Rice C. Bull

Nineteen-year-old Rice Bull, along with a friend from Washington County, New York, answered President Lincoln's call for volunteers in June 1862, after a series of Union defeats. The volunteers were organized into the 123rd New York Infantry for a term of service to last three years. After mustering into the Union army at the town of Salem, they then shipped by train to Baltimore and Washington.

As Bull records in his memoirs, the recruits experienced boredom, exhaustion, discomfort, and sometimes hunger. They were drilled and marched repeatedly, and endlessly, in camp and in city streets. The wearying drills begin to exhaust his comrades, but, as Bull comes to realize, they also learn the discipline needed to carry them through the danger and confusion of future battles.

Before beginning the story of my experience as a Union...