Historian Virginia Bernhard has deftly woven together the memoirs and letters of three American soldiers--Henry Beston Sheahan, Mike Hogg, and George Wythe--to capture a vivid, poignant portrayal of what it was like to be "over there." These firsthand recollections focus the lens of history onto one small corner of the war, into one small battlefield, and in doing so they reveal new perspectives on the horrors of trench warfare, life in training camps, transportation and the impact of technology, and the post-armistice American army of occupation.

Henry Sheahan's memoir, A Volunteer...