With Fire and Sword (Byers)

He was the last man of a regiment that fought itself out of existence. One thousand men went in; twenty-three came out. Samuel H. M. Byers kept a diary every single day of the Civil War, and what he recorded was not strategy or politics but the raw, grinding horror of watching everyone around him die. His regiment lost seven hundred and seventy-seven men to death, wounds, and disease. The remaining fragment was transferred to a cavalry command. When he finally escaped from prison after months of confinement, he was mustered out as a supernumerary officer. His command had ceased to exist. He was literally the last man left. This is his diary, four years of survival, imprisonment, and escape, told with the poet's eye for detail and the diplomat's understanding of a nation tearing itself apart.