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1974 reprint Civil War Times (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania), 5 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches tall brown buckram cloth hardbound in publisher's unclipped dust jacket, gilt lettering to spine, xopiously illustrated with black-and-white illustrations by Charles Reed, vi, 408 pp. Bumping to all four tips of book, with very slight resultant creasing to page tips. Slight soiling, rubbing and edgewear to covers. Otherwise, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked - in a lightly soiled and edgeworn dust jacket with a couple of 1-inch closed tears to the top edge of the rear cover, but which is nicely preserved and displayed in a clear archival sleeve. ~PP~ A 1974 reprint of a book first issued in 1888 by George M. Smith & Co. (Boston), a memoir by John D. Billings, who was a veteran of the 10th Massachusetts Volunteer Artillery Battery in the American Civil War. Hard Tack and Coffee quickly became a best seller after its issue, and is now considered one of the most important books written by a Civil War veteran. The book is abundantly illustrated by the pen and ink drawings of Charles Reed, also a veteran, who served as bugler in the 9th Massachusetts Battery. Reed received the Medal of Honor for saving the life of his battery commander at Gettysburg. Hard Tack and Coffee is not about battles, but rather about how the common Union soldiers of the Civil War lived in camp and on the march. What would otherwise be a mundane subject is enlivened by Billings' humorous prose and Reed's superb drawings which are based on the sketches he kept in his journal during the war. The book is noteworthy as it covers the details of regular soldier life, and as such has become a valuable resource for Civil War re-enactors. The volume is divided into twenty-one chapters which treat the origins of the Civil War, enlisting, how soldiers were sheltered, life in tents, life in log huts, unlucky soldiers and shirkers ('Jonahs and Beats'), Army rations, offenses and punishments, a day in camp, raw recruits, special rations and boxes from home, foraging, corps and corps badges, some inventions and devices of the war, the army mule, hospitals and ambulances, clothing, breaking camp and marching, army wagon trains, road and bridge builders, and signal flags and torches. Some of the information is specific to Billings' experiences as a Massachusetts volunteer artillery veteran. However, much of it is very useful to anyone researching or simply reading about the ordinary soldier in the Union army. The historian Henry Steele Commager called the work 'one of the most entertaining of all civil war books. Seller Inventory # PP-0551-3413
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