My great-great-grandfather, Charles Lewis Francis, arrived from Wales in 1860, and shortly thereafter participated in the action of the Civil War. In 1879, he wrote and published a memoir of this period. I've scanned in the text and made it available here. I'm hoping to make a plain text version available in the near future.
In the meantime, here's as much as I've managed to plow through, in PDF format: Narrative of a Private Soldier.
- Front matter and Chapter I clean (pdf)
raw scan (pdf)
From the outbreak of the war until about June, 1862. And while, although not yet a soldier, I was much with the army, and in the field.
- Chapter II partial (pdf) raw scan (pdf)
From about the middle of June, 1862, when I left Washington for the West, until the latter part of October in the same year, when I was at Crab Orchard, Kentucky, as a private soldier of Company "B" of the Eighty-Eighth Regiment, Illinois Infantry Volunteers.
- Chapter III raw scan (pdf)
Contains an account of the march from Crab Orchard, Kentucky, in October, 1862, until the raising of the siege of Nashville, Tennessee, and thence on until the eve of the advance on Murfreesboro.
- Chapter IV raw scan (pdf)
Contains an account of the advance on the enemy between Nashville and Murfreesboro', and includes the battle of Stone River as far as I participated in it -- the narrative beginning on Christmas Day, 1862, and ending on the 31st day of December, 1862, when I found myself a prisoner of war in the hands of the Southern forces.
- Chapter V raw scan (pdf)
Contains a brief account of my sojurn in the South while a prisoner of war in the hands of the enemy, and thence on until I arrived at Benton Barracks, near St. Louis, Missouri, where I reported to Colonel B. L. E. Bonneville, U.S.A., on the 10th day of April, 1863.
- Chapter VI raw scan (pdf)
Covers the time during which I remained at the post of Benton Barracks, near St. Louis, MO., and embraces from April 10, 1863, to December 29, 1863, the latest date being that of my discharge from the service of the United States as Private of Company "B" Eighty-Eighth Regiment of Infantry Illinois Volunteers.