(Civil War) — Marshall, Charles

Autograph manuscript unsigned, 75 pages (10 x 7 3/8 in.; 242 x 190 mm), Baltimore, 3 March 1877, on stationery of Marshall & Fisher Attorneys at Law; some soiling. Accompanied by letters from the Reverend J. William Jones, Secretary of the Southern Historical Society and a manuscript copy of a letter to Jones from L. P. d'Orleans, Count of Paris. Blue cloth binder, cream cloth slipcase, blue spine label.

A History of Confederate strategy. On sheets of his law office stationery, Marshall writes a draft of an unpublished paper providing a history of the Confederate strategy in the East through 1863. A staff officer who accompanied Robert E. Lee to Appomattox, Marshall provides valuable insights in his heavily emended text. The Reverend Jones asked Marshall to reply to the Count of Paris who had posed questions in connection with his work on the Civil War. While protesting that his professional duties did not allow time, Marshall, a practicing attorney in Baltimore, drafts a legal-like dismissal of the count's views and vigorously defends Confederate strategy in crossing the Potomac in both 1862 and 1863. He develops the thought that the principal Confederate aim was to protect Richmond, from or through which supplies came. After a long preliminary justification of the Confederate offensive of 1863, Marshall implies that blame for Gettysburg should rest more with J.E.B. Stuart than any other individual. He devotes a few pages to discussing other points raised regarding tactics at Gettysburg. The "Copperheads" were dismissed as being of little importance but he expresses agreement with some other ideas of the Count of Paris, especially the absence of coordinated Confederate effort during the Battle of Gettysburg.