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OXFORD, Miss. - Stephen Enzweiler's new book, OXFORD IN THE CIVIL WAR: Battle for a Vanquished Land is scheduled for release on September 10, 2010.
The book's release comes only months before the beginning of the Civil War Sesquicentennial celebration, scheduled to kick off nationwide in 2011. Unlike most volumes on the Civil War, Enzweiler has masterfully populated the book with the real characters and personalities of antebellum Oxford and set them against the inextricable crossfire of slavery, secession and war. The result is a tale of the conflict in the west that is an engaging, lucid, and compelling story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.
Oxford in the Civil War is painstakingly drawn from surviving letters, personal papers, diaries and official records, forged into a forceful narrative history, much of which has never before been published. It is the story of both great southern political figures as well as of ordinary southerners.
At the center of the drama are two Oxford men, both career politicians and national figures in the midst of the turbulent national debate over slavery and secession: Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the Interior under President James Buchanan, and L.Q.C. Lamar, a vibrant, energetic secessionist fire-eater and pro-slavery hardliner.
"I think this is one of the great untold chapters to come out of the war," said Enzweiler, the book's author. "Both Presidents Lincoln and Davis knew that to win the war they needed to control Vicksburg, and Oxford found itself in the unfortunate position of being unable to get out of the way of Grant's army barreling right down through north Mississippi."
The result, as they say, is history. And a colorful history it turned out to be.
The war would ultimately cost the community more than a third of its population and nearly all of its young men, most of whom were on average only 21 years old. Among them were students of the University of Mississippi, formed as a company called the University Greys. They would ultimately go down in "imperishable glory" and become one the most famous outfits of the war after they were wiped out in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.
Oxford itself fared no better. The town was occupied by Grant's army in 1862, and in 1864, it was again occupied by a less than sympathetic Gen. Andrew Jackson Smith as he hunted Nathan Bedford Forrest. But on August 22, Smith's forces swept into town like a whirlwind and burnt Oxford completely to the ground.
Oxford in the Civil War is published by History Press of Charleston, S.C. and will be available for pre-ordering from Amazon.com or wherever books are sold.
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Posted: September 1, 2010
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