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The classic tale of battle, roguery, and capture from the Army of
Northern Virginia. From his looting of farmhouses during the
Gettysburg campaign and robbing of fallen Union soldiers as
opportunity allowed to his five arrests for infractions of military
discipline and numerous unapproved leaves, John O. Casler's actions
during the Civil War made him as much a rogue as a Rebel. Though he
was no model soldier, his forthright confessions of his service
years in the Army of Northern Virginia stand among the most sought
after and cited accounts by a Confederate soldier. First published
in 1893 and significantly revised and expanded in 1906, Casler's
Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade recounts the truths of camp
life, marches, and combat. Moreover, Casler's recollections provide
an unapologetic view of the effects of the harsh life in
Stonewall's ranks on an average foot soldier and his fellows. A
native of Gainesboro, Virginia, with an inherent wanderlust and
thirst for adventure, Casler enlisted in June 1861 in what became
Company A, 33rd Virginia Infantry, and participated in major
campaigns throughout the conflict, including Chancellorsville and
Gettysburg. Captured in February 1865, he spent the final months of
the war as a prisoner at Fort McHenry, Maryland. His postwar
narrative recalls the realities of warfare for the private soldier,
the moral ambiguities of thievery and survival at the front, and
the deliberate cruelties of capture and imprisonment with the vivid
detail, straightforward candor, and irreverent flair for
storytelling that have earned ""Four Years in the Stonewall
Brigade"" its place in the first rank of primary literature of the
Confederacy. This edition features a new introduction by Robert K.
Krick chronicling Casler's origins and his careers after the war as
a writer and organizer of Confederate veterans groups.
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