The Legion's Fighting Bulldog: The Civil War Correspondence of William Gaston Delony, Lieutenant Colonel of Cobb's Georgia Legion Cavalry, and Rosa Delony, 1853-1863

Synopsis

Greatly loved by those who served under him, Lieutenant Colonel William Gaston Delony possessed three admirable attributes: commanding presence, bull dog courage, and superb generalship. This book relays the story of a young man, on the cusp of a promising law career in the 1850s who comes to the conclusion that his way of life, and that of his neighbors, is about to change forever. Interwoven with those of his wife, Rosa Eugenia Huguenin, the Delony correspondence furnishes us a window into the lives of independent individuals during the Civil War who also happened to be well-placed in society due to birth. These writings give the reader insights into what soldiers thought and felt, and of what their families went through, both on the battlefield and at home. Seting up house: November 1853-July1859 -- A coming storm: January 1860-August 1861 -- Learning the trade: August 1861-December 1861 -- Yorktown and the Peninsula: December 1861-January 1862 -- Turmoil: January 1862-June 1862 -- First blood: June 1862-August 1862 -- Maryland, my Maryland: August 1862-October 1862 -- Holding the line: October 1862-November 1862 -- Fredericksburg Campaign: November 1862-December 1862 -- Chancellorsville Campaign: January 1863-May 1863 -- Brandy Station and the fight for the Loudoun Valley: June 1863 -- Gettysburg: June 1863-September 1863 -- Delony's last battle: September 1863 -- Aftermath -- Poem of trubute -- Appendix A: Cobb/Delony case -- Appendix B: The house infirmary of Georgia. Vincent Joseph Dooley and Samuel Norman Thomas, Jr. Includes bibliographical references (355-359) and index.