…is coming this month from the University of South Carolina Press. Johnson was a physician who accompanied Patrick Ferguson’s Tories on the disastrous King’s Mountain campaign. His diary of the battle’s aftermath makes for some pretty harrowing reading. The Whigs were, to put it mildly, rather inhospitable toward their prisoners on the return march northward, and Johnson was unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of their brutality. I’m really looking forward to getting a copy of this book.
This will actually be the second annotated edition of Johnson’s diary to be published. Dr. Bobby Moss, who has probably spent more time with the primary sources on King’s Mountain than anybody since Lyman Draper, also edited a version, and the footnotes alone are worth the price of the volume. Moss has also published an edition of Alexander Chesney’s diary (Chesney was Ferguson’s adjutant) and annotated rosters of the men who fought in the campaign. Check out this website for more information on these books. They were a godsend to me when I was working on my graduate thesis, since having them in published, annotated form saved me countless hours of travel and research.
Past in the Present 