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Date Posted: 05:39:24 01/29/03 Wed
Author: Phil McBride
Subject: Elisha Stockwell Jr. Sees the Civil War

Are you fellas who wear blue familiar with the memoirs of Elisha Stockwell, Jr.? I found the memoirs at Half Price Books in Austin yesterday, and couldn't put it down until finished.

If you haven't read it, Private Stockwell enlisted in a Wisconsin unit at age 15 and served until the end of the war. The memoirs were handwritten when Stockwell was 81. He wanted to leave his family a record of his wartime experiences. He had cataracts and couldn't see the paper well enough to follow the lines, so he used a wooden stick the width of each line to guide his hand. He flipped it down after writing each line to write the next line using it as a ruler.

He describes all sorts of soldiers' life stuff as well as a private's view of some major battles - Shiloh and Atlanta and others. This is really informative and fairly descriptive stuff, and his style is very easy reading. Even more so than Sam Watkin's Company Ahytch.

This may well be old hat info to blue reenactors, but it was new to me. The hardback I found was published by U of Oklahoma press in 1958. I checked Amazon and there are two paperback copies for sale for less than $15. I'd recommend it.

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