All For The Union

All for the Union is the astonishing and eloquent diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, the Union soldier featured in Ken Burn's highly acclaimed PBS-TV documentary The Civil War.  Enlisting as a private in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry at age nineteen, Elisha Hunt Rhodes fought in the regiment's twenty battle, beginning at First Bull Run and ending at Appomattox, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel and command of the regiment at age twenty-two. In these pages, history comes alive as a brave, yet thoughtful soldier tells us, in his own words, what he saw, what he did, and why he was willing to endure such hardship and peril to preserve his beloved Union.  Very few soldiers survived the entire war, and none wrote about it so clearly and honestly.  It is difficult not to be charmed by the author of this diary, for he was a most decent man: dutiful, forthright, modest, and courageous. When Ken Burns stumbled into the diary during the course of his research for The Civil War, he was so moved b