The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 479
641 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
summation evinced by the author: "The soldiers of the South
frequently were without adequate food, the winds knifed through
the tattered rags which they called clothing, and their bare feet
left bloody footprints on the rutted Southern roads; but never,
until the end, did they lack for munitions. The world has
hardly seen such a miraculous transformation of ploughshares
into swords." Similar passages could be quoted from other pages
of the book, but to quote others would rob the reader of the
pleasure of finding them himself. The challenge just offered
will find its reward in reading the book.
Gorgas was not only a military figure. To be sure, the Civil
War hit him in the prime of manhood-forty-three years, to
be exact. A letter written by him to his wife from Winnsboro,
South Carolina, on May 4, 1865, reveals that he "should be
glad to get a little home some place in northern Georgia or
Alabama, where the climate is bracing and where there is some
society." In the same letter he wrote as follows about changing
his profession: "Indeed so far as I am personally concerned I
am not at all alarmed or intimidated at being compelled to
change my profession. I am not yet old, and the world is open
to me."
In looking around for a business in which to engage, he con-
sidered the Red Mountain Iron Company not far from present-
day Birmingham and also the North East and South West Rail-
road. In the role of prophet he wrote to Robert Jemison, Jr.,
of applying himself "to the development of the mineral re-
sources of the region of country which that road will penetrate.
One can hardly go wrong in that region so fertile in the
elements of future wealth." The purchase of the iron furnaces
and plant at Brierfield, Alabama, through the "Canebrake Com-
pany" eventually did not meet with success, and once in Jan-
uary, 1867, in a spirit of hopelessness, he wrote: "Nothing is so
terrible as despair."
For ten years Gorgas was connected with Sewanee as vice-
chancellor, and on July 29, 1878, he entrained for Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, to become president of that state's university. On
July 1, 1879, however, he resigned because of a severe illness.
The trustees of the University of Alabama appointed Gorgas479
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953, periodical, 1953; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101145/m1/551/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.