J. Gregory Acken is an independent historian whose work has focused on telling the stories of Civil War soldiers through their letters, diaries, and memoirs. A former board member of Philadelphia's Civil War Library and Museum, he has edited four books and written magazine articles and contributed book reviews to scholarly journals. His first book, Inside the Army of the Potomac: The Civil War Letters of Captain Francis Adams Donaldson, was included the Civil War Monitor's list of the top five books on Civil War combat.