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No special access restriction applies.

Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], DeWitt Clinton Gallaher, Civil War Diary of a Confederate Soldier, A&M 0366, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Biographical / Historical

DeWitt Clinton Gallaher was born in Shepherdstown, Virginia (later West Virginia), on August 2, 1845, and raised in Waynesboro, Virginia. He attended school at Hampden-Sidney College and Washington College (now Washington and Lee   University) before joining the staff of Gen. John D. Imboden in the spring of 1863. In October of that year, Gallaher enlisted in the 1st Virginia Cavalry. He served as a courier for Gen. J.E.B. Stuart until May 1864, for Gen. Fitzhugh Lee   in May 1864, and for Gen. Thomas Rosser from June 1864 to the fall of that year, when he became an aide-de-camp on Rosser's staff. He moved to Charleston, West Virginia, after the war and practiced law. He died in Charleston in 1926.

Scope and Contents

Published diary of DeWitt Clinton Gallaher of Jefferson County  , Virginia (now West Virginia), and Waynesboro, Virginia, who served in the Army of Northern Virginia from October 1863 to April 1865 in the 1st Virginia Cavalry and on the staff of Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, Gen. Fitzhugh Lee  , and Gen. Thomas Rosser. Diary begins in June 1864, when Gallaher was serving in the 1st Virginia Cavalry and entries typically record the cavalry's movements and engagements with Federal horsemen during the 1864 Overland Campaign and the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.

Military topics include cavalry raids; the Battle of Cedar Creek; the Confederate raid on the Union garrison at New Creek, West Virginia, in November 1864; the cavalry battle at Waynesboro in March 1865 and the capture of Dr. Hunter McGuire; and several Confederate generals, including Jubal Early, Fitzhugh Lee , and Thomas Rosser. Additional topics include weather; food and drinking; social activities, including dinners, dances, sleigh rides, and the wedding of his sister, Sallie Gallaher, to Capt. Hugh McGuire, during the winter of 1864-1865; and visiting family and acquaintances while camped near Richmond and in the Shenandoah Valley.

Gallaher wrote his memoirs in 1919, but this volume was edited, transcribed, and published by his son, DeWitt Gallaher Jr. in 1945 as A Diary Depicting the Experiences of DeWitt Clinton Gallaher in the War Between the States While Serving in the Confederate Army.