Mason Whiting Tyler was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, 17 June 1840. This well-written work concerns his enlistment and service in the war, covering the three years immediately following his graduation from Amherst College in July 1862. He served with the Sixth Corps of the Army of the Potomac. At the time of his death in 1907, he was nearing the completion of the first draft of his recollections and studies of the Civil War. "While not a history as a whole, events so selected and so related have a peculiar historical value of their own. There are many histories of the war and autobiographies of great generals, but autobiographies of the soldier in the camp and in the ranks are few. The life of the nation has overshadowed for the time the lives of the men who saved the nation; but it is the men for whom the nation is worth saving, and whose lives in the war are mere incidents of histories, who are the subject of this unfinished story by one of the soldiers." William S. Tyler edited his father's draft manuscript and continued his story using letters written by his father during the war "in the midst of the scenes which they relate, on the march and on the battlefield." Chapters include: Early Recollections, and the First Weeks of Civil War; First Fifteen Months of War, April, 1861-July, 1862; Going to War, July-October, 1862; With the Army of the Potomac under McClellan and Burnside, October, 1862-January, 1863; The Army of the Potomac under Gen. Hooker, January 26-June 27, 1863; Gettysburg, July 1, 2, and 3, 1863; The Thirty-Seventh Helps to Enforce the Draft in New York City, July 30-October 14, 1863; from Fairfax Court-House to Brandy Station, October 16, 1863-March 10, 1864; The Wilderness, May 4, 5, and 6, 1864; The Sixth Corps at Spottsylvania, May 7-20, 1864; The Significance of the Battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania; After Spottsylvnia, North Anna and Cold Harbor, May 13-June 12, 1864; From Cold Harbor to Petersburg, June 12-17, 1864; The Richmond Campaign, Petersburg, June 17-July 7, 1864; To the Defense of Washington; From Washington to Halltown, to Frederick and Back to Halltown, July 25-September 18, 1864; The Battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864; At Winchester, September 20-December 12, 1864; Petersburg, December 7, 1864-July 2, 1865; and Conclusion. An appendix concerning the Sixth Corps at the Bloody Angle, several portraits, maps, and an index to full names, places and subjects add to the value of this work.
William S. Tyler
(1912), 2012, 5.5" x 8.5", paper, index, 412 pp.
ISBN: 9780788428258
101-T2825
