" ... Drawn from letters, diaries, speeches, articles, poems, songs, military reports, legal opinions, and memoirs, 'The Civil War: The First Year' brings together over 120 pieces by more than sixty participants to create a unique firsthand narrative of this great historical crisis ..."--Dust jacket flap.

Drawing on the searing letters that Walt, George, their mother Louisa, and their other brothers, wrote to each other during the Civil War, and on new evidence and new readings of the great poet, Now the Drum of War chronicles the experience of the Whitman family--from rural Long Island to working-class Brooklyn--enduring its own long crisis alongside the anguish of the nation.

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Army Life in a Black Regiment is a riveting and empathetic account of the lessons learned from an encounter between a New England intellectual and nearly a thousand newly freed slaves. In the fall of 1862, Thomas Wentworth Higginson was asked to take command of the 1st Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, and he immediately understood the significance of the experiment...

Includes 30 maps and plans to illustrate the bloody engagement at Gettysburg. Originally published as a 72-page pamphlet for private circulation only, and then first published in full print in 1908, this story of the Battle of Gettysburg was written by Lieutenant Haskell to his brother, H. M. Haskell of Portage, not long after the contest . Although not originally intended for publication, its great merit was at once recognized, and the account was...