"Mathew Woodruff was a frontiersman by adoption, and] as a sergeant in the21st Missouri Infantry, he participated in all the major campaigns of the western theater. In June 1865, following a furlough home, this veteran of twenty-two rejoined his regiment for occupational duty along theGulf coast of Mississippi and Alabama. The journal spans the remaining period of 1865 only, yet it is a uniqueand revealing chronicle of life in the victorious federal forces." Civil War History
"The brief daily entries, with all the misspellings andgrammatical mistakes, present an insight into the...