Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman: With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War

Young men from Michigan's farms answered the call to arms with more courage than understanding, and James Harvey Kidd was among them. He rode with Custer's famous Michigan Cavalry Brigade, the Wolverines who became legend for their audacity and their terrible losses. This is not a general's strategic overview but a trooper's raw, ground-level view: the cold terror before a charge, the friendships forged in shared misery, the mind-numbing boredom of camp life shattered by moments of horrific violence. Kidd writes with plain honesty about the hope and despair that war bred in equal measure. He captures what it meant to be young, far from home, and riding toward gunfire. The memoir follows the brigade from recruitment through early battles, painting a vivid picture of men who became brothers through everything they endured together. For readers who want to understand the Civil War not from above but from the saddle, this memoir offers an irreplaceable perspective.