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Griswoldville

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A tiny but valuable component of the South's military industrial complex, Griswoldville became a target of union forces in 1864. After a glancing blow by Stoneman's Raiders in late summer, the town was obliterated during Sherman's infamous march to the sea. This work offers a holistic narrative on Griswoldville during the Civil War period.

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

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About the author

William Lawrence Bragg

20 books3 followers
Sir William Lawrence Bragg CH OBE MC FRS (31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971) was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer (1912) of the Bragg law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure. He was joint winner (with his father, Sir William Henry Bragg) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915: "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-ray" an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography. He was knighted in 1941. To date, Lawrence Bragg is the youngest Nobel Laureate, having received the award at the age of 25. He was the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, when the epochal discovery of the structure of DNA was reported by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in February 1953.

Bragg is most famous for his law on the diffraction of X-rays by crystals. Bragg's law makes it possible to calculate the positions of the atoms within a crystal from the way in which an X-ray beam is diffracted by the crystal lattice. He made this discovery in 1912, during his first year as a research student in Cambridge. He discussed his ideas with his father, who developed the X-ray spectrometer in Leeds. This tool allowed many different types of crystals to be analysed.

Bragg's research work was interrupted by both World War I and World War II. During both wars he worked on sound ranging methods for locating enemy guns. In this work he was aided by William Sansome Tucker, Harold Roper Robinson and Henry Harold Hemming. For his work during WWI he was awarded the Military Cross and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire. He was also Mentioned in Despatches on 16 June 1916, 4 January 1917 and 7 July 1919.

On 2 September 1915 his brother was killed during the Gallipoli Campaign. Shortly afterwards, William Lawrence Bragg received the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, aged 25, making him the youngest ever winner of a Nobel Prize.

Between the wars, from 1919 to 1937, he worked at the Victoria University of Manchester as Langworthy Professor of Physics. After World War II, he returned to Cambridge, splitting the Cavendish Laboratory into research groups. He believed that "the ideal research unit is one of six to twelve scientists and a few assistants".

Honours and awards:

He was elected an FRS in 1921—"a qualification that makes other ones irrelevant". He was knighted by King George VI in the 1941 New Year Honours, and received both the Copley Medal and the Royal Medal of the Royal Society. Although Hunter, in his book on Bragg Light is a Messenger, argued that he was more a crystallographer than a physicist, Bragg's lifelong activity showed otherwise—he was more of a physicist than anything else. Thus, from 1939 to 1943, he served as President of the Institute of Physics, London. In the 1967 New Year Honours he was appointed Companion of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II.

Since 1992, the Australian Institute of Physics has awarded the Bragg Gold Medal for Excellence in Physics to commemorate Sir Lawrence Bragg (in front on the medal) and his father, Sir William Bragg, for the best PhD thesis by a student at an Australian university.

Nobel Prize (1915)
Matteucci Medal (1915)
Hughes Medal (1931)
Royal Medal (1946)
Guthrie Lecture (1952)
Copley Medal (1966)

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Displaying 1 of 1 review
Profile Image for EJ Daniels.
380 reviews1 follower
January 28, 2018
One would assume at first blush that this volume is concerned principally with the infamous Battle of Griswoldville, but in fact it is much more, telling the full story of the little industrial town founded by Samuel Griswold and the role it would play in several battles during the War Between the States. This fuller history provides a broader story, but at times leaves the reader wishing for more.

William Lawrence Bragg is to be commended for his strong narrative voice and his insightful commentary. Whether discussing geography, industrial processes, or military maneuvers, he is always clear, concise, and convincing, and complex or confusing subjects are rendered easily accessible to even novices of this period of history and its many eccentricities. Bragg frames the story by opening with the life of Samuel Griswold, a Northern industrialist who founded a thriving factory town in central Georgia. Due to its prominence, that town played a major role in the War Between the States, including but not limited to the titular battle, but declined around the same time as the death of its namesake. Bragg masterfully weaves all of these elements into his account, which is concise but imminently informative. The countless map, illustrations, and portraits are also especially enjoyable.

In fact, one is left wishing that this book was longer, and that Bragg had gone into greater detail. What were daily operations like at the cotton gin and later pistol factory? What was life like in antebellum Griswoldville? What more could be said about the lives of the men who fell at Sunshine Church and Griswoldville? Bragg's impressive prose leave one with the distinct impression that he could have said more.

I would recommend Griswoldville to anyone interested in the history of the War Between the States, and I would consider it essential reading for those interested in the War as it pertained to Georgia.
Displaying 1 of 1 review