Diary of an Enlisted Man

by Lawrence Van Alstyne

Excerpt from Diary of an Enlisted Man

In the multitude of books written about the Civil War, very little is said of the enlisted man. His bravery and his loyalty are admitted and that is about all. Of his every-day life, the very thing his family and friends cared most to know about, there is hardly anything said. It is to remedy this omission in some degree that the following pages are published. They were written by an enlisted man and are mostly about enlisted men. They are filled with details that history has no room for, and for that reason may have an interest quite their own.

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1910

Reviews

[Sarah Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doesn't record reading habits, practices, or tastes but a detailed account of camp life.

[Evil Klown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a day to day journal of a guy in the civil war. Mostly down around New Orleans and surrounds. I enjoyed it.

[Laura Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It seems to me it is a serious sort of business I have engaged in." A young man goes to war in 1862 and determines to keep a diary even it if means he can't go right to sleep. He sends the diary in sections back to his parents, and there it remains in a drawer until our author pulls it out some 40 years later and decides it would be worth publishing. I thought it would be deadly dull but discovered a man with a wit and ability to turn a phrase that kept my interest to the end. What it highlights is the remarkable inefficiency and ineptitude of those in charge. March here, wait several weeks, march back to where you started, wait there several weeks...and so on. What frustration. When the guns start firing it still has the confusion of knowing where the line is and what's going on in all the smoke. A good read and a good lesson to learn.