American journalism was put to the test. It was the start of the modern age of journalism, and it was a rough start indeed." The formative years of American journalism saw newspapers operated almost exclusively as propaganda organs, owned by some political person or party and used primarily to persuade the public for one cause or another. But when the Civil War came along, the very purpose of newspapers changed.
The public wanted information that was current, demanding up-to-date reportage of events that took place hundreds and thousands of miles away. Newspaper editors switched the focus of their papers' content from propaganda to covering the facts of battle, the "who-what-when and where" of it all. While the papers in the North and South always had different takes as to the "why" element of battle reportage, they still had to meet the chief demand of their reading public: that they get the facts, preferably as soon as possible. The new telegraph technology allowed for current reportage, and for the first time in the history of warfare, correspondents provided stories in a timely fashion.
New York was the newspaper capital of the country when war broke out, boasting 17 dailies. Many were pro-South and only five of them supported President Abraham Lincoln. Bracken focuses on one of those five, the New York Times, and its considerably talented editor Henry J. Raymond. Long interested in politics and journalism, Raymond was a principal founder of the New York Times in 1851 and also helped create the Republican Party after he left the Whigs in 1856.
In contrast, Bracken presents the firebrand editor of the Charleston Mercury, Robert Barnwell Rhett. Under the wonderful pseudonym "Hermes," Rhett penned the editorials that would lead South Carolina to be the first state to secede on Dec. 20, 1860. "He was quick of mind, brash and self-confident," writes Bracken, "and of the latter, annoyingly so to some." Rhett had considerable editorial influence over the Charleston Mercury, which was owned by Rhett's family.
Bracken is described on the book jacket as "...a writer of long standing having written extensively for newspapers and magazines for thirty years on subjects ranging from world history to economics." His familiarity with the Civil War subject matter is obvious in The Words of War and his approach to writing the book is organized and efficient.
Each chapter presents a battle, beginning with an author's commentary that sets the context. Then Bracken prints verbatim and unaltered the articles from the Charleston Mercury and then the articles from the New York Times that covered the battle. Sometimes maps, drawings and paintings are reprinted. Bracken then concludes each chapter with a section called "What Historians Say," usually a few paragraphs that cut the facts about the battle down to the barest of bones.
The most interesting portions of the book are found in the sections where actual dispatches and communications between the armies were published in the papers. For example, Bracken presents the fascinating exchange between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner during the battle at Fort Donelson early in 1862, as printed in the New York Times. Buckner sent Grant a dispatch proposing that a group of commissioners be appointed to determine terms of surrender. Grant responds:
Sir: Yours, of this date, proposing an armistice and the appointment of Commissioners to settle the terms of capitulation is just received. No terms except unconditional surrender and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works. I am very respectfully, your obedient servant.
Thus we learn how the famous nickname, Unconditional Surrender Grant, was created. The exchanges and notes between opposing commanders add a great deal of interest to Bracken's book.
The Words of War will appeal to a wide variety of audiences. Civil War buffs, journalists and history students will find a great deal of value in the book. The book is so well organized that the reader does not have to go through the entire book in one sitting; he can peruse this chapter or that chapter, go to whichever battles he finds most interesting, and not lose any of the overall context. The book reads easily and provides information and perspective that even the most diehard of Civil War buffs will find new and enlightening. Bracken's effort is a solid one.
An inherently fascinating, impressively informative, enthusiastically recommended contribution Review Date: 2007-07-09
Reporting the Civil WarReview Date: 2007-05-16

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alfreda's worldReview Date: 2003-06-09
HeartwarmingReview Date: 2003-12-26
Like Tuesdays with Morrie -- only it's Wednesdays with MaryReview Date: 2003-07-05
This would be a great gift for moms, sisters, grandmoms. A must-read for anyone who loved When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, or The Secret Life of Bees!
Here's to Alfreda and to all the wise women at the Hebron Zion Church on John's Island. You are an inspiration!

