The Color Guard is an account of the war experiences of Reverend James K. Hosmer who served as a corporal in the Civil War.
Many scholars believe the book to be a classic in the genre of Civil War memoirs.
His regiment, the 52nd Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, came from Franklin and Hampshire counties in the western part of the state. The 52nd Massachusetts was part of the Banks Expedition of 1862-1863. The book is a synthesis of Hosmer's war correspondence and his personal diary. Hosmer's diary is housed in the Historic Deerfield Library in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Specifically, proprietary web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer feature search functions that allow readers to locate every occurrence of specific words within a textual document.