"Ralph Kirshner has provided a richly illustrated forum to enable the West Point class of 1861 to write its own autobiography. Through letters, journals, and published accounts, George Armstrong Custer, Adelbert Ames, and their classmates tell in their own words of their Civil War battles and varied careers after the war."--Jacket

Introduction: buglers' assembly -- Flames of rebellion -- Courage and ambition -- The Vicksburg campaign -- Gettysburg -- The boy generals -- Custer, Rosser, and du Pont -- Ending the war -- Adelbert Ames: reconstruction governor -- George Armstrong Custer: Little Bighorn -- Thomas Lafayette Rosser: Custer's rebel friend -- John Whitney Barlow: explorer of Yellowstone -- Henry Algernon du Pont: businessman, senator, author -- Judson Kilpatrick: playwright and diplomat -- Orville E. Babcock: the rise and fall of Grant's secretary -- Pierce M.B. Young: Confederate general and U.S. diplomat -- John J. Garnett: sketches of Grant and Lee -- Peter C. Hains: Bull Run to World War I -- Emory Upton: "the class genius."