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The Coffee County Historical Society welcomed Dr. Michael Bradley to discuss his latest book, titled “The Last Words: The Farewell Address of Union and Confederate Commanders to Their Men at the End of the War Between the States” during its regular meeting Saturday, Jan. 14.

Bradley, a retired history professor from Motlow College and the author of 31 books, said this latest work looks to study the farewell addresses Civil War commanders made to their men at the close of the war.

“These were the last words they would speak together as soldiers,” Bradley said during his presentation.

Bradley said examining these farewell addresses is something that to his knowledge, has never been done before.

“Quite Frankly I don’t know of any other historian that has looked at the farewell addresses and has drawn any conclusion based on them,” he said. “Let’s see if we cannot learn more about the complex and influential events that led to this conflict within our nation’s past.”

Bradley said for the book, he examined 18 farewell addresses; nine Union and eight Confederate, to learn from these primary sources what these men thought the causes of the war were, and what they believed they were fighting for.

“I choose to do 17 people to cover the entire gamut of ranks from a commander of a battalion to a regiment to a brigade to a division to an army core to an army to the commander of all armies,” he said. In short, I tried to get a variety of opinions as to what the war meant to people of various ranks, various levels of responsibility.”

Bradley said that while he initially thought these documents would prove fairly easy to find, that was not the case.

“Many of these were not issued as official orders, they were simply issued as personal communications,” Bradley said. I found some of them in the official records, I found many of them by looking at a recounting of these old veteran reunions and I found a third source that also proved quite interesting.”

Bradley said he was also able to utilize auction houses that sell autographs to research for this book.

“They would print the entire document because they wanted to sell the autograph of the general whose name appeared at the bottom, but by printing it and putting it online they very nicely made it in the public domain so I could copy it,” he said.

“The Last Words: The Farewell Address of Union and Confederate Commanders to Their Men at the End of the War Between the States” is currently available for purchase on Amazon.

For those wishing to join or renew their Coffee Historical Society membership for the new year, the cost is $15 for an electronic membership and $25 for a regular postal membership. For more information, visit http://www.cctnhs.org.