Civil War Confederate Journal

[andysouthern]

Hello, my name is Andy Southern.

I recently helped clean out my grandfather's house and took a few boxes of old family items back home with me. In it, I discovered a 27 page (typed on a type writer) retelling of my 4th great grandfather's experiences as a soldier in the Civil war, fighting for the Confederacy, as well as when he was wounded at Vicksburg. It is truly fascinating and well written, as he was a well off attorney. I am wondering if anyone here can offer me advice on where I can go with it. I am scanning the whole of it onto my computer and would love to find a place online where I can upload it, make it readable to others, and hear other's opinions on it and maybe learn more about him. If anyone has any advice on what I can do to help preserve his story I would greatly appreciate it.

[Viktoria]

Andy, you don`t say which country you live in.
If The  United states then there are Civil War Societies which would give their eye teeth for such a document.
I`m sure they would print it and you would have a copy.
Perhaps a publisher would be interested.
However I think you need expert advice because it is first and foremost a family archive . Ensure you maintain control over it.
  How lovely to have it. You say it is a typed copy, have you any idea what happened to the original?
It is possible it has already been published if only by a society , in which case you may be infringing copyright regulations.
I wish you success and would like to read it myself.
I was bought for Christmas one year the video set of a very good documentary programme about the Civil war, with original photographs and it was very sad compelling viewing.
Please keep us posted. Viktoria.

[andysouthern]

Hi, thanks for the reply!

Yes, it's the United States Civil War. I believe it is the original; it isn't a journal per say, it's more of a retelling because I believe he wrote the whole thing after the war. I don't think it was published, he was wealthy at the time and typed it himself after the war (he often mentions that reconstruction is going on at the time he is writing it). I would love to find some sort of publisher that would be interested in looking at it because it covers everything from the south separating from the union and all of his opinions on what was going on at the time and goes all the way through the fall of Vicksburg, his injury, and reconstruction. It's really fascinating, so if you have any ideas of where to look for publishing or any civil war societies that would be interested please let me know! I would love to show some people what I have!

Thanks again!

~Andy

[Redroger]

Making an intervention from Britain. I think your document is most likely to be a typewritten copy of the original as the typewriter did not become available commercially in the USA until 1873(Wikipedia), and then it was patented in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Would a Southerner have bought a machine from the north this early? I know from my own interest in early American railroads that the Virginian Railway placed locomotive orders with Alco, specifying Richmond (Va) works as late as the 1920s.

[andysouthern]

That may also be true. I'm attempting to date it based off what he does talk about in it, because it is all in the past tense. Near the end he says "longer than three years of the third decade ending in 1868 did it take to restore to the white men the ballot and lift from their necks the yoke of their former slaves". So, I know he wrote this sometime after 1868. It may be possible that he either handwrote it and it was typed later, but after reconstruction ended I know he started his own newspaper in Independence Missouri, so he may have been able to get his hands on a typewriter through that, in which case this would have been written sometime after the war.

[andysouthern]

I thought that seeing the condition of the paper, type of paper, etc. might help someone with determining how old the typed copy may be, so i scanned the first page of the journal here.

[Erato]

"the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer, which began production in late 1873 and appeared on the American market in 1874.   Christopher L. Sholes, a Milwaukee newspaperman, poet, and part-time inventor, was the main creator of this machine. The Sholes & Glidden typed only in capital letters"

http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-history.html

[andysouthern]

Ah, so it could not have been that one, as it is lowercase. I did however discover a second copy of this; I found a second, identical typed copy of this same journal (except that one was missing the last 3 pages) and it looked to be newer. Not quite sure what that could mean.

EDIT: Also, the paper says "Berkshire Bond USA" on it, so that would be the company that made the paper.

[Erato]

You might find some information here:

http://www.vintagetypewriterjewelry.com/12/history-of-remington-typewriters-|-vintage-remington-typewriter-company.html