Mother, May You Never See the Sights I Have Seen: The Fifty-Seventh Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers in the Army of the Potomac, 1864-1865

This comprehensive, muster-to-disbandment account of a regiment involved in Ulysses S. Grant's Overland campaign is an unusually detailed study of men at war, as well as a superb unit history. In the thick of the battles of Spotsylvania, the Wilderness and Petersburg, the 57th Massachusetts probably suffered more casualties than any other in the Army of the Potomac. Wilkinson, a long-time student of the Civil War, quotes diaries and letters in which soldiers discuss weapons, uniforms, rations, sanitation, the enemy, rumors, battles, wounds, spiritual crises, and their diminishing chances of returning home alive. One wonders if any other regiment in history contained so many articulate writers. The book includes a fresh look at the Crater incident during the Petersburg siege, in which black soldiers were massacred by Confederates. An appendix includes mini-biographies of each member of the 57th--more than 1000 men. Photos. (Apr.)