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The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union
The Life of Billy Yank is a frank, intimate, and warm study of the Union soldier by one of the most prolific and revered of all Civil War historians. Here, through excerpts from wartime letters and diaries and from other carefully documented research, Bell Irvin Wiley presents an absorbing account of the small and sometimes moving events that made up the daily life of the common Union soldier, a moral but fallible human who could laugh at lewd jokes, be stripped of his courage under fire, or save an entire company from certain death.
488 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
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About the author
Bell Irvin Wiley
81 books11 followersBorn into rural Tennessee and schooled at Asbury College (BA, 1928) and Yale University (PhD, 1933), Bell Irvin Wiley became a historical officer of the Second Army in World War II and taught history the University of Mississippi, Louisiana State University, Oxford University, and Emory University. He published groundbreaking works, such as Southern Negroes, 1861-65 (1938), was named President of the Southern Historians Association (1955), and became chairman of President Eisenhower's National Civil War Centennial Commission (1961). He died in 1980.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 19, 2020
The Classic Study Of The Union Soldier
Bell Irvin Wiley (1906-1980) enjoyed a distinguished career as a professor at the University of Mississippi and Emory University and as the author or editor of over 20 books on the Civil War. His "The Life of Billy Yank: the Common Soldier of the Union" (1952) is, together with its companion volume "The Life of Johnny Reb, the Common Soldier of the Confederacy (1943), Wiley's best-known work. It presents an outstanding history of the day-to-day life of the soldier in the Union Army.
As Wiley stated in the preface to the book, his focus was "social rather than military". The book offers little of the military history of the various Civil War campaigns and little of the political aspects of the War. Rather, Wiley discusses soldering in the Union Army in all its detail and drudgery. It is an indispensable source for those wishing to understand the Civil War. The book would be of interest as well to reenactors wishing to get inside and recapture life in a Civil War Army.
The book is well-researched and documented. It draws upon the letters and diaries of innumerable Union soldiers, both published and unpublished and on other first-hand accounts. Much of the discussion is anecdotal, but Wiley makes good use of census and statistical data as well. The book is clearly written with an obvious empathy for the life of the Civil War soldier. The book leads the reader beyond its specific subject and encourages reflection of the Civil War, its terrible human cost, and its continuing importance to our country.
Wiley begins with a discussion of the recruitment process into the Union Army following the attack on Fort Sumter. The book gives a good picture of the complex relationship between state militia units, the regular army, the volunteers and the draftees -- the various units that uneasily combined to form the Union army. Bell discusses -- in a subject that continues to fascinate historians -- the motivations of the soldiers who served in the conflict. In particular, he discusses the Emancipation Proclamation and considers the extent to which Emancipation was or became a goal for a large number of Union troops. Wiley sees the many sides of this question, and the issue remains one that is vigorously discussed.
The book describes well the rigors of training and camp life, the diseases and unhealthy living conditions which plagued the army, the boredom and enforced routines, the bad food, temptations to vice, and experience of combat. There is excellent material in the book on the organization of the Union Army. Much of the material in Wiley's study is either presupposed or otherwise not covered in other well-known studies of the military of political history of the War. The book considers the morale and fighting spirit of the men and how it varied with the fortunes of war and with the support of people at home. Again, anticipating more recent studies, Wiley discusses the ambiguous, complicated relationships that developed during the War between the Union troops and their enemies in gray. This relationship, and the instances of fraternization during the midst of a total conflict, presaged the way for reconciliation, at long last, at the conclusion of the conflict. There is a brief discussion in the book of women soldiers who enlisted in the Union army and sometimes managed to avoid detection. This subject too has received much recent attention and it is interesting to see Wiley deal with it in his early account. The book ends with reflections on the way in which the Civil War helped forged the United States into a nation.
This study wears its age well. It will bring the reader face-to-face with the life of the Union soldier during our nation's greatest combat.
Robin Friedman
Bell Irvin Wiley (1906-1980) enjoyed a distinguished career as a professor at the University of Mississippi and Emory University and as the author or editor of over 20 books on the Civil War. His "The Life of Billy Yank: the Common Soldier of the Union" (1952) is, together with its companion volume "The Life of Johnny Reb, the Common Soldier of the Confederacy (1943), Wiley's best-known work. It presents an outstanding history of the day-to-day life of the soldier in the Union Army.
