William T. Sherman was an irascible, unpredictably brilliant man and his letters bring out these myriad traits. He was a fascinating man and his own words illuminate his fiery personality. Sherman's own 1875 memoirs are a mixed bag, marred by an over-abundance of wartime correspondence and ancillary material. This collection of his letters actually makes for more engrossing, instructive reading. We hear his opinions on the major players of the Civil War: Grant, Halleck and Lincoln. We gain an understanding of his tortured relationship with his wife, Ellen, to whom many of the letters are addressed. His visceral hatred of the press and reporters is well represented.

The collection is expertly edited by Brooks Simpson, someone who thoroughly understands both Sherman and the civil war era. The notes are instructive and unobtrusive and the introduction lays the groundwork for appreciating Sherman and his correspondence. This is an outstanding book for anyone who wishes to get to know the erratic and intellectual General who was second only to Ulysses S. Grant in ability and results.

Oh, come on! Margaret Mitchell could not have done better in romanticizing the horrors of enslavement and decrying the promise of Reconstruction. Ms. Berlin's introduction seems oblivious to this.

Frances Andrews's War-time Journal of a Georgia Girl is a classic in the genre of non-combatant Civil War era diaries. With this 1997 release, the diary has been republished twice since the original 1908 edition.

The War-time Journal is a graphic, first-person portrayal of the turmoil and tragedy of the Southern secession. The diary was written as a personal record not intended for publication. Its tone is honest, sometimes brutally so; and Fanny's observations reflect the social and cultural realities of the mid-nineteenth century.

Also of significance is the journal's prologue and epilogue. Andrews added these elements in 1908, forty years after the events and opinions recorded in the 1864-1865 diary. The 1908 comments reflect wisdom gained through maturity and experience. Andrews was 25 when she wrote The War-time Journal. She was a matron of 68 when the diary and her commentary were published.

Jean Berlin's foreword to the 1997 reprint of The War-Time Journal criticizes the young Fanny Andrews for what Berlin terms Andrews's class consciousness and her insensitivity to the plight of the Southern lower classes and Andrews's "unabashed racist beliefs." Berlin takes special note of Fanny's description and reaction to a "cracker" family written on February 13, 1865, when Andrews described her visit with another woman to recruit children for a Sunday School. Berlin writes in her introduction that Fanny's diary observations revealed Andrews's "complete insensitivity" towards white people less fortunate than herself. Fanny admitted to the correctness of the Berlin's criticism when, in her 1908 introduction to the journal she wrote: "To use a modern phrase, we were intensely 'class conscious' and this brought about a solidarity of feeling and sentiment almost comparable to that created by family ties..."

Andrews's attitudes, her values, her beliefs recorded in the diary are those of the nineteenth century; and those views, and her honesty of opinion, make the diary valuable. The War-time Journal provides a window into the culture, the politics, and the society of the period. Together with the 1908 material, the 1864-1865 views and attitudes are tempered with the reflection and wisdom of time.

Andrews's descriptions of the events surrounding the last days of the Southern Confederacy coupled with her reactions to the collapse of her aristocratic world make this diary valuable to anyone seeking first-person witness to a tragic time in the country's history.

What a wonderful account of the South during the War between the States. Eliza's Diary makes you feel you are there. The first thing to do when you get the book is to tear out the distorted introduction by Jean Berlin. If you want to know of the experiences of Southern people during this war, get this diary, written at the time by one who was there, Eliza Andrews. Also check out "The Children of Pride", another great first person account.

I wish the press had released the other version of this book. The introduction isn't very helpful.

As an English civil war re-enactor, and a nurse by profession, Cornelia Hancock brings alive the horror, and difficulties faced by the wounded and the woman who choose to nurse them. The book is useful in its detail, and describes medical care at the battlefield, in hospitals, and the improvements made as the war developed. A book worth owning.

This is the sort of book that reminds you why the Confederacy lost. Women were more interested in their own fashion, etc., than in the travails of their newfound republic. The feeble introduction fails to highlight this fact.

I am a student of history and am doing my final thesis on southern woman during the civil war. Thus, I have had to wade through numerous diaries to find what I am looking for. I was very impressed with this diary because it was well written and very intersting to read. I feel that it has something for everyone. It touches your heart strings with it's descriptors and the evident feeling behind them and it also gives awsome accounts of battles though letters and second-hand information. If you are in anyway interested in the civil war, then this is a wonderful book to start your journey with.

Maria Lydig Daly seems to have had an opinion about just about anything and did not hold back from sharing them in her diary. Sometimes she's just dead wrong, other times she issues a telling observation. We need all we can get about Northern women, and this diary testifies to their diversity of voices. However, as for the introduction, what's got Jean Berlin in a snit? The introduction is preachy and sanctimonious, and that's the good part. Maybe she had better go to Tiffany's and mingle with the people she mocks.

Massey's book was a pioneering effort in its time, and we should all be thankful for that. At least it is a welcome point of departure. But the introduction by Jean Berlin is lacking much in the way of insight or understanding. A more experienced scholar might have presented a richer analysis.

I direct your attention to the back cover of this book, wherein it states that Jean V. Berlin taught history at the University of Virginia. Turns out all she was was a teaching assistant! I guess you do't have to win the Pulitzer Prize to be found out as someone who makes stuff up about themselves!

Seriosly, this sort of inflation gives writers a bad name. Let's hope it was all just a misunderstanding.

Nothing Ms. Berlin says in her introduction allows us to escape the fact that Ada Bacot, while pretending to assert her independence and find her self-esteem, simply came to the front and did what Dorothea Dix feared women nurses would do ... find another husband. How pathetic.