Every student of American history has heard of Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.
But A.N. Erskine and J.P. Wilson?Erskine, Wilson and tens of thousands of others were the grunts of the Civil War, the soldiers who slogged over mountains, ate rancid food and fought and died in a hundred different battles.
The Museum of the Confederacy is trying to show the war through the eyes of the common soldier in a new exhibition, "The Hope of Eight Million People: The Confederate Soldier."
"I tell you I am Nearly Broken down," Wilson, a soldier from North Carolina, wrote in a letter home. " . . . my feet is sore & I have rhumatism in my Nees & ankels . . . I Don't think I can Stand Teas hard marches long."
In place of the usual museum labels to identify exhibits, the new show uses the soldiers' own words as they describe their lives.
"For a lot of these boys, this was the first time they'd been five miles away from their hometowns," said Robert Hancock, museum curator and organizer of the exhibition.
Hancock and others spent months combing through the museum's extensive archives, poring over yellowed and fading letters. Many of the letters were donated by aging veterans or their families when the museum opened a century ago in Richmond, the Confederacy's capital.
"We even got to know the family members through the letters," he said. While the rest of the museum concentrates on Lee and other generals, with displays of shining cavalry swords and gold-braided uniforms, the exhibition on the enlisted men shows how tough life was at the bottom of the ranks.
A biscuit that still survives intact testifies to the inedible nature of much of the soldiers' food.
"Nasty stinking blue stuff, a dog will hardly smell it," Edwin H. Fay of the Minden Rangers wrote, describing the pickled beef soldiers were fed.
Many of the men joined up enthusiastically in 1861, treating war as a great adventure. The romance quickly disappeared after their first battle.
"Yesterday evening we was in one of the hardest fought battles ever," wrote Erskine. "On going round the battlefield with a candle searching for my friends I could hear on all side the dreadful groans of the wounded and their heart piercing cries for water and assistance . . . Oh the awful scene . . . May I never see anymore such in life . . . I assure you I am heartily sick of soldiering."
Hancock says the rebel soldiers' message endures.
"My impression is, for veterans of World War II, Korea or even Vietnam, the experiences haven't changed all that much," he said.