The story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson
by Edward A. Moore
Why You'll Love This
Most Civil War memoirs follow generals — this one follows the man loading the gun.
- Great if you want: a ground-level soldier's view of the Confederate artillery
- The experience: unhurried and intimate — feels like reading someone's personal diary
- The writing: Moore writes plainly and without bravado — which makes it more believable
- Skip if: you want sweeping strategy over personal, small-scale observation
About This Book
Few Civil War memoirs place you so squarely inside the experience of ordinary combat soldiering. Edward A. Moore served as an artilleryman in the legendary Stonewall Brigade, and his account captures what it felt like to march, suffer, and fight under one of the war's most celebrated and demanding commanders. This is not a general's view of strategy—it is the ground-level reality of a young man caught inside one of history's most consequential conflicts, where the stakes were measured in exhaustion, loyalty, and survival.
Moore writes with the unassuming directness of someone who simply wants to tell the truth about what he witnessed, and that restraint proves to be the book's quiet strength. There is no grandstanding, no romanticizing of lost causes—just clear-eyed recollection rendered in plain, readable prose. The result feels less like a formal memoir and more like sitting across from someone who was actually there. For readers drawn to primary sources that breathe with genuine human texture rather than historical polish, Moore's account delivers something increasingly rare: unmediated experience from the inside out.