From Dakota to Dixie - Nation Divided by George W Buswell Hardcover

About the Book

"The journals of George W. Buswell, a young Minnesotan who served in both the Dakota War (1862-1863) and the Western Theater of the Civil War (1863-1865). Relating experiences as a member of the 7th Minnesota Infantry and the US 68th Colored Infantry, Buswell takes readers through the Dakota War, into Union prisons, onto picket lines where he searched the bodies of Confederate women suspected of smuggling, and into an African American regiment that saw both field and garrison service in the Western Theater"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

The remarkable account of a Union soldier whose service took him from Indian Country to the heart of the Confederacy

In the summer of 1862, young Minnesotan George W. Buswell enlisted in the Union army, but his marching orders did not take him to the South to fight the Confederacy, as he had hoped, but to the US-Dakota War. Until the end of 1863, Buswell served with the 7th Minnesota Infantry, witnessing and describing that war's infamous final act: the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota men at Mankato, the largest officially sanctioned mass execution in American history. Afterward, he volunteered as an officer to lead the 68th US Colored Infantry, serving in the Civil War's Western Theater and seeing action in Mississippi.

Buswell's unique diaries--published here for the first time--offer an extraordinary record of his unusually wide-ranging experience, taking readers through the Dakota War, into Union prisons in St. Louis and Memphis, onto picket lines where he searched Confederate women suspected of smuggling, and into the ranks of a Black regiment that fought against Confederate forces led by Nathan Bedford Forrest. His eyewitness accounts represent a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the parameters of the American Civil War.

Review Quotes

White and Connelly have done an excellent job of making Buswell's diary an engaging and useful resource, that's well worth the reader's time.

--Emerging Civil War

If you are looking to read a Civil War diary far different from those commonly published by popular and academic presses, yet no less engaging and informative than those, this is the one for you. . . The variety of wartime opponents and sheer breadth of fronts faced by Buswell during his long 1862-66 army service are highly remarkable, perhaps even unique, among Civil War diarists. Expertly framed and edited by Jonathan White and Reagan Connelly, the Buswell diary contained in From Dakota to Dixie is an extraordinary reading experience. Highly recommended.--Civil War Books and Authors

About the Author

Jonathan W. White is Professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and the author of A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House. Reagan Connelly graduated from Christopher Newport University and is a J.D. candidate at George Mason Antonin Scalia Law School.