As Wiley stated in the preface to the book, his focus was "social rather than military". The book offers little of the military history of the various Civil War campaigns and little of the political aspects of the War. Rather, Wiley discusses soldering in the Union Army in all its detail and drudgery. It is an indispensable source for those wishing to understand the Civil War. The book would be of interest as well to reenactors wishing to get inside and recapture life in a Civil War Army.
The book is well-researched and documented. It draws upon the letters and diaries of innumerable Union soldiers, both published and unpublished and on other first-hand accounts. Much of the discussion is anecdotal, but Wiley makes good use of census and statistical data as well. The book is clearly written with an obvious empathy for the life of the Civil War soldier. The book leads the reader beyond its specific subject and encourages reflection of the Civil War, its terrible human cost, and its continuing importance to our country.
Wiley begins with a discussion of the recruitment process into the Union Army following the attack on Fort Sumter. The book gives a good picture of the complex relationship between state militia units, the regular army, the volunteers and the draftees -- the various units that uneasily combined to form the Union army. Bell discusses -- in a subject that continues to fascinate historians -- the motivations of the soldiers who served in the conflict. In particular, he discusses the Emancipation Proclamation and considers the extent to which Emancipation was or became a goal for a large number of Union troops. Wiley sees the many sides of this question, and the issue remains one that is vigorously discussed.
The book describes well the rigors of training and camp life, the diseases and unhealthy living conditions which plagued the army, the boredom and enforced routines, the bad food, temptations to vice, and experience of combat. There is excellent material in the book on the organization of the Union Army. Much of the material in Wiley's study is either presupposed or otherwise not covered in other well-known studies of the military of political history of the War. The book considers the morale and fighting spirit of the men and how it varied with the fortunes of war and with the support of people at home. Again, anticipating more recent studies, Wiley discusses the ambiguous, complicated relationships that developed during the War between the Union troops and their enemies in gray. This relationship, and the instances of fraternization during the midst of a total conflict, presaged the way for reconciliation, at long last, at the conclusion of the conflict. There is a brief discussion in the book of women soldiers who enlisted in the Union army and sometimes managed to avoid detection. This subject too has received much recent attention and it is interesting to see Wiley deal with it in his early account. The book ends with reflections on the way in which the Civil War helped forged the United States into a nation.
This study wears its age well. It will bring the reader face-to-face with the life of the Union soldier during our nation's greatest combat.
Robin Friedman
September 4, 2025
An interesting and informative read on the life of the average Union infantryman during the Civil War. The book is undoubtedly a good resource for re-en actors and historical fiction authors to trying to capture life in Union regiments.
At times I found the book to be overly anecdotal and less captivating. A general statement will be given and then followed by about three or four supporting anecdotes. Normally I might find these interesting, but in this case I felt they created a sort of tedium despite their helpfulness. I found the author also made numerous confusing statements that appeared contradictory at times where he used words or phrases like "many", "more than a handful", or "a large amount" to describe what he later termed a minority. This made it increasingly difficult to determine the prevalence of certain demographics and practices. More rough estimates or more precise wording in these cases may have helped eliminate ambiguity. The books pictures are also haphazardly strewn throughout the book and seem to obviously correlate to a different chapter of the book. I was also slightly disappointed that the lives of artillery men and cavalrymen were not touched on more.
Overall though, the book has served as an excellent dive into the life of the typical Civil War soldier. In detailing the daily routines, habits, and practices of Billy the Yank, I think the book will help me understand letters and references in my future research of other Civil War battles and figures.
At times I found the book to be overly anecdotal and less captivating. A general statement will be given and then followed by about three or four supporting anecdotes. Normally I might find these interesting, but in this case I felt they created a sort of tedium despite their helpfulness. I found the author also made numerous confusing statements that appeared contradictory at times where he used words or phrases like "many", "more than a handful", or "a large amount" to describe what he later termed a minority. This made it increasingly difficult to determine the prevalence of certain demographics and practices. More rough estimates or more precise wording in these cases may have helped eliminate ambiguity. The books pictures are also haphazardly strewn throughout the book and seem to obviously correlate to a different chapter of the book. I was also slightly disappointed that the lives of artillery men and cavalrymen were not touched on more.
Overall though, the book has served as an excellent dive into the life of the typical Civil War soldier. In detailing the daily routines, habits, and practices of Billy the Yank, I think the book will help me understand letters and references in my future research of other Civil War battles and figures.
December 23, 2010
Classic in Civil War writing-if you want to know how the average Union soldier survived and lived his day...this is the book for you. I especially enjoyed the description of what went through a mans mind and how his belly survivied those few moments before a scurmish begain. Very interesting.
