Rick Garner: Enthusiast, Writer, early Donor of the Foundation
In his youth as an accomplished Boy Scout Rick Garner completed comprehensive and challenging hikes at some of the most awe-inspiring Civil War battlefields in this country. It was on these long hikes at places like Shiloh, Vicksburg and Gettysburg Rick began a life-long interest in the American Civil War. While in his 20’s Rick began reading and collecting books about the conflict and eventually centered his interest on the Army of Northern Virginia, specifically their victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 and to a lesser extent their triumph at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862.
Rick began visiting research facilities, college archives, National Park Service sites, the National Archives, the Lincoln Presidential Library, the U.S. Army War College, and various historical societies in several states. He mainly focused on the thrilling drama which unfolded in the wooded country lanes and fields around Chancellorsville, Virginia in the first half of 1863. After 25 years of serious research and investigation Rick had collected hundreds of books, reminisces, and thousands of letters and diaries. In his early 60’s he began writing papers on his various areas of interest. Rick’s writing is heavily laden with first-hand eye-witness accounts as he believes in letting the participants to history tell as much of the story as possible..
Rick graduated from Auburn University in 1971 with a degree in Building Science. For the last
50 years he has owned his own home design and building business and he resides in central Mississippi. When the Brice’s Crossroads Foundation was just starting out Rick made an
incredibly generous donation of a large portion of his extensive Civil War library to our
organization. The BCF has kept many of these books for our own Civil War research library which we hope to make publicly accessible to interested researchers in the future. Many other titles were sold to Civil War enthusiasts to fund past and ongoing BCF projects. Rick’s latest article “The Carnage at Marye’s Heights: Burnside Pays the Butcher’s Bill, December 11-15, 1862”, focuses on the epic Battle of Fredericksburg and is available on the BCF website.