Robert E. Lee’s Reluctant Warrior: The Life of Brigadier General and Railroad Businessman, Williams Carter Wickham

This groundbreaking work is the first booklength treatment of Williams Carter Wickham. 272 pages Hardcover $32.95 and Softcover $24.95. Copies are available for order through our distributor Casemate or through your favorite book source.

Advance Praise

A highly informative work that for the first time presents a comprehensive biography of the early life, American Civil War service, and political career of a Confederate officer most students of the conflict have heard of but know little about.

Williams Carter Wickham’s military service witnessed his participation in every campaign and battle fought by Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virgina from the Peninsula Campaign in 1862 through the grueling Overland Campaign two years later. After the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864, he went on to serve in the Confederate Congress.

Sheridan R. Barringer has once again exhibited his talent for bringing his subject to vivid life through exceptional research and writing.

This will have wide appeal for those students of the American Civil War in the Eastern Theater, those deeply interested in cavalry, and one of its most capable officers.

—Arnold D. Blumberg, author of When Washington Burned: A Pictorial History of the War of 1812

Barringer gives the reader a fascinating, complete and well-researched portrayal of a lesser-known Confederate personality. Well balanced between Wickham’s roles as Veteran and civilian, this book is a must for anyone interested in the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia or Virginia history in general.

Williams C. Wickham enjoyed a long and varied career as lawyer, Confederate officer, railroad president, and politician. Atypically, he joined the Republican Party and played an important role in postwar reconciliation.  It is interesting to note that he served in the Confederate Congress as well as the Virginia General Assembly.  This is one of the lost stories of the American experience of the 1860s.

—David Pope – Jubal Early scholar and author of an upcoming book about General Early