Three Years a Soldier combines the diary, correspondence, and literary efforts of Private George Perkins of the Sixth New York Independent Battery, beginning in December 1861 and ending December 1864. The letters and essays-never before published in any collection of Civil War material-offer extended commentary and provide additional insights on the events related in the diary. Taken together, the diary, newspaper letters, and other documents tell a coherent story from the viewpoint of an educated private soldier in the Army of the Potomac. Not only did Perkins provide detailed, accurate...

This innovative multicultural reader gathers together diaries, histories, autobiographies, short stories, and excerpts from novels to bring the many facets of the American experience to life, from sixteenth-century explorations to this century's ongoing saga of immigration and acculturation. Extending the traditional boundaries of the American literary canon, the editors first offer a comprehensive overview of the history of multicultural social and literary patterns in the United States, and then present a wealth of richly diverse stories--construing that term in the broadest possible...