About the Book

This is a coloring book of the Civil War yet it is accompanied by my text. The book is an incomplete set of fictitious letters sent home from the front by a man who first enlisted as a member of the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry (Ellsworth's Fire Zouaves). It is told in the colloquial style of the 1860s by a very young man as he encounters strange new things. Although some of the letters describe mundane aspects of Army life, our soldier is soon disabused of his naivete as the war grinds on. He travels far from home to exotic places and bumps into wild creatures, both man and beast, each with their own stories and exploits to tell.

The drawings and painted images chronicle some of his adventures and the characters he meets, such as the Alligators, the Frogs, the Monkeys, the Catfish, Contrabands, the King of Night, General McClellan, and the Zouaves.