The performance of an army is often evaluated by its achievements as a whole, or by that of its commanders or perhaps even its divisions. Often lost in the equation is the small unit. After the great plans are complete and the logistics preparations are accomplished, it is the collective performance of the small unit that ultimately decides the battle. This thesis analyses the campaigns, soldiers, organization, equipment, and performance of just one regiment: the 48th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. Material concerning the 48th includes numerous primary sources: the Official Records, Confederate Veteran, The Southern Historical Papers, Southern Bivouac, local histories, and the CARL microfiche library of unit histories (Note: the 48th is not included in these unit histories). Other primary references include war diaries of two officers, three enlisted men, and copies of the 48th's Quartermaster records. This thesis concludes that, while training and equipment of the 48th was sometimes poor, it was effective in numerous engagements, despite its relative small size. The ultimate demise of the unit was due to personnel losses.

Every Civil War veteran had a story to tell. But few stories top the one lived by Wright Stephen Batchelor. Like most North Carolina farmers, Batchelor eschewed slaveholding. He also opposed secession and war, yet he fought on both sides of the conflict. During his time in each uniform, Batchelor barely avoided death at the Battle of Gettysburg, was captured twice, and survived one of the war's most infamous prisoner-of-war camps. He escaped and, after walking hundreds of miles, rejoined his comrades at Petersburg, Virginia, just as the Union siege there began. Once the war ended, Batchelor returned on foot to his farm, where he took part in local politics, supported rights for freedmen, and was fatally involved in a bizarre hometown murder. Michael K. Brantley's story of his great-great-grandfather's odyssey blends memory and Civil War history to look at how the complexities of loyalty and personal belief governed one man's actions--and still influence the ways Americans think about the conflict today.