At the outbreak of war, twenty-year-old Francis Adams Donaldson enlisted in the 1st California Regiment (later known as the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteers) of the famous Philadelphia Brigade of the II C
An intimate look into the daily life of a cavalry officer serving with the Army of the Potomac In May 1863, eighteen-year-old William Brooke Rawle graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and tra
In 1854 an assistant surgeon named Albert J. Myer entered the Union Army and created a system of transmitting information that would revolutionize military communications. His flag-and-torch system le
