A volunteer officer with the 9th Texas Cavalry Regiment from 1861 to 1865, James Campbell Bates saw some of the most important and dramatic clashes in the Civil War's western and trans-Mississippi theaters. Bates rode thousands of miles, fighting in the Indian Territory; at Elkhorn Tavern in Arkansas; at Corinth, Holly Springs, and Jackson, Mississippi; at Thompson's Station, Tennessee; and at the crossing of the Etowah River during Sherman's Atlanta campaign. In a detailed diary and dozens of long letters to his family, he recorded his impressions, confirming the image of the Texas cavalrymen as a hard-riding bunch -- long on aggression and short on discipline. Bates's writings, which remain in the possession of his descendants, treat scholars to a documentary treasure trove and all readers to an enthralling, first-person dose of American history.

Albert and Jennie Barnitz "were both perceptive, articulate individuals who fully realized that they were involved in fascinating historically important events. They have left a record of frontier military life that can scarcely be matched elsewhere. . . . Historian and buff alike will find this volume both enlightening and entertaining."--Paul A. Hutton, Journal of American History "The reader will come to like Albert and Jennie Barnitz, whose letters trigger a time machine in which we come to know a good deal more about Life in Custer's Cavalry."--Montana "Albert Barnitz. . .served with Custer's famed Seventh Cavalry for four years, 1867-70. . . . In 1867 Albert and Jennie (Platt), both of Ohio, married and headed for the Kansas frontier. Four months later the growing perils of Indian clashes forced her to return east. . . . [Their] letters and diaries, dated from January 17, 1867, to February 10, 1869, are vivid and accurate. . . . [They] provide a keen picture of life in the Seventh Cavalry, both in garrison and field, immediately after the Civil War."--The Historian Editor Robert Utley's books available in Bison Books editions include Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life; Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891; and Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865.

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"This is an annotated edition of the diary of Union cavalry officer James Riley Weaver. Weaver wrote every day from June 1, 1863, to April 1, 1865, creating an unbroken 666-day record of his military engagements in the Union cavalry, almost seventeen months in seven Confederate officers' prisons, and return to civilian life. The depth of detail, clear prose, emotional restraint, and dissection of human nature under duress provide an unparalleled eyewitness account of one man's Civil War. Weaver avoids the sectional rancor that colors most published Union prisoner narratives and traces the changing nature of cavalry warfare and prison life over an extended period of time. His entries are honest, analytical, and even-handed in their assessments and connect soldiering, imprisonment, and personal experiences and their meaning with external events beyond his immediate purview"--

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