Putting on Blue: Confederates from the Athens, Georgia, Area Who Became Galvanized Yankees

Description

By Al Hester, 2015

Paperback, 114 pages, illustrations

The little-known story of Confederate troops who put on the Union’s blue uniform to serve the North in the Civil War. Writer and researcher Al Hester, PhD, brings to life events which led 52 Athens-area Confederate soldiers to forsake the Confederate forces and swear allegiance to the Union. They changed their loyalty in order to gain freedom from northern prisons in the last two years of the Civil War. President Lincoln’s policy allowed them to join Union forces in the West to fill the places of scarce regular army soldiers fighting Indians, escorting settlers and protecting trails and telegraph lines. Includes a gallery of 19th-century photographs and artwork to help tell this unusual story. A Co-sponsored Publication of the Athens Historical Society and the Green Berry Press.