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| My copies of the O.R. (navy & army) for North Carolina in 1864 |
Here are my well-worn copies of the army and navy Official Records covering operations in North Carolina during the first half of 1864. They were my steady companions through several years of writing and research for
The Fight for the Old North State, a study of the Confederate campaign to retake key Union positions in North Carolina, including New Bern and Plymouth. The book will be released in February by
University Press of Kansas.
My faded copy of the dark grayish "Armies" O.R. volume (Series I, Vol. 33) hails originally from the California State Sutro Library in San Francisco with a subsequent stop at the Mid-Columbia Library in Kennewick, Washington. The tattered blue "navies" title (Series I, Vol. 9) comes from a private collection and was originally a gift to George W. Williams by Senator J. L. McLaurin of South Carolina, who served in Congress during the 1890's.
The O.R., as a whole, consists of well over a 100 bound volumes published by the War and Navy Departments a few decades after the war. This series usually serves as the bedrock to any study of Civil War military operations. However, these essential volumes only form the tip of the research iceberg. In gathering materials for
The Fight for the Old North State, I dug into archival materials at the National Archives, Library of Congress, state archives, universities and historical societies (letters, diaries, maps, etc.),
many (many) period
newspapers (especially letters from soldiers and observers), scores of published primary accounts, and numerous secondary sources.
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| Detail from fold out map of Plymouth in the O.R.N. |
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| The Fight for the Old North State |
