Charlotte's Boys

"Their actions gave them substance, and their soft Savannah accents whispered from the pages. What I heard is as much a tribute to a mother's devotion and faith as it is to the courage and sacrifice of her soldier sons."--Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, on the Branch family lettersCharlotte Branch, a widow of Savannah, Georgia, raised three sons to become servants of the Confederate cause. John, Sanford, and Hamilton Branch enlisted in Savannah's Oglethorpe Light Infantry, and their fate--along with the fate of many of their fellow soldiers--is revealed in this vast collection of letters from 1861 through 1866. Augmented by secondary correspondences from family and friends, the letters of Charlotte Branch and her sons depict the trauma endured by Savannah herself, offering a candid look at military and civilian struggles during the Civil War.One of the most complete compilations of Civil War correspondence to appear in print, Charlotte's Boys reveals the profoundly varied impact of war on individual soldiers and their families. John Branch, the eldest of the three sons, was one of the South's most promising officers before he fell at First Manassas and died in the arms of his brothers. Sanford, the second son, was captured and suffered as one of the Immortal Six Hundred before his release in 1864. Hamilton, the youngest, was wounded three times, participated in the battle of Atlanta and the Tennessee campaign, and remained in service until the South's surrender.