This Cruel War: The Diary of Charles H. Lynch (Annotated)

"February 8th, 1865: While everything is quiet with us, time goes on. This is my birthday, twenty years old."

By now, Charles Lynch was a veteran. At 25 battles and skirmishes, including Winchester, Lynchburg, Cedar Creek, and others, Corporal Lynch and the 18th Connecticut Volunteers paid a heavy price.

At the end of exhausting and bloody days (as well as the quiet ones), Lynch sat down at the campfire with his diary and recorded the events that would form the greatest experience of his life...