Book Review of Rebel Yell by S.C. Gwynne


Review of Rebel Yell by S. C. Gwynne
The more history one has personally the more interest one takes in it generally.  I have found this to be true for me.  The older I get the more interested I have become in history.  And one of my favorite parts of history is that of the Civil War.  And few things take me more into it than a good biography that delves deeply into the personality of the individual being expounded upon.  Rebel Yell by S. C. Gwynne is one such book.
In recent years many of the key figures of the Confederacy, as well as the American Revolution, have been criticized for their compliance, if not out right support, for the institution of slavery, and rightly so.  Slavery was and remains an evil institution, even if for most of history it was an accepted one.  And so why did honorable men like Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson fight for a Confederacy that intended to sustain such an evil?  Rebel Yell does not provide a direct answer to that perplexity for Jackson, but it does give the reader insights into the complexity of a profoundly religious man who fought heroically on the wrong side of the bloodiest conflict in American history and yet bucked local custom in personally providing religious training for the slaves of his community.
Expectedly Rebel Yell will take you onto the battle fields by which Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson raised havoc on the Union forces until his untimely death by friendly fire, but it will also immerse you in the life of a  devoutly Christian man who loved passionately, who suffered mightily, and who believed supremely.  S. C. Gwynne delivers in bringing to life for the reader this complex and enigmatic icon of the Civil War.
Reviewed by Richard Dick, Library Assistant at O’Kelly Memorial Library

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