Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days (Abridged, Annotated)

The great appeal in James Rusling's memoir of the American Civil War is in the anecdotes he shares about several of the greatest generals with whom he served, as well as short sketches of his interactions with Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Rusling is mostly quite fawning of the men he served under (except McClellan, Burnside, and Hooker) but he nevertheless offers unique and truly interesting stories of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and others.General Rusling was a professor of Natural Sciences and Belles Lettres at Dickinson Seminary from 1854-57. He read law and was admitted to the Pennsylvania and New Jersey bars. In 1869, President Grant appointed Rusling as United States Pension Agent for New Jersey, which he served until 1877.Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever.