SunJournal: Writer captures the voices of the Revolution
A North Carolina writer shared his research of the American Revolution on Thursday at a lecture at the N.C. History Center.
Author Ed Southern worked for a year going library to library and collecting first-hand accounts of people who were alive during the war.
He put the letters and correspondence together in a book called “Voices of the American Revolution in the Carolinas.”
Southern said he put the work together because he wanted to capture how those who lived, fought and survived felt during the war.
“I wanted to know what it was like to be British or American,” he said. He said he wanted the voices of the Tory, the Whig, regular solider or militia. He wanted the outlaw’s or bystander’s voice in the book. He captures the voices of officers who served in the battles and skirmishes.
Southern’s book jacket calls the American Revolution in the Carolinas nasty, brutish and short, though it must not have felt short to those who lived through it.
The book is available at bookstores and the History Center bookstore.
Southern is executive director of the N.C. Writers’ Network. He was in New Bern to look over the area of the network’s upcoming Squire Summer Writing Residency at the Hilton Riverfront July 14 through 17