November 5, 2012
A good in depth book about life in the Union army. I liked the stories of indivial soldiers as they fought in the Civil War. A must read for anybody interested in the Civil War.
December 28, 2012
Only for the true American Civil War nerd. Unless you really want to know what is was like...watch a John Jakes film remake.
November 26, 2025
Shortly after Bell Irvin Wiley penned The Life of Johnny Reb, a social history of southern soldiery, he wondered: what about the other fellows? What brought them to the colors, pulled them away from lives of comfort to march thousands of miles over the course of years, risking death by minié ball — or more commonly, disease? The result is The Life of Billy Yank, a social history of Union soldiers, that largely ignores politics to focus on the men and their day-to-day life. Although the author’s sympathies lie more readily with his first subject — Union soldiers are always Yankees, Yanks, or Federals — he does not downplay soldiers’ suffering or humanity here. This was a delightfully deep dive into the camps of those that wore the blue from the man who evidently pioneered social histories of the Civil War: his other works include studies on blacks during the war, as well as Confederate Women. He even addresses the immigrant-soldier experience to some degree: they composed a quarter of the Union army and were mostly German and Irish.
Billy Yank is divided into topics like combat, illness and death, recreation, and morality. Before getting into the lives of soldiers, though, Wiley first visits the motivations of those who volunteered. The overwhelming motive appears to have been simple patriotism — indignation that the Stars and Stripes had been fired upon at Fort Sumter, and determination to squash those who had done it. There were those who expressed a hatred of slavery and a desire to end it, including one soldier who vowed he didn’t care about the Union so long as slavery was destroyed. These appear to be a distinct minority in the early years of the war, though, just as McPherson’s study indicated. Many Yankees evinced outright loathing of the Southerners and the South, viewing the unindustrialized land as primitive and its residents as barbarians. The majority of the book addresses aspects of a soldier’s life: the boredom and terror of campaign life, resentment towards officers, camp conditions and recreation, cooking, and matters of morality. (Bored soldiers often found recourse in liquor and gambling when they were not doing more wholesome things like singing and playing baseball.)
Because the ranks of the Army swelled so quickly, both officers and enlisted men were typically amateur. Officers attended classes in camp at night after the day’s drilling was done, and some studied handbooks on tactics and drill in their free time. Medical reviews of recruits being mustered in were so cursory that numerous women who passed for boys made it into the ranks: some were found out when they were shot, but one lived as a man until 1911 when an auto accident exposed her. The Union army was fairly tolerant of this, even granting pensions to some women who served despite shifting them from infantry to support positions like nursing.The amateur status of the citizen-soldiery also led to massive insubordination issues, since the men were not soldiers by disposition, nor by training. Not only did they not know the many regulations they were breaking in those first few months of service, they didn’t care — and if they had access to liquor, they were violently expressive about communicating their disdain for jumped-up sergeant and officers. Wiley quotes liberally from soldiers’ letters, enough to give an idea for the period’s chaotic spelling. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the music soldiers played and invented to pass the time. I was surprised to read in the chapter on camp food and cooking that the Union army distributed “dessicated vegetables” — or as the soldiers who tried to eat them preferred, “desecrated vegetables”. They were only edible if used in a stew and boiled so long their nutritional value disappeared. Some officers who were courteous mind find themselves invited to eat in southern homes; many enlisted who were not courteous simply stole geese, chickens, and pigs and claimed with straight faces that said livestock had evinced rebel sympathies by hissing at the Union army or the Grand Old Flag.
This was quite an engaging and fun read: while I consider myself fairly versed in this subject there were still a lot of surprises, and Wiley is a talented and thorough writer. This is excellent stuff.
Billy Yank is divided into topics like combat, illness and death, recreation, and morality. Before getting into the lives of soldiers, though, Wiley first visits the motivations of those who volunteered. The overwhelming motive appears to have been simple patriotism — indignation that the Stars and Stripes had been fired upon at Fort Sumter, and determination to squash those who had done it. There were those who expressed a hatred of slavery and a desire to end it, including one soldier who vowed he didn’t care about the Union so long as slavery was destroyed. These appear to be a distinct minority in the early years of the war, though, just as McPherson’s study indicated. Many Yankees evinced outright loathing of the Southerners and the South, viewing the unindustrialized land as primitive and its residents as barbarians. The majority of the book addresses aspects of a soldier’s life: the boredom and terror of campaign life, resentment towards officers, camp conditions and recreation, cooking, and matters of morality. (Bored soldiers often found recourse in liquor and gambling when they were not doing more wholesome things like singing and playing baseball.)
