Memoir of Marcus Woodcock, 9th Kentucky Infantry (U.S.A.), 1864.ca. 1865.
(Document/manuscript/pamphlet/archival material)

Materials housed in Special Collections Division of the Main Library, Nashville Public Library.

Housed with Harrison House Collection.

The pages of the manuscript are numbered 1 through 359, with page 42 notated on the bottom of page 38.

In library use only. Available by appointment.

Scope and content: An original handwritten memoir (359 pages), written in the year 1865, by the Civil War soldier Marcus Woodcock, 9th Kentucky Infantry (U.S.A.). A native Tennessean, Woodcock was an educated Union sympathizer who joined a pro-Union militia in Kentucky that became the Ninth Kentucky Infantry in the Union Army. Woodcock's own account of his experiences during the Civil War provides narrative descriptions of camp life, period politics, and military engagements. Battles mentioned include: Corinth, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, including the Union stand at Snodgrass Hill, Missionary Ridge, and the Atlanta campaign. The collection includes three documents that are distinct from the memoir: Draft and final versions of a letter to the citizens of Macon County, Tennessee, July, 1864; and a speech, May 22, 1865 regarding an "efficient plan of reconstruction." The memoir was edited and published as the book: "A Southern Boy in Blue: The Memoir of Marcus Woodcock, 9th Kentucky Infantry (U.S.A.)" by Kenneth W. Noe, ed. University of Tennessee Press, 1996.

Cite as: Memoir of Marcus Woodcock, 9th Kentucky Infantry (U.S.A.), Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library.

This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code). Nashville Public Library does not have intellectual property rights to these materials.

Martha Teschan;,Gift;,1998.,Acc. RT-200.

William Marcus Woodcock (1842-1914) was born in Macon County, Tennessee, located in north-central Tennessee near to the Kentucky border. He was the eldest of eleven children of Wiley and Harriet Woodcock, and his father was a yeoman farmer and self-educated doctor. Woodcock was a Democrat and Unionist at the time of Tennessee's secession during the Civil War. Woodcock enlisted, with a number of his neighbors, in Kentucky's Home Guards and served in the 9th Kentucky Infantry (U.S.A.) for three years in the western theater; he mustered in as a private and was promoted to first lieutenant. After recuperation from the measles, which kept him out of the battle of Shiloh, Woodcock saw action at Stones River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge. He also participated in the Atlanta campaign and the siege of Corinth, Mississippi and was among the reserve troops at the battle of Perryville. After the Civil War, Woodcock was a prominent Republican Tennessee legislator, attorney, business administrator, and Baptist layman.

No further accruals are expected.