Life and Public Services of An Army Straggler, 1865

Published in 1865, shortly after the end of the Civil War, Life and Public Services of an Army Straggler is a fictional account of the misadventures of Will Fishback, Confederate deserter from Georgia, as he wanders the southern countryside he had sworn to protect. In its comic portrayal of the rascally Fishback, An Army Straggler pays homage to the forms and dialects of the picaresque frontier folktale.

FLOYD WATKINS, author and editor of a several books and articles, is a professor emeritus of English at Emory University.