Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey Book

After the attack on Fort Sumter, Robert Knox Sneden decided to do his part to save the Union, signing on with the 40th New York Volunteers. Owing to his skills as an artist, Private Sneden was recruited to become a cartographer within a few months. And owing to his skills as both artist and cartographer, Civil War buffs can enjoy Eye of the Storm. During his time in the army, Sneden kept a detailed diary and made hundreds of sketches in the field. In 1994, four scrapbooks in a Connecticut bank vault were found to contain some 800 drawings, the vast majority of them based on his original sketches. Soon after, a 5,000-page illustrated memoir based on Sneden's diaries was also discovered. Selections from the scrapbooks and memoir make up this marvelous book, which offers firsthand accounts of the action of the Peninsula Campaign and Second Bull Run--as well as the monotony of soldiering between battles. Perhaps the most compelling portion of Eye of the Storm is Sneden's descriptions of Andersonville, the Confederacy's notorious prison camp: September 7, 1864: Fine weather, but very hot, 110 degrees anywhere in the shade. This terrible heat helps to kill us off at the rate of 100 per day inside the stockade. Dead men may be seen by the score lying all along the brook which runs through the filthy swamp, while others are tearing off their soiled clothes to get thread from the seams, or patches to put on their own ragged clothes. Sneden's account lacks the typical Victorian flowery prose, as he writes with an almost analytical detachment about the horrors around him. This detachment lends an immediacy to his memoir, bringing home the brutality of the War Between the States. Dozens of Sneden's detailed drawings illustrate the text, making this a must-have for Civil War buffs. Highly recommended. --Sunny Delaney Read More

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  • Product Description

    Eye of the Storm is one of the most important Civil War documents to be published since Ulysses S. Grant's Personal Memoirs. In 1994, four tattered scrapbooks were found in a Connecticut bank vault, yielding a treasure trove of more than five hundred watercolors that vividly depict America's greatest national drama. These scrapbooks -- plus a five-thousand-page illustrated memoir that was also discovered -- are the life's achievement of a long-forgotten Union private and mapmaker named Robert Knox Sneden.

    Sneden enlisted in the Union army after the fall of Fort Sumter. As a soldier and mapmaker, he witnessed many of the most famous battles of the war. His map of the second battle of Bull Run offers a detailed firsthand account of this pivotal moment. Captured by the notorious Captain Mosby in 1863, Sneden spent most of the rest of the war as a prisoner at the infamous Andersonville prison camp. Sneden's chronicle is one of the richest descriptions of soldier life and the only fully illustrated eyewitness account of existence inside this notorious prison.

    A must-have for anyone interested in the Civil War, Eye of the Storm is a story that will touch the heart of every American. This book belongs on the shelf of everyone who cares about how we became the nation we are today.

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