Spanning the years from his enlistment to his death in 1864, Haydon's diary echoes with the rhythmic protocols of military life. He kept his journal daily, and just as dutifully performed in parade drills, inspections, campaign marches, and several skirmishes and full-dress battles. He had thrown over a law career in Kalamazoo to join the Second Michigan Infantry Regiment, a unit that ranged as far afield as the Civil War itself: First Bull Run, the Peninsula campaign (Haydon's is "the best single eyewitness account" according to Sears), Fredericksburg, then west to Vicksburg, where Haydon was shot through the shoulder. After recovery, he led a wagon train to the relief of Knoxville. Haydon's horizon extends no further than his unit, but he theorizes about its problems of command, handicaps the politicking for promotion (he rose from sergeant to lieutenant colonel), puts down threats to cohesion (he sat on courts-martial and in one entry longs for salutary death penalties), and prosaically records the daily grind of mud, boredom, and terror--and, more quaintly, incidents of his men's drinking and whoring. It seems remiss that this literate document lay unpublished for 130 years, but this is the active war collection's chance to add a work with present-tense punch. ~--Gilbert Taylor

These two works represent examples of the hundreds of eyewitness accounts from soldiers of the Civil War. Although not vastly different in what they report, they vary in their readability and their presentation of the war. Haydon offers a much more comprehensive look at soldier life through the format of a journal. His work is a day-by-day account of the war by a soldier with the Second Michigan, Company I. A student of law when he enlisted, Haydon writes clearly and freely about the trials of both camp life and battle. He astutely criticizes and praises officers, the war effort, and the conduct of fellow soldiers. This is almost an exact history of the Second Michigan for the years that Haydon was a soldier in it. Letters Home is also a compilation of letters that were written by a Michigan native who enlisted with the Sixth Wisconsin, Company G. Matrau simply retells his experiences without offering much in the way of personal opinion or feelings, context, or politics. These letters need a great deal of outside narrative to set the stage, and extensive footnoting is also a distraction. Both works would be of interest to libraries with strong military history collections.-- Barbara Zaborowski, Cambria Cty . Lib . , Johnstown, Pa. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

This engaging journal covers the brief military career of a member of a Michigan regiment which took part in the battle of Bull Run, the Peninsula campaign, Fredericksburg and Grant's siege of Vicksburg. Between 1861 and 1864, Haydon rose from third sergeant to lieutenant colonel. His journal presents a boldly realistic picture of what it was like to serve in Lincoln's Army, with proper attention paid to the traditional soldiers' vices--drinking, gambling, whoring, brawling, looting--as acted out by his companions in arms, and described vividly by Haydon. A thoughtful, reflective and sharply observant man, he had interesting things to say not only about his comrades and the battles they fought but also about the restorative powers of hot coffee, the morals of Southern women, the price of food and the burden of leadership. Seriously wounded in Mississippi, Haydon was sent on furlough prematurely and died of pneumonia on the way home. The tragedy will sadden readers who have grown fond of this lively, conscientious, brave fellow. As Sears ( Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam ) movingly remarks, ``What survived him is the journal of a good solider.'' (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

An important addition to the growing number of diaries, memoirs, and other primary source materials on the Civil War made accessible to the nonspecialist reader. Sears (To the Gates of Richmond, 1992, etc.) has skillfully edited 19 pocket diaries that the ``good soldier Haydon,'' a 27- year-old lawyer from Decatur, Michigan, painstakingly wrote, transcribed, and sent home to his father from 1861 to 1864. Haydon was a college graduate who read The Atlantic and quoted scraps of poetry to combat the boredom of army life, but the real value of his daybooks is historical and emotional rather than literary. Rising from sergeant to lieutenant colonel, Haydon saw action at or on the edges of both Bull Run battles and at Fredericksburg, more seriously during the ``Seven Days'' on the Peninsula. In 1863, he joined Grant at Vicksburg and was badly wounded leading an assault at Jackson, Mississippi. Unless you're a memoir-gourmet, Haydon's diaries aren't easy reading: Descriptions of the weather and of the awful, inadequate food become repetitious. Nonetheless, there's scarcely a day's entry that doesn't contain some stirring observation or moving reflection, all conveying a genuine mid- Victorian sensibility preserved amid unparalleled carnage. Haydon was obsessed with doing his duty, not only for the Union but in order to be seen as dutiful. (At one point, he writes that there's so much false illness that ``good soldiers sometimes suffer much pain and inconvenience rather than incur the suspicion of shirking duty.'') Readers who would otherwise wonder at troops like those who pinned their names to their coats for the purpose of identifying their corpses as they prepared to run into the cannon's mouth at Cold Harbor will here receive the authentic feel of the era's moral imperative. Survivor of many battles but weakened by his wounds, Haydon died of pneumonia in 1864, while on furlough. In this book of his own making, aided by Sears's introduction and deft chapter transitions, he at last receives his true memorial.