Reminiscences of a Private, Company "G", First Arkansas Regiment Infantry: May,…

This is war as seen from the ground, not from headquarters. William E. Bevens, a private in Company G of the First Arkansas Regiment, recorded his experiences from the first shots at Fort Sumter through the surrender in 1865. What emerges is neither the polished heroism of generals' memoirs nor the bitter polemics of post-war reckoning, but something rarer: the day-to-day texture of survival, told by a man who was simply trying to stay alive and keep his comrades alive. Bevens writes about what history books omit: the gnawing hunger, the long marches through Arkansas mud, the terror of artillery fire, the strange friendships that form in circumstances no one would choose. His regiment fought in the western theater, often overlooked in favor of Virginia's more famous campaigns, and his account fills a gap in our understanding of how the war was experienced far from the political centers of power. This is history from the ranks, unfiltered and invaluable.