Prison Pens: Gender, Memory, and Imprisonment in the Writings of Mollie Scollay and Wash Nelson, 1863-1866

Prison Pens presents the memoir of a captured Confederate soldier in northern Virginia and the letters he exchanged with his fiancee during the Civil War. Wash Nelson and Mollie Scollay's letters, as well as Nelson's own manuscript memoir, provide rare insight into a world of intimacy, despair, loss, and reunion in the Civil War South. The tender voices in the letters combined with Nelson's account of his time as a prisoner of war provide a story that is personal and political, revealing the daily life of those living in the Confederacy and the harsh realities of being an imprisoned soldier. Ultimately, through the juxtaposition of the letters and memoir, Prison Pens provides an opportunity for students and scholars to consider the role of memory and incarceration in retelling the Confederate past and incubating Lost Cause mythology.

This book will be accompanied by a digital component: a website that allows students and scholars to interact with the volume's content and sources via an interactive map, digitized letters, and special lesson plans.

Author: Timothy J. Williams
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 02/01/2018
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.44lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9780820351926

About the Author
Timothy J. Williams (Editor)
TIMOTHY J. WILLIAMS is an assistant professor of history at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Intellectual Manhood: University, Self, and Society in the Antebellum South.

Evan A. Kutzler (Editor)
EVAN A. KUTZLER is an assistant professor of history at Georgia Southwestern University. He is the author (with photographer Jill Stuckey) of Ossabaw Island: A Sense of Place.