Border and Bastille: an English Writer's View of the American Civil War

A view of a nation divided

The great war of politics, ideology and culture between the Northern and Southern American states was certainly, for its principal protagonists, one of opposed causes, but in all wars there are those who go to war for other reasons-not least for adventure. That is never more true than of those who go to war for nations not their own. So it was for the English writer George Lawrence who set out to join the forces of the Confederacy-principally to provide material for his writings-though it is clear his sympathies naturally lay with the Southern cause. It is almost impossible to experience 'adventure' without misadventure and that certainly came to Lawrence-as is the way of such things-in ways he neither expected or wished for. Lawrence elected to journey into the South from the North and so his troubles and Civil War experiences began. However, he demonstrably gathered the material for his book-for here it is. This is an interesting 'outsiders' view of the Civil War for every student of the period.