This Journal has long been recognized in Confederate history as probably the most unique book in the entire field of soldier narratives. It is a day-by-day record of a Texas private who served both in the Trans-Mississippi Department and the Army of Tennessee. The book has two distinctive features that cause it to stand apart from other soldier narratives. In the first place, it was printed by the author himself, one page at a time, on a ten dollar "Octavo Novelty Press." In the second place, the entire edition of 100 copies that he printed in 1876 was illustrated by sixty-one original photographs sent to Heartsill by members of his company, the W. P. Lane Rangers, and pasted by the author into each of the books. All of these photographs-and pictures of plain people for this period are rarely to be had-are reproduced in this edition. The text, including the complete contents of two manuscript soldier newspapers (" "The Camp Hudson Times" and "The Western Pioneer") .is reproduced photographically to preserve the original flavor -- Dust jacket.

"Save for a few photographs and pages of text that were exceptionally faded or marred, the Tennessee State Library copy [Marshal, Tex., W.W. Heartsill, 1876] was used in the reproduction." "Edition limited to 1000 copies"-- Title page verso.