History books tell you what happened during the Civil War…
Witness to War allows you to experience it firsthand through the witnesses who were there. Union and Confederate, battlefront and home front, soldiers and civilians (men, women, and even a few children) – 432 witnesses in all lead us through the most crucial chapter in American history as events unfold.
These previously unpublished accounts aren’t memoirs or recollections; they’re poignant in-the-moment impressions penned during our nation’s life-or-death struggle when the outcome was uncertain. Told with an objectivity that’s largely missing today, it covers the full sweep of the war from Lincoln’s 1860 election until the men returned home in the summer of 1865.
→Read a sample of Witness to War here!
Click below to order Witness to War.
But don’t take our word for it. Listen to what the witnesses themselves have to say…
Famous Figures
“President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee came out to the dress parade yesterday evening, and I had a good look at both. The President has a very pleasing look and conversed with a good many of the soldiers, shook hands with as many as could get to him, and bowed to all companies that passed him, while General Lee looked as savage as a meat ax and appeared in finer style than the President.”
“General Ulysses S. Grant should be court-martialed for allowing himself to be surprised [at Shiloh]. He was notified time after time that the enemy was near his lines in strong force and intended to attack him. He hooted at the idea of them attacking him and suffered his army to be surprised. I have always disliked the man, and worse now than ever. He is not fit for a military man.”
“General Joseph E. Johnston reviewed us a few days ago and expressed great satisfaction with our appearance and discipline. I was under him in Virginia. I think he has changed in appearance very much. He looks careworn. He is a fighter. He is none of your Hotel Generals.”
“I will give you a description of Old Abe. He was dressed like some old tablecloth peddler, an old alpaca loose coat, a two-story stove pipe, black pants that reached just below the knees, and he rode an old skeleton of a horse without any stirrups to the saddle. When he got in front of the battalion, the boys were shouting, so he jerked off his old tarpaulin in front like some little urchin going into the school room.”
“Enclosed is a photograph of General William T. Sherman, a very true picture, though not as good a one as I would have liked to have had. His whiskers are short and sandy, and there is a kind of nervous twitching about his mouth and a fierce twinkle in his eyes. He is very slim and a little stoop-shouldered.”
“I stood quite near General George B. McClellan and had a good chance to see what he looked like. He is quite robust and appears as if he gets enough to eat. Wears a mustache and quite firm expression of countenance generally.”
Regimental Snowball Fight
“We had some snow, and the colonel got the men out on Monday morning, rolled snowballs, and built a snow fort. In the afternoon, he had the men divided into two parties and put one party in the fort and the other party outside of the fort. There was 800 in the whole, and they had them snowballs and they seen which party would whip. I got one black eye and was glad to get off with just that. It was the biggest snowball fight I ever saw.”
Burnside’s Mud March
“You ought to have seen some of the boys. You could not tell what kind of clothes they had on, for they were mud all over. We would stop at night and build a fire and make a little coffee and eat a hardtack and perhaps then go on guard as wet as a cat and stand in the rain wet to the skin. Start off in the morning again, the rain pouring down and the wind a blowing and some of them a cheering and some a singing and some a swearing.”
Battle Scenes
“I was under the enemy’s fire for seven days. You said something about the woods burning. They was burning some as the cannon fired them. We fought through the fires and whipped them back.”
“I stood behind a tree and shot at them until they came within 10 steps of me. I looked along
the lines, and they were driving our right and left—over half of our boys were out of ammunition. We kept falling back a little at a time until they had swung pretty nigh around us. I seen there was a chance to save myself, and I got out. If I had been 5 minutes longer, it would have been all over for me.”
“They opened on us from their hidden entrenchments with grape and canister, poured on our forces such continual showers of leaden hail as has not been endured by our troops before. They fought like demons worthy of a better cause.”
“We were ordered to advance to a small ditch. It was not more than 18 inches deep, so you can imagine what kind of shelter we had. The way the balls whistled over us was not slow. Bombs, balls, minie balls, and everything killable and hurtable so that it seemed it was an utter impossibility for a large number of us not to be killed.”
Living In a Border State
“The young girl said, ‘When the Rebels are here, I am a Rebel. When the Union army is here, I am Union.’ We talked for a long time on the subject, but could not agree.”
Hospital Nurses
“The ‘boys’ are not getting along very well. It is so hot this week. Such quantities of flies I never saw. Some of the boys’ faces, as well as bodies, are literally covered. They have to have a fan to keep them off, but some are so weak that they soon get tired. Each one ought to have someone to sit right down by their bedside and attend all of the time to them. It seems as if we could not do anything for them—there is so much to be done. The ‘regular’ nurses, I don’t know what to think of. We went into a ward the other day, and one was sitting and rocking away, hemming ruffling. In our hospital, we have not seen them doing one thing for the soldiers. We meet them occasionally walking through the halls, trying to fan themselves and keep cool.”
