Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

[davidf]

I have been looking for good memoirs, diaries, letters, and etc. for the Civil War period. I am trying to create a independent study here at Gettysburg College on the Life and Culture of Soldiers in the American Civil War, and to sort of get my concept going, I am gathering sources. Here is what I have so far, which ones do you think would be good/are any of the below not good/are they any I should add?:

The Story Of A Common Soldier Of Army Life In The Civil War, 1861-1865
by Leander Stillwell

Detailed Minutiae Of Soldier Life In The Army Of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865
by Carlton McCarthy

Hardtack & Coffee or The Unwritten Story of Army Life
by John D. Billings

All for the Union: The Civil War Diary & Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes
by Elisha Hunt Rhodes

Company Aytch (First Tennessee Regiment)
by Samuel R. Watkins

The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy
by Bell Irvin Wiley

Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union
by Bell Irvin Wiley

Corporal Si Klegg and his Pard
By Wilbur F. Hinman

Lee’s Miserables, Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox
J. Tracy Power

Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee: A Portrait of Life in a Confederate Army
by Larry J. Daniel

The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns
by Joseph T. Glatthaar

What They Fought For 1861-1865
by James M. McPherson

For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
by James M. McPherson

The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat
by Earl J. Hess

I Marched With Sherman: Civil War Memoirs of the 20th Illinois Volunteer Infantry
by Ira Blanchard

Ohio Volunteer: Childhood & Civil War Memoirs Of Capt. John Calvin
by John Calvin Hartzell

Manassas to Appomattox: The Civil War Memoirs of Pvt. Edgar Warfield 17th Virginia Infantry
by Edgar Warfield

The Civil War Memoirs of a Virginia Cavalryman: Lt. Robert T. Hubard Jr.
by Robert T. Hubard

The Civil War Memoirs of Captain William J. Seymour: Reminiscences of a Louisiana Tiger
by Terry L. Jones

A Full Blown Yankee of the Iron Brigade: Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers
by Rufus R. Dawes

An Irishman in the Iron Brigade: The Civil War Memoirs of James P. Sullivan
by William Beaudot

A Mississippi Rebel in the Army of Northern Virginia: The Civil War Memoirs of Private David Holt, With a New Appendix of Excerpts from His 1865 Diary

No More Gallant a Deed: A Civil War Memoir of the First Minnesota Volunteers
by James A. Wright

My Life in the Irish Brigade: The Civil War Memoirs of Private William McCarter, 116th Pennsylvania Infantry
by William McCarter

Rebel Private: Front and Rear: Memoirs of a Confederate Soldier
by William A. Fletcher

The Civil War Notebook of Daniel Chisholm
by W. Springer and J. August Shimrak, eds. Menge

The Civil War journals of John Mead Gould, 1861-1866
by John Mead Gould

[1stMaine]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

Comrade,

I would start by seperating from the list anything NOT written by a participant, and use those for a sperate review/seminar, etc.

I would also add the following:

Soldiering, by Rice Bull, 123rd New York Infantry

Hard Marching Every Day, by Wilbur Fisk, 3rd (?) Vermont Infantry

The Rebel Yell and the Yankee Hurrah, by John Haley, 17th Maine Infantry

Army Life, by Theodore Gerrishm 20th Maine Infantry

Rags and Hope, by Val Gilesm 4th Texas Infantry

Those are some of my very favorite first-person accounts.

One interesting thing might be to choose, say, 6 accounts from each side, and have the students read and compare notes between them.

Sounds like a great project, regardless.

[Gary of CA]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

John Worsham - One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry.
J. Gregory Acken, ed. - Inside the Army of the Potomac: The Civil War Experience of Captain Francis Adams Donaldson.
Robert Sneden - Eye of the Storm.
George W. Peck. - How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion.

[Mississippian]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

"A Carolinian goes to War" by Brig Gen. Arthur M. Manigault, is an excellent read. Manigault was a brigade commander in the Army of Tennessee for more than two years, and this book was very enjoyable.

Will MacDonald

[davidf]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

Comrade,

I would start by seperating from the list anything NOT written by a participant, and use those for a sperate review/seminar, etc.

Are you saying just keep them separate or not use them at all? They would have some use wouldn't they?

Also, this is not for creating a traditional class (I am not a teacher, I am a student). Our college allows us the opportunity to create these "independent studies" in which we do individualized research on a subject the student selects (of course, the department has to put an "okay" on it and a professor has to oversee the whole thing). I plan to do it in either my junior or senior year. But before I get to it or even propose the idea, I want to have a firm foundation of things I will be able to use in this independent study. Hope that gives you a better idea of what the situation is.

