After the American Civil War, Donn Piatt spent much of his life writing about that conflict as a journalist and editor. Though not a combat soldier, he was a staff officer in close proximity to Abraham Lincoln, Edwin Stanton, William Seward, Ulysses S. Grant, George Thomas, and W.T. Sherman. In this volume, he shares wonderful anecdotes about his meetings with some of these men. His stories of Lincoln, Stanton, and Seward are worth the price alone. But he offers more. In addition to a long section on George Thomas, he provides an analysis from first-hand information about the likelihood that the French were preparing to support the Confederacy.