Slavery
“I shall start with a lot of Negroes in a few days from this. If the Negro you speak of is a good No. 1 boy, I will give you One Thousand Dollars for him.“
Naval Combat
“The USS Congress, when all in flames, was a sight never seen probably by one-third of the troops here, and I assure you it was a melancholy one indeed to see that damned CSS Merrimack destroying two of our best frigates, besides the great loss of life. Her powder magazine exploded at half past 12, and such a noise your humble servant never before heard.”
A Botched Double Execution
“The officer of the guard gave these orders: Ready, Aim, Fire! Owing to the terrible storm the night before, the powder in the guns was very wet, and only two guns out of the twenty went off. One of the men was only shot in the arm and the other slightly in the head. But they must be shot, and so they fired again, and they had to shoot 12 different times before the poor men were killed. Oh, it was dreadful to see the agony the poor men were in. One of them got up from his coffin, took off his handkerchief from his eyes, and wanted to shoot himself, he was in so much misery. They were mangled terribly.”
Desertion
“Joe, sometimes I sit down and cry when I think of times past and gone forever and never to return again. It is a solemn thought indeed that I may have seen you for the last time. It seems awful hard to think you can’t come home until the war is over. Oh, Joe, desert and come home. If you knew how bad I want to see you, I think you would.”
The New York City Draft Riots
“We came here last night to put down the mob. They are a murderin’ and stealin’ everything they can get ahold of. I helped guard the printing office of The New York Times last night.”
Romantic Entanglements
“Tell that bitch Sally Hildenhunt not to fret. Daggone fool, I wouldn’t write to her again to save her life. She thinks she has now got me safe as a suitor [boyfriend], dang bitch. Sis, you must make her think that I love her and can’t rest.”
Contact Between Enemies
“Saturday morning before the fight [Battle of Fredericksburg] the Massachusetts 1st was on picket and the most friendly relations existed for the time being between them and the enemy’s outposts. They intermingled freely with each other, exchanging sugar and coffee for tobacco. Two even went so far as to indulge in a game of euchre to determine the fate of the Southern Confederacy. Before the game was finished, however, the two lines of pickets had to separate and “go to work,” as a Rebel expressed it. In a few moments, both sides were doing their best to kill each other.”
War Weariness
“If we have to fight, the sooner, the better. I want the war to stop, and I do not care much how it terminates.”
“I believe the war will be over very soon now. I am like you, I don’t know what is going to become of us. Patriotism seems to be completely played out. I sometimes get very disheartened, but I hope for the best.”
Lincoln’s Assassination
“I hope they will find the vile assassin who perpetrated the hellish deed and make him stretch hemp on the first tree that they come to after they catch him. J. Wilkes Booth, I suppose, is the assassin. When I was in Rochester, I got his photograph just to see how the scoundrel looked. He is a pretty good-looking fellow—too good to commit such a crime.”
After the War
“Now that the cruel war is over, and I look back and see the many lonely homes, I wonder what it all meant.”
MEET J. MARK POWELL
Born and raised in Missouri, J. Mark Powell is now a forever South Carolinian. He was a journalist for over 25 years, reporting everywhere from the county courthouse to the White House. He received the Alabama Associated Press Best Documentary Award for a documentary on the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh. For 17 years, he was a senior news writer and editor at CNN in Atlanta, and was part of two Emmy Award-winning news writing teams. Additionally, he served as a press secretary on Capitol Hill and as communications director in the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office.
Before that, J. Mark lived in Kentucky for eight years, where he fell in love with thoroughbred horse racing. He was even fortunate enough to acquire a micro-share of Authentic, winner of the 2020 Kentucky Derby and the Breeders’ Cup. A lifelong ardent Civil War enthusiast, he has curated a collection of over 550 letters and more than 5,000 original CDV photos from the war.
He was the 2000 Volunteer of the Year at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield and is a member of the Honorary Order of Kentucky Colonels. His family tree includes a substantial number of Revolutionary War soldiers and several notable Civil War figures, as well as Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Zachary Taylor.
J. Mark Powell is also the author of the political thriller Tell It Like Tupper and co-author of the historical thriller The Curse of Cain. Witness to War is his first non-fiction work.
INTERVIEW & SPEAKING REQUESTS
Want to interview J. Mark Powell for your news article or podcast? Want to invite him to speak to your group?
He’d love to hear from you!
Just message him at WitnesstoWarBook@gmail.com or JMP.Press@Gmail.com.
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If you do, J. Mark Powell has something special for you to show his appreciation. While Witness to War is based on excerpts from original period letters, space didn’t permit publishing them in their entirety. Many readers are asking to see more.
So here’s your chance! J. Mark has created high-resolution digital scans of the five best letters from the book. Tell 10 people about it, and he will email you one. Tell 20 folks, and he’ll email you two letters; 30 gets four, and 40 gets four. Share it with 50 people, and he’ll send you all five.
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