Born the eighth child in a wealthy Mississippi plantation family in 1843, David Eldred Holt joined Company K of the 16th Mississippi Regiment in 1861 and served in the Virginia theater throughout the Civil War. Late in his life, at a time when many former soldiers, both Union and Confederate, were reliving their memories of that event, Holt penned this memoir, recounting the idyllic life of an affluent southern boy before the war and the exhilarating, sometimes humorous, often terrifying experiences of a common soldier in camp and in battle. This new paperback edition has been expanded to include Holt’s never-before-published diary entries from the last year of the Civil War.
Michael B. Ballard, coordinator of the Congressional and Political Research Center at the Mississippi State University Library, is the author of several books, including Civil War Mississippi: A Guide.
Thomas D. Cockrell is a professor of history at Northeast Mississippi Community College in Booneville, Mississippi.
Praise for A Mississippi Rebel in the Army of Northern Virginia
“One of the best and most readable narratives to come out of the Civil War. . . . Private Holt tells his story with clarity and humor, relating both the amusing anecdotes and the full horror that was the American Civil War.”—Civil War
“Though numerous memoirs of Civil War participants have appeared since Appomattox, few equal that of Private David E. Holt in describing the experiences of the ordinary soldier.”—Journal of Southern History
“The appearance of this delightful memoir should be a cause for celebration among all those who love the extraordinary men who bore the burden of war.”—Blue and Gray
“One of the most evocative and engrossing soldier narratives to be published in a long while. . . . It will become a standard source for gaining insight into the common soldier of Lee’s Army.”—Mississippi Quarterly
