The Civil War in America
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Barely seventeen but already in college when the war began, James B. Mitchell was receiving military training at the University of Alabama—even as he wrote this eloquent letter urging his father to allow him to serve in the Confederate army. Elected lieutenant of Company B of the 34th Alabama Infantry, Mitchell continued to write vivid accounts of camp life, battle, and his experiences as a prisoner of war (1864–1865), a period he found “extremely irksome.”

(Transcription)

. . . if I do not participate in this war it will be a source of the deepest regret . . .


Barely seventeen but already in college when the war began, James B. Mitchell was receiving military training at the University of Alabama—even as he wrote this eloquent letter urging his father to allow him to serve in the Confederate army. Elected lieutenant of Company B of the 34th Alabama Infantry, Mitchell continued to write vivid accounts of camp life, battle, and his experiences as a prisoner of war (1864–1865), a period he found “extremely irksome.”