A Palmetto Boy
Civil War-Era Diaries and Letters of James Adams Tillman
Bobbie Swearingen Smith, Bobbie Swearingen Smith
- 232 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
A Palmetto Boy
Civil War-Era Diaries and Letters of James Adams Tillman
Bobbie Swearingen Smith, Bobbie Swearingen Smith
About This Book
These diaries and family letters reveals the experiences of Senator Benjamin Tillman's brother as a Confederate captain during and after the Civil War. Though the Tillman family of Edgefield, South Carolina, is important to Palmetto State history, James Adams Tillman never became a politician like his famous brothers Ben and George. Instead, at the age of twenty-four, James died from injuries sustained during the Civil War. Now, in this collection of diary entries and family letters, James's story is finally told. Edited by Bobbie Swearingen Smith, this collection offers a significant historical record of the Civil War era as experienced by a member of this prominent South Carolina family. At nineteen, Tillman enlisted with the Twenty-fourth South Carolina Volunteer Infantry of Edgefield. He served on the coastal defenses south of Charleston and fought in both battles of Secessionville, as well as at Chickamauga, where he was wounded. Under the command of General Johnston in Tennessee and North Carolina, Tillman retreated from General Sherman's advance. At the war's end, Tillman wrote about the onset of Reconstruction and those he saw as descending on South Carolina to profit from the defeated South. A Palmetto Boy shares both the immediacy of Tillman's thoughts from the war front and his contemplative expressions of those experiences for his family on the home front. Tillman's personal narrative adds another layer to our understanding of the historical significance of the Tillman family and offers a compelling firsthand account of the motivations and actions of a young South Carolinian at war.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Appendix 1
CHESTER ON THE OLD STAGE ROAD
Appendix 2
Before April 1862 | Boarding school and Chester, South Carolina |
April 1862 | Columbia, Charleston, and Coles Island (Parris Island), South Carolina |
May 1862 | Coles Island and James Island, South Carolina |
June 1862 | James Island |
JulyâNovember 1862 | Secessionville, South Carolina |
December 1862 | Cape Fear River, South and/or North Carolina |
JanuaryâFebruary 1863 | Cape Fear River and Eno River, Wilmington, North Carolina |
March 1863 | Pocotaligo, South Carolina |
April 1863 | Secessionville, South Carolina |
May 1863 | Canton, Mississippi |
June 1863 | Yazoo City, Mississippi |
July 1863 | Big Black River, Mississippi |
August 1863 | Morton, Mississippi |
September 1863 | Chickamauga Mountain and Chattanooga, Tennessee |
October 1863 | (Journals burned in fire in 1920s; this period lost) Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia, and Chester, South Carolina |
November 1863âFebruary 1864 | Tennessee and Georgia |
MarchâApril 1864 | Dublin, Georgia, and Georgia |
May 1864 | Dallas, Georgia |
June 1864 | Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia |
JulyâAugust 1864 | Atlanta, Georgia |
September 1864 | Macon and Jonesboro, Georgia |
October 1864 | Rome, Georgia |
November 1864 | Tuscumbia, Alabama, and Franklin, Tennessee |
December 1864 | Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee, and Corinth, Mississippi |
January 1865 | Corinth, Mississippi |
February 1865 | Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina |
March 1865 | Smithfield, North Carolina |
April, May 1865 | Mustered out in Greensboro, North Carolina. Walked through North and South Carolina, home to Chester. |
Appendix 3
JAMES ADAMS TILLMAN, 1862â1865
April 18, 1862 | Edisto Island, S.C. Union: 3 wounded. |
May 29, 1862 | Pocataligo, S.C. Union: 2 killed 9 wounded. |
June 10, 1862 | James Island, S.C. Union: 3 killed, 13 wounded; Confederate: 17 killed, 30 wounded. |
October 22, 1862 | Pocataligo or Yemassee, S.C. Union: 43 killed, 58 wounded; Confederate: 14 killed, 102 wounded. |
December 1â18, 1862 | Goldsboro, N.C. Union: 90 killed, 478 wounded; Confederate: 71 killed, 268 wounded, 400 missing. |
December 14, 1862 | Kingston N.C. Union: 40 killed, 120 wounded; Confederate: 50 ki... |