My First Campaign

A first-person, day-by-day narrative by a volunteer describing enlistment and nine months with a Rhode Island regiment, detailing organization, officers, marches, and camp life. The memoir follows travel to the Potomac and operations around Fredericksburg, recounting ferrying, pontoon bridging, artillery exchange, and skirmishing, alongside weather, cold, smoke, and improvised shelter. Practical observations about rations, ammunition, delays, and the strain of exposure appear throughout, and the material is arranged in chapters that preserve routine duties, improvisations, and the small hardships and resourcefulness that characterized the regiment’s campaign.