An Old Soldier Remembering His War

During the Civil War Thomas Wallace Colley (1837-1919) served as a corporal in the 1^st Virginia Cavalry, and was wounded three times in the line of duty, losing a foot. Postwar he prospered, and was in veterans’ causes. In his old age he began writing his memoirs of the war, leaving a very large volume of material. Prof. Shaffer (Kennesaw State) has drawn this material together, editing and annotating it to help clarify the text.

Colley tells many a good soldier’s story. There are hard marches, rough camps, short rations, tough fights, injury and death in battle or by disease or accident, There’s also some little tips on soldiering, a lot of wartime gossip, stealing a turkey from Jed Stuart's mess, and an occasional bit of interstate rivalry, such as his wonderful crack at First Bull Run when South Carolina’s Hampton Legion seemed to be retiring in haste, “South Carolina, the first to secede . . . the first to run”.

An unreconstructed rebel, Colley’s account is very much “Lost Cause”, though surprisingly there is some momentary reservation about slavery. Shaffer’s introduction is of particular interest in calling attention to Colley’s postwar problems with PTSD, and suggests the condition’s importance to the rise of the myth of the “Lost Cause”.

A volume in the University of Tennessee series “Voices of the Civil War”, In Memory of Self and Comrades is a valuable read for many reasons.

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