Volunteer in the Regulars

"At the outbreak of the war, Gilbert Thompson joined the regular army and was assigned to the engineer battalion. He began writing a journal of his service. After the war, Thompson took his three wartime journals and interleaved them into a single volume, adding some of his postwar reflections along the way. Thus, the text he left to posterity is both journal and memoir, and he maintains a clear delineation between these two perspectives throughout. Thompson was also an accomplished artist and topographer, and his sketches from the field add a unique visual narrative to this book. His service, including activity at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Petersburg, extended well into 1864"--