A dramatic real-life adventure story, Unspoiled Heart chronicles the Civil War experiences of Charles P. Mattocks, a major in the Union Army of the Potomac. From 1863 to 1865, Mattocks kept a diary in which he meticulously recorded the everyday details of army politics and camplife and the excitement of commanding men in battle. At the tender age of twenty-three, this Bowdoin College graduate took successive command of the Seventeenth Maine and the famous First United States Sharpshooters. With an unspoiled heart, he fearlessly led his troops in the crucial battles of Chancellorsville and...

The 14th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was formed in August 1862, and less than a month later its men were engaged in the fierce fighting at Bloody Lane during the battle of Antietam. Over the next two and a half years, they participated in all the other battles involving the Army of the Potomac, including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. They captured more enemy flags and suffered more casualties than any other Connecticut regiment in the Civil War. This book presents an articulate, firsthand view of camp life and combat in the 14th, as told by Sgt. Benjamin Hirst of...

George W. Squier was one of thousands from Indiana who heeded Lincoln's call for volunteers at the onset of the Civil War. During his service, Squier wrote candid letters to his wife that yield details not often found in soldiers' writings to their families. 10 illustrations.

An ambitious, capable, self-trained officer with strong opinions, Francis Trowbridge Sherman of Chicago recorded his Civil War experiences in both diaries and letters to his family. Published here for the first time, his writings are notable not only for their vivid descriptions of his wartime experiences but also for their insights into the volatile politics of the era. Sherman s father was Francis Cornwall Sherman, the Democratic mayor of Chicago during much of the war, and the two disagreed sharply about how the conflict might be resolved.
Thanks to his father s political influence,...

Compared with generals or even foot soldiers, relatively little is known about the role played by engineers during the Civil War. This first study of Confederate engineering in more than forty years combines biography with a comprehensive overview of the profession to present the life and accomplishments of one talented individual.
John Morris Wampler was a topographical engineer in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States and eventually became chief engineer of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Based on extensive use of Wampler s unpublished correspondence and journals, the...

An untutored Pennsylvania farmer, James T. Miller was thirty-one years old when he left his wife and three children to serve in the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. Although his writing was far from polished, he was nevertheless blessed with descriptive and evocative powers that shine through the letters he wrote home.
After joining the 111th Pennsylvania Infantry, Miller saw action at Gettysburg, Cedar Mountain, and Chancellorsville. He died in 1864 at the battle of Peachtree Creek, just before the fall of Atlanta.
Drawing us close to Miller s heart and mind, these letters...

Scholars and general readers alike will enjoy these superbly edited letters. At once insightful and entertaining, they vividly illustrate the reactions of both Union soldiers and Southern civilians to the hardships and fortunes of war. Daniel E. Sutherland, University of Arkansas
Under the careful editorial eye of Frank Byrne, Harvey Reid s letters have re-emerged, and for scholars seeking to bring the war in the West into its proper political and social context, this volume will be of special interest. Stephen D. Engle, Florida Atlantic University
As a noncommissioned officer and...

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Daniel Withum Sawtelle was a young man working on his family's farm in the north woods of Maine. The Republican son of a Democrat, he initially took little notice of a war he assumed would be over almost as soon as it started. As the conflict wore on, however, he began to disagree vehemently with his father about the future of the nation. Finally, in February 1862, he enlisted in the Eighth Maine Infantry. Fifty years later, Sawtelle drew on his wartime correspondence to compile a memoir of his experience.

All's for the Best combines Sawtelle's memoir with...

"Bright and Gloomy Days, the latest contribution to the Voices of the Civil War series, provides the unique perspective of a junior Confederate officer and member of the Moravian church, a traditionally pacifist institution. The letters of Charles Frederic Bahnson, an assistant quartermaster in the Confederate army, to his father, a bishop in the Moravian church, between 1860 and 1865 relate events such as the Gettysburg and Shenandoah Valley campaigns, tell stories of the "good life" in the garrison of the forts near Wilmington, North Carolina, and even provide news of a slave woman's...

All Right Let Them Come offers rare observations into the life of an East Tennessee Confederate soldier, John G. Earnest, and the events surrounding his involvement in the transfer to the western Confederate front and the siege of Vicksburg. The passages on the fighting at Chickasaw Bayou and at Big Black Bridge near Vicksburg cast light on the East Tennessee confederates military defects, Which Earnest suggests may have come from a lack of training and discipline, in addition to the region s sharply divided loyalties to the Union and Confederacy and the fact that these soldiers were moved...