While Waiting for Word

While waiting for word from The Johns Hopkins University Press, I’ve turned my attention to the stack of thirty or so manila folders piled on my desk. Each represents a Union soldier carte de visite added to my collection while writing and researching the Confederate manuscript. One of the soldiers, Capt. John Emory Bryant of the Eighth Maine Infantry, is the first man North or South I’ve ever researched that has had his biography written in book form. Carpetbagger of Conscience: A Biography of John Emory Bryant (The University of Georgia Press, 1987) by Ruth Currie-McDaniel, recounts his story with emphasis on his post-military career as a Freedman’s Bureau agent in Georgia. Currie-McDaniel has also edited a collection of letters written by his wife, Emma Spaulding Bryant: Civil War Bride, Carpetbagger's Wife, Ardent Feminist: Letters and Diaries, 1860-1900 (Fordham University Press, 2006).

I look forward to reading both.