Four Years in the Confederate Artillery: The Diary of Private Henry Robinson Berkeley (Virginia Historical Society Documents) [Paperback]

Henry Robinson Berkeley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0945015054 | ISBN-13: 978-0945015055 | Publication Date: June 1991 | Edition: 1st

First edition. Hardback. U. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC (1961) Very good. No dust jacket. Excellent, very clean copy of a scarce, limited edition autobiography of a Civil War soldier. 156 p. Includes: illustrations, maps, index, bibliography. Excellent wartime diary of a well-educated young Virginian who served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, enlisting first in the Hanover Artillery and later transferred with his comrades into the Kirkpatrick Battery, Army of Northern Virginia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 156 pages
• Publisher: Virginia Historical Society; 1st edition (June 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0945015054
• ISBN-13: 978-0945015055
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,840,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Four Years in the Confederate Artillery, October 27, 2002

By 

K. Freeman (Apple Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Four Years in the Confederate Artillery: The Diary of Private Henry Robinson Berkeley (Virginia Historical Society Documents) (Paperback)

This is a deeply informative and highly personal diary (edited by the author after the fact, as most period diaries have been), especially valuable as the story of a soldier less than enthralled with war.

Berkeley spent most of the war in Kirkpatrick's Battery, attached to the Second Corps. His long account includes Yorktown, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Monocacy and a full recounting of the Valley Campaign of '64. (His repeated blaming of the Stonewall Brigade at Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek should not be taken as gospel, though.) He was then captured and describes unpleasant experiences at Fort Delaware, with rampant illness the primary hardship.

Berkeley seems to have been quite war weary by '63, sooner than many of his comrades, and his depressed commentary punctuates his narrative--though he didn't take the oath until late April of '65, during imprisonment. Many of his quotes are worth keeping, and he gives an excellent picture of experience in the artillery.