Book description
First published more than 100 years ago, Hardtack And Coffee is John Billings’ absorbing first-person account of the everyday life of a U.S. Army soldier during the Civil War.
Billings attended a reunion of Civil War veterans in 1881 that brought together a group of survivors whose memories and stories…
Why read it?
1 author picked Hard Tack and Coffee as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Hailed by historians as one of the most important memoirs authored by a Civil War veteran, Hard Tack and Coffee tells the story of army life. John D. Billings traces the trail of the citizen soldier from recruitment and enlistment to the trials and tribulations of camp and campaign. Written more than two decades after the end of the conflict, Billings reflects on those tumultuous times with humor as he and his comrades stumbled their way through the varied lessons of the art of war. After he mustered out of a Massachusetts artillery regiment in 1865, Billings went…
From Ronald's list on The best books about life during the American Civil War by those who experienced it.
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