Editors' note -- Introduction -- Diary -- Letters -- Appendix. Listing of men, their rank and vital statistics -- Sherman's March to the Sea [poem] / S.H.M. Byers -- The veterans reunion [poem] / Frank L. Stanton -- Jacob Prettyman's obituary page -- John R. Weltner obituary -- Copied from John Cope's diary -- Daniel Chisholm's obituary.

When 19-year-old Daniel Chisholm joined the army, the United States was at war with itself. Leaving his Uniontown, Pennsylvania home in February 1864, Chisholm fought with the Army of the Potomac in the final campaigns of the Civil War, as Grant pushed his superior numbers in bloody head-on collisions against Lee's dwindling Confederate Army. The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Five Forks, Appomattox -- the battles that raged across Virginia will live forever in the nation's memory. At war's end, Chisholm returned to his family home, where he had the foresight to preserve a personal chronicle of the war. He collected the letters he had written home, and he transcribed them into a notebook. He also borrowed the diary of Samuel Clear, his fellow soldier and townsman, and he transcribed that into his notebook as well. The result is an extraordinary glimpse at the life of ordinary soldiers 125 years ago, as told in their own words. - Jacket flap.

A nineteen-year-old Union soldier chronicles the last battles of the Civil War.