This book traces a journey the author undertook over a period of seven months in 1998, when he visited archives, libraries and battlefields across America while conducting doctoral research onthe welsh in the Civil war.
Huw Griffiths meets a large number of people of welsh descent. Although several of them
have been assimilated into American society fo generations, they nevertheless remain proud oftheir welsh connection. This is a personal story told in the company of a witty and self-satiricalauthor, enriched by interesting observations on different locations and entertaining cameos from the people he meets.
The book also offers an insight into his research. The events and characters of the Civil war shape the course of those months, and every detail is of immense interest to him.
“In a wider sense, [the American Civil war] was a battle over the ideas of freedom, equality and the role of government – questions that continue to echo to this day. And the welsh were deeply caught up in all this hullabaloo. My role was to reveal their story.”
After more than twenty years as a history teacher in secondary schools,
followed by several years as a consultant, he decided to take the risk and apply for a senior
lecturer position at the university of Wales Trinity Saint David. Taking this step led him
to reconsider his academic work, particularly his doctoral theses on the Welsh in the
history of the American Civil War. From this came the idea of combining his academic
research with his personal experiences of travelling across America to create a new book in
which the historian and the traveller coexist, giving expression to ‘the voice of a little boy
from Cwm-twrch’.
