Pellissippi State hosts author of book on ancestor’s Civil War diary

The Civil War had its share of military heroes, and their mark on American history has been recorded as truth and fiction by thousands of writers in the nearly 150 years since the conflict’s end.

The experiences of the Robert E. Lees, Stonewall Jacksons, and Ulysses S. Grants have been widely documented, but the multitudes of unnamed soldiers also had a story to tell.

One of those stories—that of John G. Earnest—is just now being told, thanks to the publication of his war diary by a great-grandson, Charles Swift Northen III of Birmingham, Ala.

On November 9, Northen will speak at Pellissippi State about his book on Earnest, “All Right Let Them Come: The Civil War Diary of an East Tennessee Confederate.”

The presentation, which is free and open to the public, is set for 10:45 a.m. in the Goins Auditorium.

Northen is one of six authors whose work is being showcased this school year as part of Pellissippi State’s Common Academic Experience. The Common Academic Experience revolves around a common book read by most entering students to encourage discussion.

In keeping with this year’s Common Book—David Madden’s “Sharpshooter,” a novel about a 13-year-old Confederate soldier—all of the Common Academic Experience activities focus on Civil War history.

John G. Earnest, who enlisted in the 60th Tennessee Infantry in September 1862, kept a diary that began with his transfer to the western Confederate front and ended with his surrender at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, 1863.

“Before the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter [in South Carolina], my great-grandfather was a student at Emory & Henry College in Virginia,” said Northen, a retired investment manager who spent three years researching his book. “He had completed his course work and was awaiting an imminent graduation, but the ceremony was canceled.

“Students and faculty were ardent rebels,” he said, “so after Fort Sumter was attacked, the college shut down.” (Earnest ultimately went back and received his degree from Emory & Henry, graduating with the class of 1929, at age 87.)

Young Earnest’s diary entries were frequent though not daily.

“The content tends to discount the notion at the time that the loyalty and ability of East Tennessee Confederate troops were in question,” Northen said.

“The diary provides further evidence that the Confederate railway system was inadequate and suggests that the soldiers might have been better fighters under stronger and better trained leadership.”

Other writers set to speak during the Common Academic Experience include Todd Groce (“Mountain Rebels” on December 7), John Fain (“Sanctified Trial: The Diary of Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain, a Confederate Woman in East Tennessee” on January 18, 2008) and Prince Brown (“African-Americans in the Civil War” on February 7, 2008).

For more information, contact Edward Francisco at 694-6744 or efrancisco@pstcc.edu.