This month, we read the brilliant biography of Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson titled Rebel Yell by local Austinite S. C. Gwynne.

In 2024, we read an earlier book of his titled Empire of the Summer Moon, a book soon to be taken on as a project by no less than Tyler Sheridan. Athenaeum was therefore already familiar with this author.

But since Sam lives in Austin and one of our members has a connection, an invitation was extended, and he accepted! So we were very thrilled to have him join our meeting to talk about his book on Jackson.

Sam Gwynne has won numerous awards not only for his books but also for articles he has written as a journalist. Most notably, he is a Pulitzer finalist and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Gwynne is in the pink shirt

We wondered how his presence would alter the normal flow of the meeting. Given his long research into the subject matter, would it kill the normal interaction? Would we feel inclined to defer to his expertise, turning the evening into more of an extended Q&A or lecture format?

Fortunately, that did not happen. This reporter is happy to say that while he did not hold back his comments, neither did he dominate, and it turned out to be a wonderful evening and great conversation. The fact is no doubt due to the fact that many in our group also have considerable knowledge and depth of reading on the Civil War and brought no small weight and eloquence to the meeting.

Another question we had going in was, What are Gwynne’s own sympathies with regard to the man Jackson and the Civil War? He certainly painted a full picture in the book and spared no elaboration of Jackson’s military genius nor his personal flaws and extreme eccentricities.

It came out early that Gwynne identifies as “a Yankee,” and he comes from a long line of Yankees. He was born in Massachusetts and has degrees from Princeton and Johns Hopkins Universities. He has not the smallest place in his heart for the cause of the South.

But how can he write so winsomely about a Southern General as a Yankee?

“Writers tend to fall in love with their subjects,” he said. He faces a mental challenge of holding in tension the different sides of the man without running away with one side over the other.

We talked about a point the book addresses: the Southern trope about the war being a response to “Northern aggression.” Was the Civil War about Northern aggression or about slavery?

He answered, “Read the Articles of Secession. It was clearly about slavery from beginning to end.”

Asked if he enjoyed writing the book, he answered, “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” It was a 4-year project for him.

Any qualms about Gwynne’s sympathies or his integrity as a writer were laid to rest by the end of the night. Taking a tour through that chapter of American History is a hard thing: the great amount of bloodshed, brothers killing brothers, the hospitals filled with mangled bodies, the death toll from dysentery and other diseases, compelled marching through extremes of cold and privation left us astonished and glad we’ve never had to live that way.

And we all came away with a fresh reminder that the Civil War is maddeningly complicated to understand.