Everyone interested in the Civil War should write a unit history, whether of a battery or a brigade, a company or a corps. They give the writer a fund of knowledge that assists in testing the accuracy of more general works. You'll be amazed by what you can find. I discovered some remarkable facts when I wrote The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865 (Savas Beatie, 2019). For example, you'd never guess who was considered for the regiment's first colonel.
The sad fate of many unit histories is to wind up as reference books. I would not be surprised The Petersburg Regiment ended up as a reference book, though I think the regiment's soldiers wrote so much that the book merits reading for their sake.
I'm just finishing a short article on Mahone's brigade at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863 (the Petersburg Regiment belonged to Mahone's brigade) and found two unit histories particularly helpful.
The first was Red Clay to Richmond: Trail of the 35th Georgia Infantry Regiment, C.S.A. (Winchester, VA: Angle Valley Press, 2004), by John J. Fox, III. The 35th Georgia belonged to Thomas' brigade of Pender's division. Mahone's brigade was partially masked by Thomas' brigade. Red Clay to Richmond alerted me to the abandoned preparations for a night attack around dark on July 2, 1863, about the same time as Mahone's brigade was belatedly advancing in support of Wilcox's, Lang's and Wright's brigades of Anderson's division. Fox has also written an excellent history of the battle of Fort Gregg, April 2, 1865, The Confederate Alamo (2010).
The second helpful unit history was A Small but Spartan Band: The Florida Brigade in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia (University of Alabama Press, 2010), by Zack C. Waters and James D. Edmonds. This book clued me in to the actual chain of command on July 2, 1863. I had assumed, as many other historians have, that Longstreet had control of Anderson's division that day, but no. Waters and Edmonds provide the evidence that A. P. Hill was still in the chain of command. A Small but Spartan Band also provided an example of the criticism from the ranks that Mahone's brigade took because of its apparent failure to come to the support of Wilcox's, Lang's and Wright's brigades. (Lang led the Florida Brigade on July 2, 1863.)
The sad fate of many unit histories is to wind up as reference books. I would not be surprised The Petersburg Regiment ended up as a reference book, though I think the regiment's soldiers wrote so much that the book merits reading for their sake.
I'm just finishing a short article on Mahone's brigade at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863 (the Petersburg Regiment belonged to Mahone's brigade) and found two unit histories particularly helpful.
The first was Red Clay to Richmond: Trail of the 35th Georgia Infantry Regiment, C.S.A. (Winchester, VA: Angle Valley Press, 2004), by John J. Fox, III. The 35th Georgia belonged to Thomas' brigade of Pender's division. Mahone's brigade was partially masked by Thomas' brigade. Red Clay to Richmond alerted me to the abandoned preparations for a night attack around dark on July 2, 1863, about the same time as Mahone's brigade was belatedly advancing in support of Wilcox's, Lang's and Wright's brigades of Anderson's division. Fox has also written an excellent history of the battle of Fort Gregg, April 2, 1865, The Confederate Alamo (2010).
