William Harris Bragg

From battling Seminoles in Florida's swamps to storming through Old Mexico's fortified towns, Lewis Stevenson Craig served as an exemplar of the U.S. Army's burgeoning professional officer corps. An early officer to make the army a career, Craig was to die with his boots on, commanding the military escort of John Russell Bartlett's U.S.-Mexican Boundary Commission. Ironically, Craig was meant for a Virginia planter's life supported by a generous legacy from his father, but Craig's older brothers and a faithless guardian robbed him of his inheritance and plunged him into years-long court battles. For Craig, family love and concern had died with his short-lived older sister, Jane Craig Stanard, now famous as Edgar Allan Poe's ""Helen."" Early in the Florida War, as a Dragoons lieutenant by appointment, Craig soon distinguished himself. At war's end, now an officer of the Third Infantry Regiment, he met the love of his life, Elizabeth Church. Soon she became Craig's wife and bore their only child at Fort Jesup on the western frontier. By the end of the Mexican War, where his regiment became known as ""The Old Guard,"" Craig's fearlessness and valor had brought him promotion to Brevet Lieutenant Colonel. Soon, with the help of his military patron, General Winfield Scott, Craig embarked into the land of the Apaches on his last adventure. As presented in this book, Craig's story is told, unspoiled by present-mindedness, through deep research into the original sources which include Virginia family papers and court files, U.S. military records, and Craig's own letters and journals, most from a heretofore untouched family archive.

Much of what is known today of Georgia history was preserved through the diligent efforts of a single family. From Wormsloe, their ancestral plantation near Savannah, the De Rennes built an extraordinary collection of books and manuscripts on the history of the state and the Confederacy, much of which is now housed at the University of Georgia and the Museum of the Confederacy. This book focuses on their efforts in the years 1827 through 1970, conveying the passion and purpose with which they pursued their avocation.William Harris Bragg has mined a vast array of archival sources to present this engaging narrative of the De Renne family. He tells how wealthy bibliophile and philanthropist G. W. J. De Renne and his wife, Mary, set the precedent for the family’s accumulation of historic material, how their son established the Wymberley Jones De Renne Georgia Library that bears his name, and how his children in turn expanded upon that tradition. The De Rennes also printed limited editions of primary historical materials beginning with the series known as the Wormsloe Quartos.Bragg’s account of three generations of the De Renne family vividly records their achievements as it reconstructs their life at Wormsloe and follows them in their travels around the world. It provides glimpses into the dynamics and behavior of one of Georgia’s oldest and most prominent families and the evolution of the southern aristocracy. The book draws on newly available material to expand significantly on Ellis Merton Coulter’s 1955 work, Wormsloe, and provides the most complete account to date of the De Rennes.Beyond the story of the De Renne family, Bragg also reveals much about the history of collecting and of the antiquarian book trade, as well as of the evolution of Georgia historical documentation. Appendix material includes genealogical tables and lists of collections and publications, making De Renne: Three Generations of a Georgia Family an invaluable source for all scholars and aficionados of southern history.

The Civil War Georgia series explores all facets of the Civil War concerning the state of Georgia. The open-ended series will include all forms of writing, from letters and diaries, regimental and battle histories, to biographies, and will be open to explore other topics such as life on the home front, politics, economics, and religion. Mercer University Press invites manuscript submissions for this series, as well as on any aspect of the Civil War outside the series description. All manuscripts will be read by competent Civil War scholars and historians.