[LWhite64]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

David,
A very good listing, I would add The Civil War Memoir of Phillip Stephenson, this is as good as Company Aytch and more accurate. Stephenson served with the 13th Arkansas Infantry and then enlisted in the 5th Company Washington Artillery. Also Embattled Courage and for more recent scholarship Chandra Manning's What This Cruel War Was Over, which compliments For Cause and Comrades nicely, and Jason Phillips' Diehard Rebels: The Confederate Culture of Invincibility. Also in a few weeks Joseph Glatthaar's long awaited tome, General Lee's Army. From the previews of it, it is going to be the book of the year.

Lee

[1stMaine]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

Are you saying just keep them separate or not use them at all? They would have some use wouldn't they?

Also, this is not for creating a traditional class (I am not a teacher, I am a student). Our college allows us the opportunity to create these "independent studies" in which we do individualized research on a subject the student selects (of course, the department has to put an "okay" on it and a professor has to oversee the whole thing). I plan to do it in either my junior or senior year. But before I get to it or even propose the idea, I want to have a firm foundation of things I will be able to use in this independent study. Hope that gives you a better idea of what the situation is.

What i am saying is that you ought to seperate the period accounts from the modern accounts.

Wre I to be doing this, I would settle on a number of personal accounts from each side, review them, and fraw conclusions from that. Then, i would read the modern accounts and post my findings, then finally, sum up the results of the two groups.

In other words, you have the war as "They saw it", the war "as we see it today" and a comparison between the two showing how modern research resolves disputes between the various accounts, and how it attempts to interpret what "they" said with what we know, or assume to be true, today.

However, before you do this, i would suggest you read "The Face of Battle, by John Keegan. He has essentially done this already, by comparing various period accounts of historical battles (Agincourt, Waterloo, The Somme) as seen by the participants, and as interpreted by modern scholars. He points out how fascinating it is to read accounts by various indivisuals of the same battles, and realise that they might as well have been talking about completely different affairs, since no two see things in quite the same light.

Respects,

[TKlas]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

David,

You may want to add some of these fine accounts as well:

History of the Sauk County Riflemmen, Known As Company "A," Sixth Wisconsin Veteran Volunteer Infantry , 1861-1865. Gaithersburg: Butternut Press, 1909.

Four Years with the Iron Brigade: The Civil War Journal of William Ray, Company F, Seventh Wisconsin Volunteers. Edited by Lance Herdegen and Sherry Murphy.

Haskell of Gettysburg: His Life and Civil War Papers. Edited by Frank L. Byrne & Andrew T. Weaver.

Good Luck,

Tom

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

Much of folks' recommendations through summer 2007 are on your list and are available here: http://authentic-campaigner.com/foru...hlight=memoirs

[rand19th]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

David,
This is a good book to add to your list. For Country, Cause & Leader: The Civil War Journal of Charles B. Haydon. He was in the 2D Mich Vol Inf.
Randy Pesut
2dCONN Heavy Artillery
11TH CVI

[HangarFlying]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

Marching With the First Nebraska: A Civil War Diary August Sherneckau. Edited by James E. Potter and Edith Robbins. Translated by Edith Robbins. University of Oklahoma Press (Ironically) 2007

Yes, I am very biased towards this book, but I honestly think it presents one of the most detailed accounts of the war in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.

[J.H.Berger]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

One of my favourites is : "Memoirs of a dutch mudsill" by John Henry Otto!!

[Foggy Bottom Jim]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

Another great read is:

Dear friends at home: The Civil War Letters and Diaries of Sergeant Charles T. Bowen, Twelfth United States Infantry, 1861-1864
by Charles Thomas Bowen


Jim Reynolds

[BobRoeder]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

At the risk of re- listing the sources found at the link provided by Mr. Dabney, an excellent and very poignant book which definitely needs to be added to your list:

The Diary of a Dead Man 1862-1864 , compiled by J.P. Ray

The unedited diary of Ira Petitt, 11th Regiment, U.S. Infantry.

[shubal]

Re: Good Civil War memoirs, diaries, letters, & etc.

I don't believe these are on the other longer list,

Infantryman Pettit
Letters home from a Pennsylvania corporal in the 100th PA. Good on food, drill, life, as well as battles.

The Cry is War, War, War
Letters home from 2 North Carolinian lts in the 34th NCT.

and
On the Altar of Freedom
Newspaper articles written as letters home from a corporal in the 54th MA.


There's so much here, you've got to decide how to narrow the search, yankee or confederate? Officers or enlisted? Letters during or articles/books afterwards? From a specific state or those who served in a specific theater, or a comparison of some sort?
I think when you can set it up like that, with a slightly narrower focus, it will be easier to develop your proposal.