THE REBEL YELL & THE YANKEE HURRAH - THE CIVIL WAR JOURNAL OF A MAINE VOLUNTEER by HALEY, Private John W. Edited By Ruth L. Silliker

Down East Books, Camden, Maine, 1985. 2nd US printing, hard bound in dust jacket, VG/VG CONDITION, ( light dj edge wear ), 7 x 10, 311 pages, illus, bibliog....................................................... On an "I will if you will" dare, John Haley enlisted in the 17th Maine Regiment in August 1862 "for three years, unless sooner discharged." ("Discharged, shot, or starved" would have been more accurate, Haley wryly observed.) Though a reluctant soldier at first, he went on to fight steadfastly in the Army of the Potomac for nearly three years, participating in some of the most significant clashes of the Civil War.With typical self-deprecation, Haley described himself as "an indifferent soldier, present all the time." But what a time it was: the green troops of the 17th were thrown almost at once into the bloodiest one-day battle of the war, at Sharpsburg (Antietam). And the Maine men were there to the end, at Appomattox, where Haley's regiment witnessed Lee's surrender. All these events Private Haley duly recorded in his field diaries.................................................................... His account conjures up memorable images, such as the stoop-shouldered "father Abraham," long legs dangling nearly to the ground as the commander-in-chief reviews the troops from atop a too-short horse. There are also vivid descriptions of the terror of all-out war—and the boredom of drill and more drill in winter quarters while scurvy and dysentery take their toll.................................................................. John Haley was not the only soldier to to record each day's events in his journal by firelight or picket's lantern, for his was a literate generation. He was unusual in that he later painstakingly rewrote his battlefield notes, "reflecting at leisure" and adding fascinating political and personal commentary to produce the volume he called Haley's Chronicles. That enormous, meticulously hand-printed work, edited and annotated by Ruth Silliker, forms the basis for The Rebel Yell and the Yankee Hurrah. As an eminently readable personal story, as a documentary of Northerners' attitudes and motivations, and as a detailed factual record of the War of the Rebellion, John Haley's journal stands out as one of the best memoirs of that eventful time ever published.