Michael E. Stevens is state historic preservation officer at the Wisconsin Historical Society. He has written and edited several books on common men and women during war including: Letters From the Front, 1898–1945, Women Remember the War, 1941–1945, Remembering the Holocaust, and Voices from Vietnam.

An exceptional memoir by an unusually idealistic and sophisticated Iron Brigade soldier who fought from Bull Run to Gettysburg and who finished the war as an officer in a Black regiment. Beecham understood the war in terms of freedom and rejected the racist and counterfactual postwar myth of the Lost Cause. Highly recommended.

• ForewordIntroductionChapter 1: "As if it were glory and not years of bitter war": Bull Run and a Winter of Idleness: May 1861–April 1862Chapter 2: "I was pretty sick": Surviving the Military Hospitals: April 1862–December 1862Chapter 3: "A campaign of adventure": From the Mud March to Chancellorsville: January 1863–June 1863Chapter 4: "We were all boys then": The First Day at Gettysburg: July 1, 1863Chapter 5: "The living prepared for the morrow": The Second Day at Gettysburg: July 2, 1863Chapter 6: "Into the fiercest hell of battle": The Third Day at Gettysburg: July 3, 1863Chapter 7: "The scenes I witnessed there": Life in a Southern Prison Camp: July–August 1863Chapter 8: "My first promotion": Becoming an Officer with the U.S. Colored Troops: August–December 1863Chapter 9: "Soldiers till the last man falls": With the Twenty-third U.S. Colored Troops: January–June 1864Chapter 10: "We'll show the world today that colored troops are soldiers": The Battle of the Crater: June–July 1864Chapter 11: "We were a sorry-looking set": Prisoner of War Again: July 1864–March 1865Chapter 12: "The paths and the vocations of peace": March–June 1865

Michael E. Stevens is state historic preservation officer at the Wisconsin Historical Society. He has written and edited several books on common men and women during war including: Letters From the Front, 1898–1945, Women Remember the War, 1941–1945, Remembering the Holocaust, and Voices from Vietnam.

An exceptional memoir by an unusually idealistic and sophisticated Iron Brigade soldier who fought from Bull Run to Gettysburg and who finished the war as an officer in a Black regiment. Beecham understood the war in terms of freedom and rejected the racist and counterfactual postwar myth of the Lost Cause. Highly recommended.

• ForewordIntroductionChapter 1: "As if it were glory and not years of bitter war": Bull Run and a Winter of Idleness: May 1861–April 1862Chapter 2: "I was pretty sick": Surviving the Military Hospitals: April 1862–December 1862Chapter 3: "A campaign of adventure": From the Mud March to Chancellorsville: January 1863–June 1863Chapter 4: "We were all boys then": The First Day at Gettysburg: July 1, 1863Chapter 5: "The living prepared for the morrow": The Second Day at Gettysburg: July 2, 1863Chapter 6: "Into the fiercest hell of battle": The Third Day at Gettysburg: July 3, 1863Chapter 7: "The scenes I witnessed there": Life in a Southern Prison Camp: July–August 1863Chapter 8: "My first promotion": Becoming an Officer with the U.S. Colored Troops: August–December 1863Chapter 9: "Soldiers till the last man falls": With the Twenty-third U.S. Colored Troops: January–June 1864Chapter 10: "We'll show the world today that colored troops are soldiers": The Battle of the Crater: June–July 1864Chapter 11: "We were a sorry-looking set": Prisoner of War Again: July 1864–March 1865Chapter 12: "The paths and the vocations of peace": March–June 1865