Booknotes: South Carolina in 1865

New Arrival:
• South Carolina in 1865 by Karen Stokes (Arcadia Pub and The Hist Press, 2022).

South Carolina Historical Society archivist Karen Stokes has written or edited a great number of books and articles on Civil War South Carolina, focusing much of her attention on the late-war military and civilian experience. Her new book, South Carolina in 1865, is an edited collection of letters, diary accounts, and reminiscences written by Union and Confederate soldiers and Confederate civilians who witnessed the war's destructive path through the state in 1865.

The material is organized into three main sections. The first consists of four letters, the second five accounts of the burning of Columbia, and the third a pair of chapters addressing the occupation of Charleston and Union raids conducted just to the north in Berkeley County. Stokes contributes contextual narrative as well as endnotes, and the text is supplemented by a number of archival photographs and drawings.

This is an early arrival of a title scheduled for release in the first week of January.