"I saw a great many wounded soldiers, who were mangled and bruised in every possible way..."

How would you describe the Civil War to a four year old boy?

Not the causes and political backdrop - I mean Gettysburg and the aftermath, as you saw/heard/smelled it.

John Camden West, a private in Hood's Texas Brigade, wrote to his son on the eve of the child's fourth birthday, a few days after Gettysburg:

Hagerstown, MD, July 8, 1863
To Master Stark West, four years old.
My Dear Little Man:

I wrote to mamma from our camp near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and as to-morrow is your birthday, and you are getting to be a big boy, I thought you would like for papa to write you a letter and tell you something about the war and the poor soldiers.

God has been very good to me since I wrote to mamma. He has saved my life when many thousands of good men have been slain all around me.

On the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of July a very terrible battle was fought near Gettysburg. We marched all night, leaving camp at 2 o'clock in the afternoon in order to reach the battlefield in time.

There had been some fighting on the 1st and we passed a hospital where I saw a great many wounded soldiers, who were mangled and bruised in every possible way, some with their eyes shot out, some with their arms, or hands, or fingers, or feet or legs shot off, and all seeming to suffer a great deal.

About two miles farther on I found a great many soldiers drawn up in a line, ready to meet the Yankees, who formed another line a mile or two in front of them. These lines were three or four miles long, and at different places on the hills were the batteries of artillery...

West's striking letter to his little boy, as well as those to his wife, brother (JAG of the Trans-Mississippi), and daughter back in Waco join West's field diary between these covers.

He could have easily sat out the war. Jefferson Davis appointed the young lawyer as District Attorney for the Western District of Texas.

But, like most young men of the 19th century, West thirsted for action and resigned his position to enlist as a private in Hood's Texas Brigade.

He got his wish - his cup overflowed with action at Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Knoxville.

Because his diary and letters were written in a perilous time by a man who didn't know if he'd live to write again, they have an immediacy and candor seldom seen.

Three quotes from Robert E. Lee sum up the reputation of Hood's Texas Brigade as the toughest combat troops in his army:

"Hood's Texas Brigade is always ready."

"Texans always move them!"

"The enemy never sees the backs of my Texans."

Pvt. West could have polished his writing in 1901. He had the chance when he put it all in book form, but resisted the urge, stating:

"The questions of taste, delicacy and propriety of publishing private matter have been considered and discussed. The conclusion is that it should be printed and issued, word for word, as it was originally written thirty-eight years ago. Otherwise it would not be what the writer wrote and thought in those dark, historic days. It is not fiction. It is fact."

This is history with the hide on. It's the unvarnished firsthand stuff I built Copano Bay Press to keep in print. Your love of it is why I still have the jobI love!