General Joseph Brevard Kershaw CSA


Army of Northern Virginia

Born in Camden, South Carolina in 1822, Joseph Brevard Kershaw enjoyed a growing law practice in Camden before he volunteered to serve with South Carolina troops .during the War with Mexico.

He returned to his  law practice and served for a time in the state legislature. In 1860, Kershaw was nominated to serve as a state representative in the secession convention of 1860 and began his Civil War career as colonel of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers. Though Colonel Kershaw had limited military training when he took command, the middle-aged officer threw himself into his work and with the help of his assistant commanders, the 2nd became one of the better trained regiments in southern service.

Kershaw also proved to be one of the Army of Northern Virginia's finest officers. By the time of the Battle of Gettysburg, Kershaw was a brigadier general leading a South Carolina Brigade in McLaw's Division of Longstreet's Corps. His regiments fought in the woods and fields of the George Rose farm and were swept up in the "whirlpool" of the wheat field.

Twenty years after the battle, there was an ongoing debate as to why the Confederacy had lost at Gettysburg.

Kershaw commanded a division in General James Longstreet's Corps at the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, and during the Wilderness to Petersburg Campaign in 1864. Promoted to major general on June 2, 1864, he was given permanent command of McLaw's old division, which he led during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign to the final battle at Cedar Creek, Virginia, in October 1864.

The general rallied and withdrew his shattered command from the battlefield, whereupon it returned to the Richmond defenses. During the retreat from Richmond and Petersburg in April 1865, Kershaw was captured along with most of his troops at Saylor's Creek, Virginia, three days before the end came at Appomattox Court House.

Paroled that July, Kershaw returned to Camden where he remained active in politics and again returned to the state legislature, this time as a senator. He later served as a judge for the Fifth Judicial Circuit os South Carolina. In 1894, Kershaw resigned from the bench due to ill health and accepted an appointment as postmaster in Camden, a position he held for only several weeks until his death on April 13, 1894. General Kershaw is buried in Camden.

Kershaw
Kershaw's Brigade South Carolina's Regiments in the American Civil War
The story of South Carolina regiments in the American Civil War. As such it is essentially the story of the war itself since the state's forces were engaged from the very beginning at Fort Sumter to beyond and the eventual surrender of Lee at Appomatox.

Civil War Replica Musket
Civil War Musket
Wood & Steel Frontier Rifle Designed After The Original Rifle,
This Civil War Musket replica has been designed after the original rifle of its era. Measures approximately 37 inches long. Each is constructed with a solid one-piece wood stock, painted steel barrel and die-cast parts.
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72 Piece Civil War Army Men
Play Set 52mm Union and Confederate Figures, Bridge, Horses, Canon
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American Civil War Southern Commanders Book Titles

Shades of Blue and Gray: An Introductory Military History of the Civil War
The Civil War with an emphasis on contemporary advances in military technology and their effects on behavior in the field. Ulysses Grant was speaking nearly literally when he wrote, "the iron gauntlet must be used more than the silken glove to destroy the Confederacy"
Kindle Available
Staff Officers in Grey

Staff Officers in Gray: A Biographical Register of the Staff Officers in the Army of Northern Virginia
Profiles some 2,300 staff officers in Robert E. Lee's famous Army of Northern Virginia. A typical entry includes the officer's full name, the date and place of his birth and death, details of his education and occupation, and a synopsis of his military record. Two appendixes provide a list of more than 3,000 staff officers who served in other armies of the Confederacy and complete rosters of known staff officers of each general
Kindle Available
Class of 1846

The Class of 1846: From West Point to Appomattox: Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan, and Their Brothers
No single group of men at West Point has been so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846. The names are legendary: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, and George Stoneman
Kindle Available

Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography
Nathan Bedford Forrest was one of the most interesting figures from the mid-19th Century. He was also one of the most controversial -- given his role as Confederate cavalryman, Fort Pillow, and the rise of the first KKK
Kindle Available
Failure in the Saddle
Failure in the Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joe Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign

In August 1863 William Rosecrans' Union Army of the Cumberland embarked on a campaign of maneuver to turn Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee out of Chattanooga, one of the most important industrial and logistical centers of the Confederacy.
Kindle Available
Wade Hampton

Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer
General Wade Hampton was for a time the commander of all Lee's cavalry and at the end of the war was the highest-ranking Confederate cavalry officer
Kindle Available
AP Hill Lees Forgotten General

A. P. Hill:
Lee's Forgotten General

Biography of the Confederacy's long-neglected hero whom Lee ranked next to Jackson and Longstreet. Although the name and deeds ot this gallant Virginian conspicuously punctuate the record of every major campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia
Kindle Available
Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain
Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain

At Cedar Mountain on August 9,1862, Stonewall Jackson exercised independent command of a campaign for the last time

Source:
U.S. Army Archives
National Park Service