This is the diary of John S. Jackman, a Confederate soldier in the Orphan Brigade, a regiment in Tennessee's 9th Kentucky Brigade which participated in most of the major Western campaigns of the American Civil War. Jackman served as a regimental clerk, and faithfully recorded his impressions.
William C. Davis is the author or editor of more than twenty books about the Civil War, including the six-volume photographic study The Image of the War, 1861-1865. He is also the author of a prize-winning biography of Jackman's commander, John C. Breckinridge, and of The Orphan Brigade, a history of his command.