William Garrigues Bentley chose to leave the safety of home and family at age 19 fight for the Union. He enlisted in the 104th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company G, in 1862 and served for three long years before being honorably discharged. His firsthand account details his day-to-day life as a soldier, the long marches around Kentucky, skirmishes with the Rebs, joining with Sherman's army in the Atlanta campaign and then chasing Hood into Tennessee and fighting in the bloody battle at Franklin, and on to rejoin Sherman in the winter of 1865 for the final months of the Carolina campaign. This book--compiled from a collection of 142 of Bentley's newly discovered letters and other documents--not only is an important historical record but also offers an insight into the political thoughts and feelings of the time. The book includes a complete roster of the 104th Ohio.

An epic and revelatory narrative of the most important transportation technology of the modern world In his wide-ranging and entertaining new book, Tom Zoellner—coauthor of the New York Times–bestselling An Ordinary Man—travels the globe to tell the story of the sociological and economic impact of the railway technology that transformed the world—and could very well change it again. From the frigid trans-Siberian railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the Japanese-style bullet trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of this most indispensable form of travel. A masterful narrative history, Train also explores the sleek elegance of railroads and their hypnotizing rhythms, and explains how locomotives became living symbols of sex, death, power, and romance.