Death Before Dishonor: The Andersonville Diary of Eugene Forbes : 4th New Jersey Infantry

by William B. Styple (Editor), Eugene Forbes

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208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1995

Reviews

[Mac]

This is the remarkable diary of Eugene Forbes, a former newspaper reporter from Trenton who joined the Union army and had the misfortune to be imprisoned at Andersonville after being captured in May 1864. I read the book because Forbes served in the same company as my ancestor, but found myself engrossed in his story. He supported the Union cause, particularly the abolition of slavery, so strongly that he faced his gradual death by starvation with incredible bravery. The editor, William Styple, assembles the few details that are known of Forbes's life in the introduction, and the book also includes unforgettable photographs of the devastation wrought by malnutrition at Andersonville--living skeletons who rival the most horrifying images from the Holocaust.