Civil War: An Exceptional Union Soldier's Journal, Chronicling Celebrations of Emancipation, Sherman's March to the Sea, Lee's Surrender, and Lincoln's Assassination. [CIVIL WAR JOURNAL] Frederick Oscar Sherwood. Journal, Jan. 1. 1864 to June 17, 1865. Various locations, including Corinth, Mississippi, Rome and Savannah, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. 132 pp.

This unpublished journal of a fifer in the 50th Illinois regiment ("The Blind Half Hundred") opens in Corinth, Mississippi on January 1, 1863, the day Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, with a description of the celebration by more than two thousand former slaves: "They formed in Reg't & marched round Town with the stars & stripes ... ." It continues through the Sieges of Vicksburg and Petersburg, Sherman's March to the Sea, Lee's surrender, and Lincoln's assassination. Along the way, Sherwood comments on guerilla raids, contrabands, battles and skirmishes, the death of General James McPherson, Colored Troops, Copperheads, "secesh ladies", and camp life, providing a remarkably personal and detailed account of the major events in the final 2 ½ years of the Civil War. Please see our website presentation of this lot at www.HA.com for several pages of excerpts from this fascinating chronicle.

The pages are mostly written in ink on lined paper, with a few in pencil. Minor age browning to the paper, but all easily readable and in very good to excellent condition overall.