At the tender age of 14, Thomas Duncan (1846-1931) was swept up in the fierce winds of civil war as the United States was ripped apart by sectional strife. He had no idea what lay ahead of him as he rushed to defend his home soil of Mississippi. Indeed, his service in the Confederate Army would carry him into some of the most important battles of the American Civil War.
Serving under the military genius Nathan Bedford Forrest, Duncan would find himself far from home and under fire at such places as Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Rienzi, Murfreesboro, Perryville, campaigns through West and Middle Tennessee, Chickamauga, Fort Pillow, Brice's Crossroads, Harrisburg, Tupelo, and Sulphur Trestle, Alabama. The young scout and soldier witnessed dramatic events like the pursuit of the Streight Raiders and the historic raids into Memphis, North Alabama, and Middle Tennessee.
Duncan survived many harrowing experiences during the war. He lived another seventy years after his enlistment in the Confederate Army. At the age of seventy-six, he penned these Recollections, first published in 1922. Duncan relates his experiences in a genuinely reflective way. There is no bitterness or rancor in his written voice as he tells an informative and interesting account of a young Mississippi boy far from home, defending his native region. His story is his own, recounted with a vividness and reflection that is only possible with the passage of years.
With the publication of this edition of Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan, it is the hope of the publishers that it will reach a wider audience who can carry his words with them long after they've visited the battlefields and locations he writes about.