History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment

History of the Eighty Sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, During its Term of Service is a regimental history by John R Kinnear, who served as a soldier in the regiment during the American Civil War and produced the substantial regimental history shortly after the end of the war. The book was published in 1866 and belongs to the substantial body of American Civil War regimental histories that veterans of the various Union and Confederate regiments produced across the decades following the war.

The American regimental history was one of the substantial genres of post Civil War American military and historical writing. Various veterans of particular regiments organised the substantial collective effort needed to produce comprehensive histories of their regiments, drawing on official records, on the personal recollections of the surviving veterans, on official correspondence and reports, and on whatever other documentary material the regimental organisations could gather. The resulting books provided substantial documentation of the actual operations of the various regiments through the war and became valuable sources for subsequent American Civil War scholarship.

The 86th Illinois Volunteer Infantry was organised in central Illinois in August 1862 and served in the Western Theatre of the war across the remainder of the conflict. The regiment was substantially involved in the major Union campaigns of the Western Theatre including the substantial 1862 and 1863 Tennessee and Kentucky campaigns, the substantial 1863 Tullahoma and Chickamauga campaigns, the substantial 1864 Atlanta Campaign under General Sherman, the substantial March to the Sea, and the substantial Carolinas Campaign of early 1865 that brought the western Union armies through the Carolinas to eventual contact with the remnants of the Confederate armies of the Eastern Theatre.

Kinnear’s regimental history follows the substantial standard format of the genre. The book provides substantial narrative of the regiment’s organisation, training, and deployment, followed by substantial campaign by campaign and battle by battle narrative of the regiment’s service across the war years. The book includes substantial personal anecdote and individual character material drawn from Kinnear’s own experience and from the recollections of his fellow veterans, alongside the more formal military narrative.

The book is essential reading for specialists in the 86th Illinois specifically and for historians working on the broader Union Army of the Cumberland and the Western Theatre operations. It pairs naturally with the substantial broader American Civil War regimental history tradition.