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Civil War History 49.3 (2003) 314-315



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The Blues in Gray: The Civil War Journal of William Daniel Dixon and the Republican Blues Daybook. Edited by Roger S. Durham. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2000. Pp. 424. Cloth, $46.00.)

In The Blues in Gray, Roger S. Durham uses Captain William Daniel Dixon's personal wartime diary and excerpts from the Republican Blues' official daybook to offer a "fresh look at the reality of a Confederate soldier" and his unit (xiii). These previously unpublished documents allow us to follow Dixon and his comrades "through their trials, triumphs, and tribulations" (xvi). They also shed insight into the daily operations of a local militia unit.

William Daniel Dixon (1838-1914) was a Confederate soldier who served in the Republican Blues of Savannah, Georgia. The Blues were formed in 1808 and became one "of Savannah's showcase units, with a long tradition of service and established customs" (xiii). Dixon joined the Blues in 1857 and rose to command the unit by war's end. In the summer of 1861, he began to keep a personal journal and assumed "the duty of keeping up the unit daybook" (18).

The Blues defended Georgia's coast from the Union Navy between 1861 and 1864. Dixon and his comrades spent most of their days at Fort McAllister, "which protected the back door to Savannah" (xi). They successfully fought off Union ironclads, winning the praise of Confederate generals and congressmen. In May 1864, the Blues left Fort McAllister to reinforce Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army in northern Georgia. Dixon's journal describes the unit's desperate attempts to stop Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's forces from capturing Atlanta. After being defeated [End Page 314] there, Dixon and his unit went into Tennessee and fought in the Battle of Nashville. It was during this time when the Blues began to show signs of war weariness. The Blues later marched into the Carolinas and surrendered to Sherman's army in the spring of 1865.

Dixon ceased keeping his journal following the war. He returned to Savannah, married twice, and became a successful businessman. Dixon also joined the reconstituted Republican Blues in 1874, which remained in the National Guard until its retirement from active service in 1993.

Dixon's journal reveals that the Confederacy did not explode from within. Although many deserted, Dixon and most of his comrades continued to support the Confederate cause. Confederate women also never lost hope. As the Blues marched though Greensboro, North Carolina, in April 1865, Dixon recalled that "the whole route was filled with ladies" who cheered them forward (273). Based on Dixon's journal, it becomes clear that the Confederacy lost because they were defeated on the battlefield: Dixon and his unit accepted defeat only after Robert E. Lee and Johnston surrendered. He wrote on April 17, 1865, "I heard today that the surrender of the whole army had been confirmed. . . . If true we are a whipped people" (276). Dixon had never uttered those words in his journal before. The Blues in Gray is a welcome addition to the Voices of the Civil War series of the University of Tennessee Press.

 



Bruce E. Stewart
University of Georgia

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