Four Years with the Iron Brigade: The Civil War Journals of William R Ray, Co. F, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry - Hardcover

William R Ray

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0306811197 ISBN 13: 9780306811197

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2002

Synopsis

The recently discovered journal of William Ray of the Seventh Wisconsin is the most important primary source ever of soldier life in one of the war's most famous fighting organizations. No other collection of letters or diaries comes close to it.Two days before his regiment left Wisconsin in 1861, the twenty-three-year-old blacksmith began, as he described it, "to keep account" of his life in what became the "Iron Brigade of the West." Ray's journal encompasses all aspects of the enlisted man's life-the battles, the hardships, the comradeship. And Ray saw most of the war from the front rank. He was wounded at Second Bull Run, again at Gettysburg, and yet a third time in the hell of the Wilderness. He penned something in his journal almost every day-occasionally just a few lines, at other times thousands of words. Ray's candid assessments of officers and strategy, his vivid descriptions of marches and the fighting, and his evocative tales of foraging and daily army life fill a large gap in the historical record and give an unforgettable soldier's-eye view of the Civil War.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Lance J. Herdegen is the country's leading historian of the Iron Brigade. He is the author of editor of numerous books, including In the Bloody Railroad Cut at Gettysburg (Dayton, OH) and The Men Stood Like Iron: How the Iron Brigade Won Its Name (Bloomington, IN). Herdegen teaches history at Carroll College in Waukesha, WI. Sherry Murphy is a freelance genealogist living in Washington state, and the great-great granddaughter of William Ray.

About the Author:

Lance J. Herdegen is the author or editor of many books, and the country's leading historian of the Iron Brigade. He teaches history at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Sherry Murphy, the great-great step-granddaughter of William Ray, lives in Washington State.

About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0306811197
• ISBN 13: 9780306811197
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 446
• Editor: Lance Herdegen, Sherry Murphy