Letters to Amanda: The Civil War Letters of Marion Hill Fitzpatrick, Army of Northern Virginia

Military Images, Jul/Aug 1999 by Katcher, Philip

Letters to Amanda: The Civil War Letters of Marion Hill Fitzpatrick, Army of Northern Virginia, edited by Jeffrey Lowe and Sam Hodges. 227 pages, 7 illustrations. Mercer University Press, 1998. $29.95

By now there must be more books of letters home from Civil War soldiers than generals' memoirs that prove that they did nothing wrong on the field of battle. This set of some hundred letters dating from May 1862 to June 1865 from a soldier in the 45th Georgia are some of the most valuable and certainly the most moving ever published. The letters were first published privately some 20 years ago and those editions are extremely valuable. This edition, however, is greatly improved through an introduction by Gary W. Gallagher and annotations by the editors, both great-great-grandsons of the letter writer.

Fitzpatrick was one of those stalwart individuals who made the Army of Northern Virginia the great army it was. Older than most when he joined the army, he was often sick with one ailment or another in hospital. He was, moreover, three times wounded. Still, when in the ranks he must have been one of the best, as he was one of those hand-picked soldiers who were put into special sharpshooter battalions for the 1864 campaign. Little has been written, save for Dunlap's memoir, of the activities of these troops, and these letters are valuable for shedding light on their deployment. For example, in the 1864 campaigns they appear, from his letters, not to have always been used as skirmishers but at times as provost guards in the rear capturing deserters and returning stragglers to the front.

Fitzpatrick eventually became the regimental sergeant major and acting adjutant. He received a furlough in late 1864 and, according to family history, was begged to stay in Georgia rather than return to an obviously defeated anny. He refused, saying that he'd rather leave his bones in Virginia than be known as a deserter in Georgia. This was the kind of man who kept the Confederacy alive on the point of his bayonet for four years.