Unspeakable Sacrifice: Samuel Wheelock Fiske in the Civil War (Annotated)

From 1862 to 1864 Captain Samuel Fiske wrote a long series of articles to his home paper, The Springfield Republican, under the pen name "Dunn Browne." This book contains nearly all of his columns. If you read no other book by a soldier in the Civil War, read this one. Classically-trained, a world traveler before the war, Fiske had a brilliant intellect and a natural talent for humor that makes reading his Civil War articles a great pleasure for anyone interested in the period. His keen observations of events go well beyond camp life. His first service with the 14th Connecticut was at Antietam, the single bloodiest day of fighting in U.S. history. Fiske fought at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and at Gettysburg he was part of Gibbon's corps that repulsed Pickett's Charge on July 3rd. All of that is described in Fiske's inimitable way. Captain Fiske was well-aware that he was witnessing history on a titanic scale. Yet through it all is his incredibly charming and often barbed wit. Included in this book is a biographical sketch of Fiske by his friend, W.S. Tyler. Samuel Fiske was severely wounded on the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness and died sixteen days later. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever.