Virginia Historical Society Podcast

On April 7, 2017 at noon, Gary W. Gallagher delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “The Best Rebel Reminiscence: Edward Porter Alexander's Fighting for the Confederacy.” Edward Porter Alexander’s Military Memoirs of a Confederate: A Critical Narrative (1907) and Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander (1989) stand unchallenged as the most analytical, dispassionate, and influential books of their genre. Alexander wrote from a singular perspective as one who had served on the staffs of Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and P. G. T. Beauregard before beginning a career in the artillery that soon revealed him to be the most gifted gunner in the Confederacy. Literally present from Manassas to Appomattox, Alexander participated in all the great battles of the Western Theater as well as fighting in Tennessee in late 1863. This lecture will assess Alexander’s two books, highlighting the process by which he crafted them and the degree to which they influenced subsequen