About the Author

William N. McDonald served as an ordnance officer in the Laurel Brigade. After the Civil War, he remained active in veterans' affairs and, late in the century, began this history. After McDonald's death in 1898, Bushrod C. Washington took up the task of editing and completing the work. Eric J. Mink, a Civil War historian with the National Park Service, has written the introduction for the new edition of this memoir and has prepared the volume's first index.