A Time For Soldiers A Civil War Journey

Today is May 1, 1917. Word has just come to me that several local boys have been drafted to fight the war in Europe. This one is called "The Great War." It's been raging since August 1914. President Wilson asked the Congress for a declaration of war last month. He got it. Hundreds of thousands have died already. Now, many of our own good boys will die. War is a chronic condition, and stupid. I was that young when I first went off to war, fifty-seven years ago. I was twenty-one, about the same age as these kids. I had no idea that I was entering my own personal season in hell when I joined up with a New York volunteer regiment. These young men are about to march off to another war, another cause. Many will die uselessly on torn-up battlefields that nobody will remember except the men who fight there. I still see those faces in the distance, on a hillside at a place called Gettysburg. I see myself, young, but no longer a boy. My innocence was a façade. War is butchery, and I experienced it close-up. I was part of a monster, trained to overwhelm and destroy my enemy, my brother. By the end of the war, I was good at it. It fit me well. I was a seasoned veteran. Killing had become second nature. Experience being the best teacher, I learned well. In April 1865, I knew what I was. The question had become, what was I going to be? The thought once occurred to me that maybe I should not have survived the war, that war should devour its own and leave the remnant in peace.

Through wonderfully detailed letters, recruit rosters, and pension records, Edythe Ann Quinn shares the story of thirty-five African American Civil War soldiers and the United States Colored Troop (USCT) regiments with which they served. Associated with The Hills community in Westchester County, New York, the soldiers served in three regiments: the 29th Connecticut Infantry, 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (11th USCT), and the 20th USCT. The thirty-sixth Hills man served in the Navy. Their ties to family, land, church, school, and occupational experiences at home buffered the brutal indifference of boredom and battle, the ravages of illness, the deprivations of unequal pay, and the hostility of some commissioned officers and white troops. At the same time, their service among kith and kin bolstered their determination and pride. They marched together, first as raw recruits, and finally as seasoned veterans, welcomed home by generals, politicians, and above all, their families and friends.

A wounded Confederate soldier treks across the ruins of America in this National Book Award–winning novel: “A stirring Civil War tale told with epic sweep.” —People Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, a Confederate soldier named Inman decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge mountains to Ada, the woman he loves. His journey across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. Meanwhile, the intrepid Ada is trying to revive her father’s derelict farm and learning to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away. As it interweaves their stories, Cold Mountain asserts itself as an authentic odyssey, hugely powerful, majestically lovely, and keenly moving.

General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War? It is to this question--why did they fight--that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--"the best Government ever made"--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my death than my disgrace." Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. "While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, "I still love my country." McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war. Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.

"Reminiscences of Confederate Service" is a personable memoir of a young Londoner who ran the blockade to fight for the Confederacy. First published seventeen years after the end of the Civil War, this book by Francis W. Dawson is the only memoir by a British citizen who saw active service in the Confederate navy and army.

11 months - 26 days, Always anxiety, Sometimes life, Sometimes death, Sometimes invisible wounds. George Graves relives his journey with this masterfully chronicled account beginning with AIT, (advanced infantry training for jungle warfare) and ends with the departure from Cam Ranh, Vietnam. Your mind's eye will see what he saw as his everyday experiences come to life: the tunnel in AIT, close call in the "3 holer," 12 on recon waiting for 3000 to attack, the TET offensive, and many more. If you watched MASH, don't miss this book. (the book Includes over 70 pictures).

"Southern Soldier Stories" by George Cary Eggleston. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

'Three Years in the Federal Cavalry' by Willard W. Glazier is a memoir that transports the reader to the American frontier of the 19th century. Glazier's first-hand account of serving in the 2nd New York Cavalry is based on his wartime journal and covers the period from the enlistment of the author in the summer of 1861 until his capture during the fall of 1863. This memoir provides an insight into the rise of the Federal cavalry from bumblers to a powerful and well-trained striking force, including details of cavalry training, daily and camp life, and cavalry battles.