A01=Bill Arp
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
Author_Bill Arp
Bill Arp
C. Vann Woodward
Category=NHWF
Category=NHWR3
Category=WH
Charles Sumner
Conscription
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_humour
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
George S. Boutwell
His Family
James Milton Smith
Josh Billings
Mark Twain
Newspaper
Open letter
Patriotism
Publication
Thaddeus Stevens
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Thomas D. Clark
William P. Fessenden
Writing
Product details
- ISBN 9781570038358
- Weight: 418g
- Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
- Publication Date: 14 Aug 2009
- Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This is a compendium of Southern witticisms by the Confederacy's most famous humorist. First published in 1873 Bill Arp's ""Peace Papers"" collects some of the Southern humorist's best writings from the Civil War and Reconstruction era. Charles Henry Smith (1826-1903), a lawyer in Rome, Georgia, took the penname 'Bill Arp' following the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, when he wrote a satiric response to Abraham Lincoln's proclamation ordering the Southern rebels to disperse. In his letter addressed to 'Mister Linkhorn' and written in a semiliterate backwoods dialect, Smith advised the president, 'I tried my darndest yesterday to disperse and retire...but it was no go'. The 'Linkhorn' letter was reprinted in many Southern newspapers, and Smith followed it with dozens of other similarly comic pieces, all signed by 'Bill Arp'. During the war he mocked Lincoln and praised the bravery and sacrifice of the Confederates, but he also turned a disapproving eye on those Southerners - from draft dodgers to Georgia governor Joe Brown - whose actions he viewed as detrimental to the war effort. Afterward he turned his attention to criticizing Reconstruction efforts. This Southern Classics edition makes Smith's witticisms as Arp available once more, augmented with a new introduction by David B. Parker, which places the writings and their author in historical and literary context.
David B. Parker is a professor of history at Kennesaw State University. He has written on the American carpet industry, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and influential Georgians such as evangelist Sam Jones, reformer Rebecca Felton, and writer Marian McCamy Sims.
