Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad During the War

Townsend was twenty-one when he rode out with the Army of the Potomac in 1862, and this 1866 collection is what he made of it. Most of the book stays in Virginia: camp routine, a foraging party, the mud of a real march, the voyage down the Chesapeake, the army’s observation balloons, Seven Pines, McClellan’s retreat, Cedar Mountain, and a burying party afterward. Two chapters carry the “Romaunt” of the title, when he sailed for England after Second Bull Run and lectured on the war before turning up among the picture galleries of Florence. He came back to report Five Forks, walked through the ruins of Richmond, and watched the Lincoln conspirators hang in Washington. He wrote it at twenty-five, chasing the lighter, human side of soldiering rather than official narrative.