To my beloved wife and boy at home
Subtitle: the letters and diaries of Orderly Sergeant John F.L. Hartwell
By: edited by Ann Hartwell Britton and Thomas J. Reed.
Contributors: Britton, Ann H.; Reed, T. J. 1940-
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Madison, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 411
Subjects: Hartwell, John F. L. -- Correspondence.; Hartwell, John F. L. -- Diaries.; United States. Army. New York Infantry Regiment, 121st (1861-1865); Soldiers -- New York (State) -- Correspondence.; Soldiers -- New York (State) -- Diaries.; New York (State) -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives.; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives.
Description: John Hartwell, a 31-year-old married house carpenter from Herkimer, New York, enlisted in the Union Army on 23 August 1862, over his wife's objections. For the next two and one-half years, Hartwell filled six diaries and one hundred one letters describing his journey through hell. In 1989, Professor Ann Hartwell Britton discovered Hartwell's hoard of letters and five of the diaries among family papers in Florida and Massachusetts. Britton and her law faculty colleague Thomas J.

Reed have, in this volume, copied, annotated, and edited Hartwell's letters and diaries for use by scholars of the Middle Period and by general readers interested in the common soldier's understanding of the War between the States.

Hartwell lived through every major battle of the Army of the Potomac from Antietam to the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House and Second Cold Harbor. Since Hartwell was a draftsman as well as a builder, he carefully mapped his regiment's actions in some of those battles, as well as his winter quarters in 1863-64.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.