Bill Arp's Peace Papers: Columns on War and Reconstruction, 1861-1873 - Paperback

by Bill Arp (Author), David B. Parker (Introduction by)

First published in 1873, Bill Arp's Peace Papers, by Charles Henry Smith (1826-1903), is a collection of writings from the Civil War and Reconstruction by the Confederacy's most famous humorist. Smith, a lawyer in Rome, Georgia, took the penname "Bill Arp" in April 1861, following the firing on Fort Sumter, when he wrote a satiric response to Abraham Lincoln's proclamation ordering the Southern rebels to disperse within twenty days. In his letter addressed to "Mister Linkhorn" and written in the semiliterate backwoods dialect adopted by numerous mid-nineteenth-century humorists, Smith advised the president, "I tried my darndest yisterday to disperse and retire... but it was no go."

Front Jacket

A compendium of Southern witticisms by the Confederacy�s most famous humorist

Author Biography

David B. Parker is a professor of history at Kennesaw State University. He has written on the American carpet industry, L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and influential Georgians such as evangelist Sam Jones, reformer Rebecca Felton, and writer Marian McCamy Sims.