Used price: $1.33

Things they Never Tell You About American HistoryReview Date: 2007-01-23
John Leland, in his "Aliens in the Backyard: Plant and Animal Imports into America" presents us with many (but certainly not all) of these imported organisms, from starlings to Russian thistle and from dogs (first brought in by Native Americans) to anthrax. Some of these introductions changed history as they destroyed or interfered with crops, or were of medical importance. Smallpox, unknown in America, was used to kill Native Americans long before anyone heard of a virus by transferring contaminated blankets to the intended victims. Both diseases and destroyers of crops had their effects on armies and the outcomes of wars, as well as the physical and economic health of the hemisphere.
Despite a few irritating typos, I found the book to be basically accurate and I learned a few things as well, such as the fact that all species of human lice were already present in the New World when Columbus landed. Typhus may have been here as well.
This is one of those eye-opening books that should be read by everyone, especially if you are concerned with security. We don't need terrorists (although they can help things along) to cause major impacts on society. Nature and our own mobility can do it as efficiently or even better! We should also keep in mind that we, who evolved on the plains of Africa, are aliens to the New World as well! Indeed, John Leland drives this point home several times in this book!
A dizzying, entertaining compendium of facts and myths and storiesReview Date: 2005-10-11
From the hallucinogenic properties of hemp, morning glory, datura and more; to attempts to cultivate the silkworm; to rats, cockroaches and disease, Leland's essays offer an entertaining history of facts, rumors and squabbles on an exhaustive number of alien species. Whether purposely (often to rid the place of some other unwanted interloper) or accidentally introduced, aliens have long thrived in their new home and many have come to be considered natives.
A professor of English at the Virginia Military Institute, Leland ("Porcher's Creek: Lives Between the Tides") writes with wit and a certain wicked relish, and his research is dizzyingly thorough. But the sheer width and breadth of information is overwhelming. This is a book to keep, to dip into again and again a chapter or even a few pages at a time, so as to have some hope of retention.
With chapter titles like "Out of Africa," "Cowboys: And Their Alien Habits," "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time," and "Bioterror: Older than You Think," Leland makes an appreciative and entertaining case for the melting pot.
How alien species have changed AmericaReview Date: 2005-09-08
From apples to kudzu he details which aliens have been a boon and which have been a sorry bust. In the case of kudzu (Pueraria lobata, which I saw for the first time in a Louisiana swamp a week before hurricane Katrina hit), "It Seemed a Good Idea at the Time" (title of one of his chapters). That was before people realized that kudzu completely blankets "whatever it grows on in a smothering welter of leaves and vines" strangling trees and other vegetation to death. (p. 161)
Also not a good idea was the introduction of carp into America's waters. Leland opines that "Most fishermen and environmentalist regard its widespread introduction...as a disaster...," although there are some, including the Carp Angler Group, who have a different opinion. Similarly, people differ about whether it was a good idea to bring the starling (one of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works) to America since it is now considered "a dirty, noisy, gregarious, and aggressive" bird that has displaced native species. Perhaps the worst of the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" species is the gypsy moth, brought to America as a possible silk worm. Leland goes into some detail about "well-intentioned dreamers of silken fortunes" in the chapter, "A Sow's Ear from a Silk Purse."
But these deliberately introduced species are relatively benign in the public eye compared to those that have freeloaded their way into our land and have more or less taken over in ways that we cannot control. The German cockroach, the Norway or brown rat, and the tumbleweed (surprisingly not native to the land of the cowboy but from Russia (with love)--oh, you deluded Sons of the Pioneers!) are three that Leland zeroes in on. He also has a few words to say about the American cockroach (probably not American--also called the palmetto bug) and the Oriental cockroach. Here in southern California we have all three, the German, the American and the Oriental. The German is the ever so prolific one that lives indoors in apartment houses and restaurants the world over, while the larger American and Oriental tend to live outdoors. I sometimes find one of the latter in my house dried up and dead in a corner or in a drawer, having wandered in and found nothing to eat and no moisture.
An introduced species that is perhaps an even bigger pest here in the southland is the Argentine ant, which Leland unaccountably does not mention. I recommend he take a study on it. There's enough material there to write a book and then some. Once the Argentine ant (small and black with only an occasional tiny bite) sets up shop inside the walls or under an establishment such as an apartment building or a college dormitory, it is there to stay.
What Leland does so very well in this book, and what makes it superior to some other books I have read, is integrate the alien species into the historical and cultural experience of the American people. In his chapter, "Out of Africa," he details "How Slavery Transformed the American Landscape and Diet." I had to laugh when I read that watermelon is not native to America but comes from Africa, as do peanuts and Bermuda grass, sesame seed and of course the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) also known as the black-eyed pea. I had to laugh because I recalled Randy Newman's satirical song encouraging Africans to come to America in the early days of the republic for "the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake"!
Naturally, it is not in any way surprising that many of our foods come from other lands since most of the world's cuisines have found a home in American. Rice is not native, although the so-called "wild rice" is. Wheat comes from the Middle East as most people know, while potatoes are native to the Andes in South American.
In the chapter "Cowboys and Their Alien Habits" Leland recalls the familiar story of how the horse was once native to America but had gone extinct here before Columbian times, and then was accidentally reintroduced by the Spanish explorers after which it revolutionized the Plains Indians' way of life. (p. 92) Also alien are the cowboy's cattle, including the Texas longhorn; and if we go back far enough even the "Indians," the so-called native Americans are not native. Sad to say many of the true natives, like the giant sloth and the cave bear and the great mammoth went extinct coincidental with the arrival of the first humans from across the Bering Strait.
The only problem I have with this book and others like it, is that there is never enough. The way plants and animals have moved around the world and the way they have changed the lives of people is a continual source of fascination. Leland's fine book adds to the reader's pleasure while not sating it.

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Carolina and Georgia LighthousesReview Date: 2007-09-08
Bansemer's Book of Carolina and Georgia LighthousesReview Date: 2007-06-09
Highly recommended reading for all lighthouse enthusiasts!Review Date: 2000-09-04
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