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Beefsteak Raid - First Edition

Beefsteak Raid - First Edition

Regular price $20.00 USD
Regular price Sale price $20.00 USD
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Beefsteak Raid

By Edward Boykin

Rare first edition, Printed Funk and Wagnalls, 1960. Very Good condition, Hardback. Minimal foxing, well preserved by plastic protective cover, formerly in the private collection of an academic historian. 300 Pages. All proceeds benefit Rocktown History (Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society). Pickup is available to save on shipping if desired. Book is available to examine in person at Rocktown History.

Description: In September, 1864, the most acute need of the Confederate defenders of Richmond and Petersburg was not for mounts or guns, but for food.

Grant's well-fed army, 100,000 strong, was massed on the James River. Nearby, watched over by General August Valentine Kautz and his cavalry, was a corral of 3,000 appetizingly fat beeves.

In a magnificent coup, with skill, daring, and élan, General Wade Hampton and his men in gray captured the steers from under the noses of the Union soldiers. Hampton and his lean, lanky raiders brought back millions of pounds of red beef for Lee's half-starved veterans. But Hampton's raid would not have been possible without the shrewd know-how of George Shadburne, gray scout extraordinaire, and his pretty informant, Molly Tatum, the mysterious swamp girl who vanished after playing out her strange role.

One of the last great and daring raids of the South, the Beefsteak Raid has, until now, received little attention in Civil War literature. It is told here in detail for the first time, highlighted against the exciting backdrop of the thunderous battles around Peters-burg. A participant wrote: "Who was there can ever forget the wild grandeur of the scene? The sun shedding its parting beams upon the battling hosts, the heavy plunging of shot and shell through the ranks of men and horses, the waving of battle flags, the galloping of officers, the defiant shouts of our men calling to the Yankees to come and get some beef for supper!'"

But from President Lincoln himself was to come the best tribute to Wade Hampton's beefsteak raid: "It was the slickest piece of cattle stealing I ever heard of."
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