The Story of a Cavalryman: The Civil War Memoirs of Bvt. Brig. Gen. Edward F. Winslow, 4th Iowa Cavalry

Born in Maine, Edward F. Winslow is a direct descendant of a man who came to America on the first voyage of the Mayflower. Winslow moves to Iowa and is working as a railway contractor when the Civil War starts. Winslow volunteers, mustering in as the Captain of Company F, 4th Iowa Cavalry in October 1861. Winslow spends the next 18 months learning a cavalryman’s responsibilities and is appointed colonel of his regiment on the day Vicksburg falls. Winslow is assigned greater and greater responsibilities as he rises to the rank of brigadier general by the end of the war. His narrative includes analyses on the use of cavalry during the Union campaigns from July 1863 through April 1865 in the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Discover how a young man in his twenties, with no military training prior to the war, rises to the rank of brigadier general during the American Civil War.