During his service in the Confederate army, Major General Lafayette
McLaws (1821-1897) served under and alongside such famous officers
as Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, James Longstreet, and John B.
Hood. He played a significant role in some of the most crucial
battles of the Civil War, including Harpers Ferry, Antietam,
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Despite this, no
biography of McLaws or history of his division has ever been
published.
A Soldier's General gathers ninety-five letters written by
McLaws to his family between 1858 and 1865, making these valuable
resources available to a wide audience for the first time. The
letters, painstakingly transcribed from McLaws's notoriously poor
handwriting, contain a wealth of opinion and information about life
and morale in the Confederate army, Civil War-era politics, the
Southern press, and the impact of war on the Confederate home
front. Among the fascinating threads the letters trace is the story
of McLaws's fractured relationship with childhood friend
Longstreet, who had McLaws relieved of command in 1863.
John Oeffinger's extensive introduction sketches McLaws's life from
his beginnings in Augusta, Georgia, through his early experiences
in the U.S. Army, his marriage, his Civil War exploits, and his
postwar years.