Excerpt from War Years with Jeb Stuart
Written in 1862; first published in 1945

A Confederate officer describes a daring cavalry raid

"We were not half across when the bank we had left was swarming with the enemy who opened a galling fire upon us, the bullets splashing the water around us like a shower of rain."

Both the Union and the Confederate militaries organized their armies into three major combat units. The largest and most important of these units was the infantry. The infantry consisted of soldiers who were trained to fight on foot. Most men who fought in the Civil War fit under this category. The Union's larger population and its superior ability to produce rifles, boots, and other gear used by infantry soldiers gave it a big...