Book: A visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States
Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 9:24 pm
This is an interesting out-of-copyright book by one Fitzgerald Ross, a somewhat reactionary Austrian cavalryman of Irish descent, who visited the CSA during the war.
On arrival in Richmond, he was given royal treatment -- including personal interviews with JP Benjamin and Jefferson Davis -- that can't be explained by hospitality alone. His hosts went all-out to impress their foreign visitor. The propaganda and occasional wild untruths they feed him (which he invariably accepts without question) offer a fascinating glimpse of how elements in the South (not least Davis himself) gradually became cocooned in their own wishful thinking, to the general detriment of the war effort.
While the author's sympathies obviously lie with the Confederacy, the book is nonetheless fascinating for the first-hand observations it offers. As a foreigner, Ross remarks on details other observers thought not worth commenting on. In spite of the author's profound biases, the book is compulsive reading for this reason alone.
Google books offers a PDF download or it can be read online.
http://books.google.com/books?id=5HkFAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:fitzgerald+inauthor:ross&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
On arrival in Richmond, he was given royal treatment -- including personal interviews with JP Benjamin and Jefferson Davis -- that can't be explained by hospitality alone. His hosts went all-out to impress their foreign visitor. The propaganda and occasional wild untruths they feed him (which he invariably accepts without question) offer a fascinating glimpse of how elements in the South (not least Davis himself) gradually became cocooned in their own wishful thinking, to the general detriment of the war effort.
While the author's sympathies obviously lie with the Confederacy, the book is nonetheless fascinating for the first-hand observations it offers. As a foreigner, Ross remarks on details other observers thought not worth commenting on. In spite of the author's profound biases, the book is compulsive reading for this reason alone.
Google books offers a PDF download or it can be read online.
http://books.google.com/books?id=5HkFAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:fitzgerald+inauthor:ross&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false