From his enlistment in 1861 to mustering out at the end of the American Civil War, Martin Haynes kept up a voluminous correspondence with the girl he'd left behind him: Cornelia Lane. Throughout the bloody fighting at Gettysburg, Malvern Hill, and other famous battles, it is remarkable how little it seems Haynes withheld from the woman who became his wife. A very popular song title during the Civil War, every soldier knew "The Girl I Left Behind Me" and had someone about who they could sing it. In excruciating detail, Haynes relates the freezing cold, the killing heat, the torn bodies, deaths of friends, and the victories won by his New Hampshire regiment boys. After the war, Haynes was editor and publisher of the "Lake Village Times" and a United States Representative for the state of New Hampshire. By the time he wrote this book in 1916, he had been married to Cornelia for more than fifty years.