Civil War Diary

In the summer of 1864 John W. Howell of Millerstown, Pennsylvania was a carriage maker. Two weeks later he was in a Union camp with the Pennsylvania 208th Infantry on the James River in Virginia. This is his personal account of events and battles happening around him. He mustered into the Army as a Musician. During battles musicians were assigned to the company surgeon and served as litter bearers and administered basic first aid to the soldiers. Muc. Howell served the Army of the Potomac from September of 1864 until General Lee surrendered and the 208th mustered out on June 1, 1865.

In The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 3, Shelby Foote follows the events of the war from 1862 through 1864, discussing the strategies of both the North and the South and assessing the performance of the Union generals. The book opens with the beginning of the two final, major confrontations of the war: Grant against Lee in Virginia and Sherman pressing Johnston in North Georgia. In vivid narrative as seen from both sides, he tells of the climactic struggles, great and small, on and off the field of battle, that finally decided the fate of this nation.

All for the Union is the astonishing and eloquent diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, the Union soldier featured in Ken Burns' highly acclaimed PBS television documentary The Civil War. Enlisting as a private in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry, Rhodes fought in every major campaign waged by the Army of the Potomac, from Bull Run to Appomattox. Here, in his own powerfully moving words, Rhodes reveals why he was willing to die to preserve his beloved Union.

Most Civil War Generals commanded an "Escort" or "Bodyguard" (usually 100 men)which provided personal protection, acted as messengers and scouts, etc. Fortunately William R. Dyer, a member of Nathan Bedford Forrest's Escort, kept a diary as he rode through Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi with The Wizard of the Saddle. Dyer's diary gives insight into duty at Forrest's side describing events from his unique perspective. Like so many young men of the era, Dyer experienced war on the front line. Terror, boredom, illness, and fun all make appearances in the narrative. ...

The Civil War is Julius Caesar’s personal account of his war with Pompey the Great - the war that destroyed the five-hundred-year-old Roman Republic. Caesar the victor became Caesar the dictator. In three short books, Caesar describes how, in order to defend his honor and the freedom of both himself and the Roman people, he marched on Rome and defeated the forces of Pompey and the Senate in Italy, Spain, and Greece.

Early in May 1861, 21-year-old Sam R. Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee, joined the First Tennessee Regiment. He fought in all of its major battles, from Shiloh to Nashville. Twenty years later, with a "house full of young 'rebels' clustering around my knees and bumping about my elbows," he wrote the remarkable account of "Co. Aytch," its common foot soldiers, its commanders, its Yankee enemies, its victories and defeats, and its ultimate surrender on April 26, 1865.

Invalid teenager Leroy Wiley Gresham left a seven-volume diary spanning the years of secession and the Civil War. He was just 12 when he began, and he died at 17, just weeks after the war ended. LeRoy’s diary offers an inside look at a fateful journey that robbed an energetic and likeable young man of his youth and life. I Am Perhaps Dying adds considerably to the medical literature by increasing our understanding of how tuberculosis attacked a young body over time, how it was treated in the middle 19th century, and the effectiveness of those treatments.

Powerful, haunting, and unforgettable, this remarkable gathering of original documents, including never-before-published letters and papers, creates a day-by-day eyewitness account of the monumental collision at Gettysburg, in the words of the commanders, soldiers, politicians, and civilians from both the North and the South who experienced firsthand the changing course of the Civil War. New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian and author Allen C. Guelzo delivers an invaluable and sobering firsthand perspective of the Civil War’s turning point.

John L. Ransom was taken prisoner in 1863 when his regiment was split into two smaller forces in East Tennessee. He was placed into Andersonville Prison, formerly known as Camp Sumter. Ransom wrote a journal, published in 1881, on his experiences in the camp. Andersonville was the worst of Confederate prison camps, where hundreds of prisoners died daily. Ransom’s diary is important as it provides information on the notorious Andersonville prison camp that may not have been known otherwise.

This is the original diary of the wife of Confederate General James Chesnut, Jr., who was an aide to President Jefferson Davis. It is a fascinating narrative of all the years of the American Civil War. It focuses on the daily lives and hardships of all who suffered through the war, from ordinary people to the Confederacy's generals and political elite. Mary Chesnut's prose has lost none of its provocative bite through the ages.

Hello there, please allow me to introduce you to For Generations to Come, an epic historical account of the 500-year saga that took the Knauss family from 1546 Hessian Germany to America and the generations that followed them in the United States to the present day. Real-life experiences and historical facts are uniquely blended.

This book is an extraordinary day-to-day documentary of the Civil War's most infamous Confederate prison, Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville.