Every great battle takes on new perspectives and meaning when viewed from the prone position of the private soldier, as opposed to the broad sweep of after-battle reports. Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Spottslyvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg...Theodore Gerrish was at them all with Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's 20th Maine Regiment. His vivid, compassionate, and often humorous telling is from the spot on the field where the minie-balls are thickest and the cannonading is deafening. This is one of the best private-soldier memoirs of the American Civil War in its scope and its minute details. The views Gerrish provides at the end of famous officers as seen from the private soldier's point of view include Grant, Meade, Hooker, Josuah Lawrence Chamberlain, and others with whom he came in contact.