The Story of One Young Man’s Survival
Rebel Correspondent by Steve Procko is the true story of a young man who joined the Confederate army just days after his eighteenth birthday and served bravely for over two-and-a-half years until the war ended. Wounded twice, he emerged a changed person. But he wasn’t just a returning veteran; he was also a writer. Thirty-six years later, he would tell the world about his experiences.
“Last Saturday morning my right arm was paralyzed again and I will try to write with my left hand so you can read this—it being my first effort. The cause is the result of a wound the Yank officer gave me at Campbellsville, Tenn., on Sept. 5, 1864. He had on a red sash. He shot me twice and killed my horse and I shot him or at least my aim was on him and he was shot as could be easily seen, so close were we.”
A.F. Shaw, December 5, 1901
At the beginning of the 20th century, Arba F. Shaw was a fifty-seven-year-old farmer and local writer for the Walker County Messenger, a weekly northwest Georgia newspaper published in the town of LaFayette. Shaw would become the Rebel Correspondent when on a chilly December day in 1901, he began putting pen to paper with the account of his memories as a Rebel private in the 4th Georgia Cavalry (Avery), CSA. He completed writing his account in February 1902. When finished, he had scratched out over 40,000 words. His local newspaper, The Walker County Messenger, published his account in a series of over 50 articles from 1901 to 1903. Then it was all but forgotten.
Twenty years before Arba Shaw put pen to paper, another soldier, the 1st Tennessee’s Infantry Regiment’s Samuel Rush Watkins (1839-1901) wrote his account of his experiences in the Civil War. The Columbian Herald newspaper in Columbia, Tennessee, serialized Watkins’ writings from 1881 to 1882, then published the account as a critically acclaimed book, Co. Aytch: Maury Grays First Tennessee Regiment or A Side Show of the Big Show, in late 1882. They predominately featured Watkins’ eyewitness accounts in Ken Burns PBS documentary on the Civil War.
Rebel Correspondent presents Arba F. Shaw’s account word-for-word, as first published in the Walker County Messenger almost 120 years ago. Procko annotates Shaw’s account with in-depth research, verifying it and uncovering the back story of his life and the lives of his Rebel comrades. Procko’s research offers a historical perspective on the many places and events Shaw so richly described.
“It was a hard task for me to leave a pleasant home where peace and abundant comfort were takin in exchange a miserable out door life where I was liable to be killed any day, but it was a task that for the sake of honor I could not shirk from and now l am glad I performed it.”
A.F. Shaw, December 12, 1901