Four Years With The Iron Brigade The Civil War Journal Of William Ray, Company F, Seventh Wisconsin Volunteers

by Herdegen, Lance; Murphy, Sherry

• ISBN13: 9780306811197
• ISBN10: 0306811197
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-04
• Publisher: Da Capo Press

Summary

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.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Preface	xii
Introduction	xiv
1861	1	(40)
To Put Down Rebellion
September 19, 1861 to November 21, 1861	3	(20)
A Soldiering in Dixie
November 22, 1861 to December 30, 1861	23	(18)
1862	41	(122)
A Wounded Man
January 28, 1862 to March 1, 1862	43	(18)
Camp Starveout
March 5, 1862 to May 14, 1862	61	(26)
In Pursuit of Devils
May 26, 1862 to July 2, 1862	87	(22)
Spun Around Like a Boy's Top
July 3, 1862 to August 29, 1862	109	(34)
Wounded Thick on the Grass
August 29, 1862 to January 15, 1863	143	(20)
1863	163	(88)
An Emancipation Act
January 26, 1863 to February 27, 1863	165	(10)
Wounded at Gettysburg
June 4, 1863 to August 7, 1863	175	(32)
The Veteran Question
August 12, 1863 to January 14, 1864	207	(44)
1864	251	(98)
Back to the Front
January 17, 1864 to May 30, 1864	253	(26)
The Petersburg Mine
May 31, 1864 to August 28, 1864	279	(34)
They Cry ``We Surrender!''
August 27, 1864 to December 31, 1864	313	(36)
1865	349	(42)
We Are the Iron Brigade Yet
January 1, 1865 to June 14, 1865	351	(28)
Home and a Mother's Kiss
June 15, 1865 to July 16, 1865	379	(12)
Epilogue	391	(2)
Appendix A: Seventh Wisconsin Regiment	393	(3)
Appendix B: Appomattox Campaign Reports	396	(8)
Endnotes	404	(31)
Bibliography	435	(4)
Index	439