Background

George Cary Eggleston was born at Vevay, Indiana, the son of Joseph Cary Eggleston and Mary Jane Craig.

Education

After an early youth of play and reading guided by his mother, and a later youth restricted by Methodism, he went to school at Madison and was for something over a year at Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) University.

Career

Straitened circumstances, however, forced him when only sixteen to teach school at Riker’s Ridge and to meet those amusing and trying experiences that inspired The Hoosier Schoolmaster, of his brother Edward. When seventeen, having inherited his family’s plantation in Amelia County, Virginia, he was whisked into an aristocratic, genial, and leisurely life that astonished and charmed him. He then studied law at Richmond College and made friends with the Richmond literary group, especially with John Esten Cooke. In 1861, with many other gentlemen horsemen he saw service in northern Virginia in the 16t Virginia Cavalry, first under Collonel J. E. B. Stuart and later under General Fitzhugh Lee. In the autumn he transferred to the field artillery on the South Carolina coast, but in 1863 he was back north in Long- street’s artillery. That winter, as sergeant-major of his battery, doing provost guard duty under General Lindsay Walker, he was detailed because of his legal training to defend the worst offenders before courts martial. In 1864 his battery served as sharpshooters through the bloody siege of Petersburg; and Eggleston, with his brother Joseph as second in command, was in charge of a mortar fort. Immediately after the war he went to Cairo, to take a position with a banking and steamboating firm. Later he practised law in Mississippi. The work in both places, however, was uncongenial; accordingly, in 1870, with his wife and one child, he went to New York. Here he began a newspaper and editorial career that lasted, except for short intervals, for twenty years. After a year first as a reporter and later as an editorial writer on the Brooklyn Daily Union under the guidance of Theodore Tilton, and after a brief period of free-lance writing, he joined his brother Edward in securing good writers for the Hearth and Home, bringing among others Frank R. Stockton to the staff. He was editor-in-chief in 1874 when the magazine was sold. A free-lance again, he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly, Galaxy, Appletons’ Journal, and other periodicals. In 1875 he became a member of the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post, and a chat with William Cullen Bryant soon thereafter brought him the Post’s literary editorship. Now, refusing to yield further to the “call of the wild, ” as he termed the lure of journalism, and retiring to his Lake George home every summer, he zestfully wrote a score or more of works: boys’ stories, history, biography, autobiography, and especially novels. Some of the latter he based upon experiences in Indiana, on the Mississippi, and in South Carolina. His most glamorous memories, however, were of pre-war Virginia. With unbounded affection he wrote Dorothy South , The Master of Warlock (1903), Evelyn Byrd (1904), and seven other novels, many of them containing autobiographical details. The characters in these books are too perfect to seem real, but Eggleston always denied having idealized them. “The greatest joy I have known in life has come, ” he said, “from my efforts to depict it [ante bellum Virginia life] in romances that are only a veiled record of the facts. ” His leisurely autobiography, Recollections of a Varied Life (1910), describes many newspaper and literary friendships; and The First of the Hoosiers: Reminiscences of Edward Eggleston pictures incidentally and with much charm his own early life. Upon The History of the Confederate War (2 vols. , 1910), a clear and remarkably fair work, rests his reputation as a historian.

Achievements

• He yearned for America to produce its own literature without dependence upon British books and criticism. In 1889, after eight years in which he had been literary adviser to Harper & Brothers, and literary editor and later editor-in-chief of the Commercial Advertiser, he was called to the editorial staff of the New York World and there for eleven years he wrote under Joseph Pulitzer’s inspiring guidance, being his mouthpiece in many of the World’s political campaigns. In the quieter periods of his New York life, Eggleston had written excellent non-moralizing boys’ stories with his own boys as critics, among others The Big Brother Series (1875 - 82), and Strange Stories from History (1886) ; he had published the autobiographical A Rebel’s Recollections (1874), and the novels, A Man of Honor (1873) and, with Dolores Marbourg, Juggernaut (1891) ; and he had done much magazine writing and miscellaneous book-making.

Works

More photos

• book

  • How to Make a Living: Suggestions Upon the Art of Making, Saving, and Using Money (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from How to Make a Living: Suggestions Upon the A...)

  • 7 Novels About Indians: Boxed Set

    (This volume includes 7 novels: A DAUGHTER OF THE SIOUX by...)

  • How to Educate Yourself: With or Without Masters (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from How to Educate Yourself: With or Without Mas...)

  • The Wreck of the Red Bird A Story of the Carolina Coast

    (This collection of literature attempts to compile many of...)

  • Rebel's Recollections, A

    ( Originally published in 1875, George Cary Eggleston's m...)

  • Nathan Hale, the Ideal Patriot: A Study of Character. With Introduction by George Cary Eggleston

    ( About the Book Study Guides are books can be used by st...)

  • EGGLESTON'S SOUTHERN SOLDIER STORIES, Annotated.

    (George Cary Eggleston was brought up in the North, but af...)

  • A Man of Honor

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • A Rebel's Recollections (Expanded, Annotated)

    (One of the most delightful and important works in the bod...)

  • Recollections of a Varied Life

    (George Cary Eggleston (26 November 1839 – 14 April 1911) ...)

  • The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story ...)

  • Evelyn Byrd (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Evelyn Byrd I have endeavoured to show fort...)

  • Juggernaut: A Veiled Record. Boston

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs

    (A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs is presente...)

  • The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War

    (The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War is presented here...)

  • Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814

    (Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 is presented here in...)

  • Dorothy South

    (Dorothy South by George Cary Eggleston A love story of V...)

  • The History of The Confederate War Its Causes and Its Conduct: A Narrative and Critical History

    (The History of The Confederate War Its Causes and Its Con...)

  • Red Eagle and the Wars With the Creek Indians of Alabama

    (Eaton's "Life of Andrew Jackson." Pickett's "History of A...)

  • Strange Stories from History for Young People

    ( “Excellence….A score of stories from history, mediaeva...)

Politics

After a year first as a reporter and later as an editorial writer on the Brooklyn Daily Union under the guidance of Theodore Tilton, and after a brief period of free-lance writing, he joined his brother Edward in securing good writers for the Hearth and Home, bringing among others Frank R. Stockton to the staff.

Views

Quotations: “The greatest joy I have known in life has come, ” he said, “from my efforts to depict it [ante bellum Virginia life] in romances that are only a veiled record of the facts. ”

Membership

Richmond literary group

Personality

He stated his views forcibly, candidly, and independently, except when constrained by Bryant’s gentleness, and often with excellent humor.

Interests

• law

• Music & Bands

  In 1861, with many other gentlemen horsemen he saw service in northern Virginia in the 16t Virginia Cavalry, first under Col. J. E. B. Stuart and later under Gen. Fitzhugh Lee.

Connections

On September 9, 1868, he married Marion Craggs.

colleague:

General Lindsay Walker

colleague:

Frank R. Stockton

colleague:

Collonel J. E. B. Stuart

colleague:

General Fitzhugh Lee

Brother:

Joseph

Brother:

Edward

Friend:

John Esten Cooke