[Illustration] DIARY OF AN ENLISTED MAN BY LAWRENCE VAN ALSTYNE SHARON, CONN. NEW HAVEN, CONN. THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR COMPANY 1910 Copyrighted 1910 by LAWRENCE VAN ALSTYNE WITH LOVING REGARD FOR THE MEMORY OF MY PARENTS WHO WATCHED FOR AND EAGERLY READ THE DIARY AS FROM TIME TO TIME IT CAME TO THEM AND TO MY COMRADES-IN-ARMS WHETHER LIVING OR DEAD THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. PREFACE In the multitude of books written about the Civil War, very little is said of the enlisted man. His bravery and his loyalty are admitted and that is about all. Of his everyday life, the very thing his family and friends cared most to know about, there is hardly anything said. It is to remedy this omission in some degree that the following pages are published. They were written by an enlisted man and are mostly about enlisted men. They are filled with details that history has no room for, and for that reason may have an interest quite their own. They were written at different times, in different places, and under a great variety of circumstances and conditions. Some were written as the line halted for rest while marching from place to place, some while waiting for trains or other modes of transportation, but the most were written by the light of a candle or a smoldering camp-fire while my comrades, no more weary than I, were sleeping about me. All were written amid scenes of more or less confusion, and many times of great excitement. They were written because of a promise made to my parents that I would make notes of my wanderings and of the adventures I met with. At first I found it an irksome task, taking time I really needed for rest; but as time went on the habit became fixed, and I did not consider the day's work done until I had written in my diary of the events that came with it.