Johnny Reb and Billy Yank

About Johnny Reb and Billy Yank

Johnny Reb & Billy Yank is an epic novel first published in 1905 by Alexander Hunter, a soldier who served in Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army from 1861 to 1865. The novel is noted for encapsulating most of the major events of the American Civil War, due to Hunter's obvious involvement in them. The "novel" is actually pulled from Hunter's own diaries during the war. He explains his reasons for publishing his accounts in the preface to the novel- "There were thousands of soldiers on both sides during the Civil War, who, at the beginning, started to keep a diary of daily events, but those who kept a record from start to finish can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I was so fortunate as to save most of my notes made during the four years of conflict, and in 1865, having no fixed pursuit in life, I spent most of the time in arranging and writing up these incidents of camp life while fresh in my memory. I have given in these pages veracious account of the life of a soldier in Lee's army...." The novel is then divided into two parts, the first part chronicling Hunter's service in the infantry up until the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the second part depicting his service in the Cavalry until the end of the war. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

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