Margie Riddle, the daughter of Ralph C. Riddle, was born in Brandon, Rankin County, Mississippi. After working as a schoolteacher for some time, Margie Riddle married Edwin Cole Bearss who was born in Billings, Montana, on June 26, 1923. Bearss was chief historian and special assistant to the director for military sites of the National Park Service. He published over one hundred articles for scholarly journals and over thirty books, primarily on Civil War subjects. Bearss received the B. L. C. Wailes award from the Mississippi Historical Society.

Margie Riddle Bearss also published numerous articles in state historical journals and newspapers. During the time of the Civil War Centennial, she wrote a series of articles for the Meridian Star on the Meridian expedition of General William T. Sherman. After expanding these articles with additional research, she published Sherman’s Forgotten Campaign: The Meridian Expedition. This work examined some of the psychological motivations that may have incited General Sherman to burn Meridian and other areas of the South.

The Bearsses both researched the history of Grand Gulf, Mississippi, and they helped establish the Grand Gulf Park Museum. Margie Riddle Bearss also planned the dioramas and exhibits in the museum.

The Bearsses were living in Vicksburg, Warren County, Mississippi, by 1963. Edwin Cole Bearss transferred to Washington, D.C., in 1966, and the Bearsses were settled in Arlington, Virginia, by August of 1967. They had three children: Sara Beth (b. 1960), Edwin Cole, Jr. (b. 1962), and Mary Virginia (b. 1965). Edwin Cole Bearss retired in October of 1995, and he continued to write and lecture.

This collection consists of an annotated typescript of Sherman’s Forgotten Campaign: The Meridian Expedition that was written by Margie Riddle Bearss. Gateway Press published the book in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1987, with the sponsorship of the Civil War Roundtable of Jackson, Mississippi.

The handwritten annotations in the manuscript are infrequent: many pages are unmarked, and there are only a few pages inscribed with major changes. The manuscript is incomplete, ending on page 356, which corresponds to the end of Chapter Three of Part II in the published work. The book includes 339 pages of text, photographs, and maps, which amounts to two more chapters and five additional appendices—another thirty-eight pages of material. Some of the other elements that the typescript lacks in comparison to the published work include a table of contents, photographs, photograph acknowledgements, maps, a general index, and an index of military units. Additionally, in the typescript the endnotes are at the end of each chapter instead of at the end of the book, most of the in-text numbers for the endnotes are handwritten, and the pagination is also handwritten.

1. Manuscript. n.d. 1 item.