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0-89587-237-4
$17.95
paperback
6 x 9
452 pages black-and-white photographs, appendix,
bibliography, index
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Neglected by modern
historians, Robert F. Hoke was a towering figure in his time. Mustered
into Confederate service as a second lieutenant in April 1861, he was a
major within five months, a lieutenant colonel within nine months, a
colonel within sixteen months, a brigadier general within two years, and
a major general within three years-becoming, at age twenty-six, the
youngest Southern officer of that rank in the Civil War.
Of the 125,000 men his state
contributed to the Confederate cause, it was Hoke who was called
"the North Carolina Lee" and "the most distinguished
soldier in North Carolina." In a face-to-face meeting after the
war, U. S. Grant admitted that Hoke had administered "the worst
drubbing I ever got," at Cold Harbor.
He fought in nearly every
significant battle in the Eastern theater-Gaines' Mill, Malvern Hill,
Second Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Plymouth,
Petersburg, Richmond, Cold Harbor, Fort Fisher, Bentonville. He
witnessed the first Confederate casualty at Bethel and provided the rear
guard as Joseph E. Johnston met Sherman at Bennett Farm to arrange the
surrender.
Back home, Hoke hitched his
war-horse to a plow and quietly set about rebuilding the South, a cause
that later inspired him to leadership positions in industry. A private
man, he declined every major honor offered him by North Carolinians,
including the governorship. He rarely spoke about the war-especially
about his most notorious claim to fame, the still-disputed rumor that he
was picked as Lee's successor should anything ever happen to the
commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.
The personification of
reserve, Hoke was once described thus: "Get you a hero, and I give
you General Robert F. Hoke...as an ideal in peace and war."
about the author
Like Hoke, Daniel W. Barefoot's roots are in Lincoln County, North
Carolina. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill and a graduate of the University of North Carolina School
of Law, Barefoot now serves his state's 44th District in the North
Carolina House of Representatives. He is the author of four volumes in
the Touring the Backroads™ series.
Other books by Daniel W.
Barefoot:
Touring
the Backroads
of North Carolina's Lower Coast
Touring the
Backroads
of North Carolina's Upper Coast
Touring North
Carolina's
Revolutionary War Sites
Touring South
Carolina's
Revolutionary War Sites |
