Diary of a Christian Soldier : Rufus Kinsley and the Civil War

orig.boards Minor rubbing. VG., dustwrapper. Textual map & illus. 24x15cm, xxi,281 pp. "Rufus Kinsley was a farmer from rural Vermont who became an officer in one of the nation's first and most famous black regiments during the Civil War. Diary of a Christian Soldier offers a meticulous reconstruction of Kinsley's life and an annotated transcription of his hitherto unpublished wartime diary, which sheds light on a long neglected theater of the war- the battle for the bayou country of southwestern Louisiana-and illuminates the workaday routines of black and white soldiers stationed behind Union lines. Kinsley's diary reveals that he was a dedicated evangelical abolitionist soldier who believed that the war and its consequences were divine retribution for the sin of slavery and that he believed that the Civil War was not actually about saving the Union, but about freeing slaves. David Rankin's biography places Kinsley's Civil War experience in the context of his life and times" - Publisher's description. Minor rubbing. VG., dustwrapper. …