Compelled to Appear in Print: The Vickburg Manuscript of General John C. Pemberton

Compelled to Appear in Print: The Vickburg Manuscript of General John C. Pemberton by Smith, David M.. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780967377001.

John C Pemberton, the Confederate officer who surrendered Vicksburg MS to US Grant in July 1863, is not remembered as one of the Souths elite generals. When his commander, Joseph E Johnston, published his wartime memoirs in 1874, he laid the blame for Vicksburgs loss squarely at the feet of Pemberton and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Although Davis eventually had his say in his memoirs, Pemberton never did. Or so historians thought. Pemberton had, indeed, penned a response to Johnston, but it was never published and lay forgotten for over 100 years until it finally came to light in a 1995 estate sale in Cincinnati, OH. "Compelled to Appear in Print" allows one of the wars most famous scapegoats to tell his side of the story that history has, until now, seen only through the eyes of his main antagonist.