Pocket diary of A.B. Luce of McLean County, Illinois, dated Jan. 1, 1862-Jan. 15, 1863. Entries for the first five months center around life on the farm in McLean County, near Blooming Grove, Ill., as Luce records splitting wood, plowing, tending livestock, mending fences and barns, and working in nearby wheat fields for Lewis Orendorff. He also attends school, does homework, goes to church, goes sledding, and on Feb. 6, 1862, pays twenty-five cents admission to see Tom Thumb. On June 2, 1862, Luce enlists in the 68th Illinois Infantry Regiment, initially formed as state militia in response to the governor's call for state troops to serve for three months. When the enlistment terms were changed from state militia to Illinois volunteers, the regiment received marching orders on July 5, 1862, and proceeded from Camp Butler to Wheeling, Virginia. Under orders from the Secretary of War, the men were stationed first in Washington City, then out on the Duke St. turnpike near Alexandria, and finally in Alexandria, as provost guards. Luce describes the everyday routines of camp life, standing guard, and battalion drill, and makes special mention of the Grand Review of Aug. 5, 1862 when "President Lincoln was out to see us." Although the men of the 68th Regiment were never under fire, one of their duties was caring for the wounded soldiers brought to Alexandria from Bull Run. Twenty-five men of Luce's regiment died of fevers and measles. Luce is mustered out on Friday, Sept. 26, and on Oct. 2, 1862, returns home to Chicago via Springfield. His diary also includes accounts of income and expenses, math calculations, and some verses of poetry or song.

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“An incredible resource for anyone interested in the human experience of the Civil War―as recorded by a medical professional tasked with saving lives.”—David Price, Executive Director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine In this never before published diary, twenty-nine-year-old surgeon James Fulton transports readers into the harsh and deadly conditions of the Civil War as he struggles to save the lives of the patients under his care. Fulton joined a Union army volunteer regiment in 1862, only a year into the Civil War, and immediately began chronicling his experiences in a pocket diary. Despite his capture by the Confederate Army at Gettysburg and the confiscation of his medical tools, Fulton was able to keep his diary with him at all times. He provides a detailed account of the next two years, including his experiences treating the wounded and diseased during some of the most critical campaigns of the war, and his relationships with soldiers, their commanders, civilians, other health-care workers, and the opposing Confederate army. The diary also includes his notes on recipes for medical ailments from sore throats to syphilis. In addition to Fulton’s diary, editor Robert D. Hicks and experts in Civil War medicine provide context and additional information on the practice and development of medicine during the Civil War, including the technology and methods available at the time; the organization of military medicine; doctor-patient interactions; and the role of women as caregivers and relief workers. Civil War Medicine: A Surgeon’s Diary provides a compelling new account of the lives of soldiers during the Civil War and a doctor’s experience of one of the worst health crises ever faced by the United States.