In the winter of 1884, nearly twenty years after the close of the Civil War, surviving members of the First Delaware Regiment Association requested that its original adjutant, Captain William Penn Seville, prepare a brief history of the regiment's exploits in the late war. As an original recruit from from April 1861, Seville was a natural choice to prepare the history as he served the regiment in both a combat role and in various staff positions. As a War Department clerk following the war, Seville hastily prepared his ...
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In the winter of 1884, nearly twenty years after the close of the Civil War, surviving members of the First Delaware Regiment Association requested that its original adjutant, Captain William Penn Seville, prepare a brief history of the regiment's exploits in the late war. As an original recruit from from April 1861, Seville was a natural choice to prepare the history as he served the regiment in both a combat role and in various staff positions. As a War Department clerk following the war, Seville hastily prepared his manuscript and in barely four months delivered it as a speech to the dwindling 1st Delaware survivors on May 19, 1884. What readers are left with is a history of the 1st Delaware as told by one of its original members. Seville chose to give his benefactors what they wanted: a romantic history filled with glorious tales of heroism from the near loss and recovery of its regimental flag at Antietam; the pride in leading the futile attack on Marye's Heights; a change in front while the regiment was lost in the Wilderness at Chancellorsville, to the triumphant final repulse of Pickett's Charge. This revised edition of Seville's manuscript, while maintaining the dialogue and prose of the original, adds context to Seville's history by adding new voices to the work from other soldiers letters, diaries and accounts of the battles as they experienced it. New content uncovered during research on this fascinating regiment has been added in the form of footnotes and appendices.
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Add this copy of William Penn Seville's History of the 1st Delaware to cart. $33.68, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by Belli Civilis Press.
