Joseph Brevard Kershaw (January 5, 1822 – April 13, 1894) was a lawyer, judge, and a Confederate general in the Civil War who commanded the 2nd South Carolina Infantry regiment at the beginning of the war, taking part in the First Battle of Bull Run. From there, Kershaw began to rise in command, eventually being commissioned a brigadier general on February 13, 1862 and commanding a brigade in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign. Kershaw continued to command a brigade at Fredericksburg and Gettysburg before going with the rest of General James Longstreet’s corps out west, fighting at Chickamauga and Knoxville. The battle of Chickamauga in September 1863 was one of the biggest battles in the Western theater. In that campaign, Braxton Bragg’s Confederate army routed the Union Army of the Cumberland led by William Rosecrans, but the retreating Federals were rallied by George H. Thomas, forever known as the “Rock of Chickamauga,” and they made a defensive stand that allowed the Union army to regroup and retreat in an orderly fashion back to Chattanooga. The Union would eventually break the Confederates’ siege and pave the way for Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign.After the battle, Kershaw wrote an account of his role that became part of The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. This edition of his account includes illustrations and maps of the campaign, and it also includes pictures of the important commanders of the battle.