Diary of a Christian Soldier: Rufus Kinsley and the Civil War - Hardcover

Rankin, David C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052182334X ISBN 13: 9780521823340

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2004

Synopsis

This book offers a meticulous reconstruction of the life of Rufus Kinsley - an ordinary New England soldier who during the Civil War became an officer in one of the nations's first and most famous black regiments - and an expertly edited transcription of Kinsley's hitherto unpublished wartime diary. Kinsley's diary sheds light on a long neglected theater of the war - the battle for the bayou country of southwestern Louisiana - and it illuminates the workaday routines of black and white soldiers stationed behind Union lines but thoroughly immersed in the unprecedented improvisations that accompanied the social revolution that was emancipation. Kinsley's perspective is that of a too often neglected type: the absolutely dedicated evangelical abolitionist soldier who believed that the war and its consequences were divine retribution for the sin of slavery. The introductory biography places Kinsley's civil war experience in the context of his life and his times.

About this title

Review

'The diary has been meticulously edited by David Rankin. Civil War enthusiasts will no doubt appreciate the workaday details in which much of it necessarily deals.' Church Times

' ... an intriguing book ... an enjoyable read ... This is an excellent read ... It will be referred to many times, long after the first intriguing read.' Open History

'Rankin's book is unique in that it extols a military figure who never participated in armed battle.' Cercles

Book Description

This book offers a meticulous reconstruction of the life of Rufus Kinsley, an ordinary New England soldier who during the Civil War became an officer in one of the nations's first and most famous black regiments, and an expertly edited transcription of Kinsley's hitherto unpublished wartime diary.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052182334X
• ISBN 13: 9780521823340
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304