George Randolph Wood filled several journal books with personal remembrances of life in nineteenth-century Hampton, Virginia; particularly of his experiences aboard river and canal boats transporting supplies for Confederate troops along the James River during the Civil War. Wood wrote about his experience because he thought it might interest his family, but his writing is of interest to a more general audience because of the scarcity of information about those who worked on river boats and supply barges during the war.

In his later life, Wood was a druggist by profession and his writing...