Publication of Note | September 2021
Tunstall Smith, ed. “Richard Snowden Andrews: Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding the First Maryland Artillery (Andrews’ Battalion) Confederate States Army.” Baltimore, MD: Press of Sun Job Printing Office, 1910.
*Throughout 2021, the “Publication of Note” portion of the newsletter will highlight some of our director’s favorite histories and reminiscences published in the immediate decades following the Civil War.
More than three decades after the Civil War’s end, at the urging of former Confederate general Bradley T. Johnson, Confederate artillerist Richard Snowden Andrews began compiling his memoirs. Andrews’ death in 1903 brought the work to a halt, but that did not mean his thoughts about his life and experiences during the Civil War would remain silent. Tunstall Smith compiled Andrews’ memoir and published it in 1910.
This memoir offers a compelling look at Andrews’ life as an artillerist and later envoy to Germany for the Confederacy. Andrews’ memoir is of great significance to individuals interested in the Shenandoah Valley’s Civil War-era history, particularly the Second Battle of Winchester. In fact, Andrews’ involvement in the fighting on June 15, 1863, north of Winchester at Stephenson’s Depot, was the initial reason Bradley Johnson urged Andrews to pen his reminiscences. The chapter on the fighting at Stephenson’s Depot, which includes excellent photographs of the depot and the bridge defended by two of Andrews’ cannon, offers a detailed account of the role Andrews’ gunners played and Andrews’ wounding, as well as postwar letters penned by veterans of his command about the fighting at Winchester.
While first edition copies of this book are rare (MCWI owns a copy that belonged to Andrews’ daughter Carolyn), it is accessible online via Google books.
