Three Years with the 92nd Illinois
King became a corporal in the 92nd Illinois, which began as a Union infantry unit and was later converted to mounted infantry and equipped with Spencer rifles, making it one of the best-armed units in the army. A trained journalist, King wrote his diary as a reporter would, with attention to time and place and great detail about life in combat for the Union soldier. Officers, he said, were no better than buck privates and often much worse when they assigned men in their commands to dangerous and unnecessary tasks. Disease and infections were common problems in the army, and King experienced his share. Swedberg, a newspaper journalist and author of In Enemy Hands: Personal Accounts of Those Taken Prisoner in World War II (Stackpole, 1998), does a thorough job of providing the reader with background information throughout the diary. Readers with little more than a basic knowledge of the Civil War can read this with a reasonably clear understanding. Highly recommended for both academic and public libraries.AGrant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., MetamoraCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.