Sam Watkins is amazing and a part of you wishes he were still around signing books.

There are primarily two first hand accounts of the Civil War that get qouted a lot this one and Eliha Hunt Rhodes's "All for the Union." I like this one the best because unlike the guy who wrote "All for the Union" Watkins never moved beyond the rank of corporal. When Sam Watkin's joined the "glorious cause" in 1861 1,200 marched away from his home town 65 returned including Watkin's himself. Sam states many times that this is not a history of the war, just a few things that have stuck in his memory 20 years later.

The book flows in a mostly chronological order and includes personal observations of Jackson, Bragg, Johnstone, the Honorable Jefferson Davis (who shook Sam's hand) and many others. These accounts are extremely insightful and even eloquent.

There are the accounts of battles in which Watkins fought 1861, Murfreesboro, Shiloh, Corinth, Perryvile, Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge and the darkest of all Frnaklin.

There are also extremely entertaining elements of social history that are not directly related to battles but give you a good idea of how an average solider of the south lived and how they had fun; of these the segment "pass the butter" is probably the most hilarious. Then there is also the story of how Sam was arrested while on leave and one of his old friends from his home town got him out of trouble.

Overall-This book has something for everyone and if Watkin's is correct and this book was not intended as a history it is definatly one of the most entertaining not-histories that I have read.

This book lives up to its reputation. If you have any interest whatsoever in the Civil War, whether you're from the North or South, you need to read this book. It has an immediacy that's lacking in history books, because the author was there and lived through some of the most hellish events in the war. And the kicker is that he was a great writer... Imagine if Mark Twain had fought in the Civil War and then wrote about it afterward. He has a gift for making you feel the exhiliration, terror, heartbreak, and drudgery of life as an infantryman in the Civil War... with a degree of literacy and introspection that raises the writing above merely a 'this happened and this happened' sort of account. His writing style is very accessible, too- this book is timeless.

My wife and I enjoyed reading this book together. It captured the day to day grind of life during the war years that southern people love to read about. We both recommend this insightful book.

While this book is not for the beginner Civil War reader it is a must have for those that want to understand just how it must have been. Along with "All for the Union" "Bayonet's forward" and other Company level collections.

This is an editted version and has cleaned up some of the grammer and errors per the author.

Further the text presumes that the reader knows what is going on and makes scant reference to the common names for the battles he fought in or other forms of reference, hence the not for the casual reader comment earlier.

This book was written by a Confederate private who served in the Army of Tennessee for nearly the entirety of the Civil War. Published in serial form after the war (one reviewer suggested that his material was written during the war, such as a diary would have been; however, that reviewer is simply incorrect, and the distinction is important enough to warrant mention) and then in book form in 1880, this memoir of civil war experiences from a private's perspective is priceless in terms of primary source material. Watkins is frank and unapologetic, a quality that provides the historian with unique material in terms of dealing with the sentiments that the non-elite confederates often held.



Watkin's candor is probably the most important feature of this work. His hatred of Yankees and often equally strong hatred of some of the Confederate command suggests an individual who probably defies current simple notions of Yankee/Rebel mentality. Watkins is often witty, especially when reflecting upon feelings that we would now understand as being imbedded in "class struggle". Of course, Watkin's frankness extends to his views of blacks and slaves, illuminating an individual who was both racist and yet not in the generally held stereotypical manner.



I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the Confederate experience from the perspective of the non-elitist point of view. This book would be great for a high school curriculum covering the Civil War era, and would also be a good part of any similar college-level syllabus. This is a relatively quick read (especially when compared to such works as "Mary Chesnut's Civil War" or "The Diary of Edmund Ruffin"), which makes it ideal for those just beginning their exposure to the Civil War or more specifically to the Confederate experience.

This book was written by a Confederate private who served in the Army of Tennessee for nearly the entirety of the Civil War. Published in serial form after the war (one reviewer suggested that his material was written during the war, such as a diary would have been; however, that reviewer is simply incorrect, and the distinction is important enough to warrant mention) and then in book form in 1880, this memoir of civil war experiences from a private's perspective is priceless in terms of primary source material. Watkins is frank and unapologetic, a quality that provides the historian with unique material in terms of dealing with the sentiments that the non-elite confederates often held.

Watkin's candor is probably the most important feature of this work. His hatred of Yankees and often equally strong hatred of some of the Confederate command suggests an individual who probably defies current simple notions of Yankee/Rebel mentality. Watkins is often witty, especially when reflecting upon feelings that we would now understand as being imbedded in "class struggle". Of course, Watkin's frankness extends to his views of blacks and slaves, illuminating an individual who was both racist and yet not in the generally held stereotypical manner.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the Confederate experience from the perspective of the non-elitist point of view. This book would be great for a high school curriculum covering the Civil War era, and would also be a good part of any similar college-level syllabus. This is a relatively quick read (especially when compared to such works as "Mary Chesnut's Civil War" or "The Diary of Edmund Ruffin"), which makes it ideal for those just beginning their exposure to the Civil War or more specifically to the Confederate experience.

Company Aytch may not be unique in the annals of war books, but it is certainly unusual. Plenty of soldiers have kept journals of their war days, and plenty of historians have quilted together pretty vivid accounts of various wars from such journals. I haven't read Thucydides multi-volume account of the Peloponnesian war, but based on excerpts his works come to mind, perhaps because like Company Aytch it was also written during a horrible civil war. Thucydides was a general, though, and Watkins was a foot soldier, and thus he gives us the terror, tedium, and even humor of war through the eyes of everyman. The sheer horror of "The Elephant" as the southerners called the battle, comes through even though the unblinking eye of the veteran of many campaigns has grown used to it. My uncle once told me you could get used to hanging if you did it long enough, and I suppose that happened a bit to these battle-hardened men, but still the process is fascinating, and for good or ill, we are also spared vivid descriptions of the worst of the horrors, even though at Franklin and other places he encountered them aplenty.
Because it is a ground up view, one rarely gets the big picture, and thus this book alone would not come close to giving you a War Between the States overview. It also somehow feels contemporary, as the intelligence and wit of the author caught up in the machinery and beauracracy of war between governments is something that rings a bell with us in the modern world.
As a supplement I would highly recommend it. In fact I'm not sure that any in depth study of the Civil War would be complete without it.