Because the ranks of the Army swelled so quickly, both officers and enlisted men were typically amateur. Officers attended classes in camp at night after the day’s drilling was done, and some studied handbooks on tactics and drill in their free time. Medical reviews of recruits being mustered in were so cursory that numerous women who passed for boys made it into the ranks: some were found out when they were shot, but one lived as a man until 1911 when an auto accident exposed her. The Union army was fairly tolerant of this, even granting pensions to some women who served despite shifting them from infantry to support positions like nursing.The amateur status of the citizen-soldiery also led to massive insubordination issues, since the men were not soldiers by disposition, nor by training. Not only did they not know the many regulations they were breaking in those first few months of service, they didn’t care — and if they had access to liquor, they were violently expressive about communicating their disdain for jumped-up sergeant and officers. Wiley quotes liberally from soldiers’ letters, enough to give an idea for the period’s chaotic spelling. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the music soldiers played and invented to pass the time. I was surprised to read in the chapter on camp food and cooking that the Union army distributed “dessicated vegetables” — or as the soldiers who tried to eat them preferred, “desecrated vegetables”. They were only edible if used in a stew and boiled so long their nutritional value disappeared. Some officers who were courteous mind find themselves invited to eat in southern homes; many enlisted who were not courteous simply stole geese, chickens, and pigs and claimed with straight faces that said livestock had evinced rebel sympathies by hissing at the Union army or the Grand Old Flag.
This was quite an engaging and fun read: while I consider myself fairly versed in this subject there were still a lot of surprises, and Wiley is a talented and thorough writer. This is excellent stuff.
September 6, 2021
A fascinating story of the lives of Union soldiers during the Civil War. One can see passages Ken Burns lifted directly for his narration with the PBS series "The Civil War", first released in 1990. I read Wiley's other book about the Life of Johnny Red years ago and wanted to read its companion.
It's a surprisingly quick read, one that will amuse you as to how few people could write in the 19th Century, North or South. The book tries hard to stay objective about each point and does so well. Anyone with any interest in the Civil War would do well to read this one.
It's a surprisingly quick read, one that will amuse you as to how few people could write in the 19th Century, North or South. The book tries hard to stay objective about each point and does so well. Anyone with any interest in the Civil War would do well to read this one.
March 13, 2019
A truly great account of the average life and mindset of the Northern soldier in the Civil War. Very easy to read and understand, Wiley sprinkles in first hand letters and accounts from a myriad of Union soldiers. Like The Life of Johnny Reb, this book is required reading for a complete understanding of the War Between the States.
April 2, 2018
Excellent. Just what you would expect from the man who wrote the same for the Confederate soldier.
October 21, 2019
A clever and easy access resource that paints a livid picture.
Want to read
October 15, 2022Crazy Horse and Custer
October 6, 2024
Phenomenal. If you want to know how the average Union soldier lived, look no further.
February 13, 2023
As far as I know right now, I had six people fight for the Union. My ancestors were at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Shiloh, the Atlanta Campaign, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and Bennett Place. Reading Bell Irvin Wiley's book was an absolute treat. He covered the life of a Union soldier during battle, marching and in camp. He also explored why these men fought for the Union. For some, it was to preserve the Union, some to end slavery, and others just wanted an adventure. Wiley also had the privilege of interviewing Civil War soldiers, something we cannot do, which makes his book even more powerful. I understand what my ancestors went through as Union soldiers. This book deserves to be a classic and should be read by all Civil War students.
November 27, 2013
A scrupulous study of the Yankee soldier in the Civil War. Extensive material from letters and diaries is utilized, sometimes becoming repetitious. Everything from daily drill, clothing, food, recreation, sickness and morale is covered, giving a complete picture of the existence of the typical Yankee soldier. This book has been cited as a valuable resource by such Civil War chroniclers as Bruce Caton and Shelby Foote.
May 7, 2008
A look at the life of Union soldiers during the American Civil War, mostly discussing camp life.
April 22, 2010
Solid, well-written history of the Civil War from the perspective of Union soldiers.
September 10, 2011
An account of how the common union soldier lived and how he was treated in the army.
May 16, 2018
This book was very well researched and the narrative is intriguing.
May 15, 2016
I most enjoy books about the common soldier and this is probably one of the best written about the common soldier in the Union Army.
May 9, 2020
Read this if you're interested in the Civil War.
October 19, 2010
It's a classic.
December 4, 2012
A fine follow up that also discusses the nature of combat in greater detail.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews