What was it like to be a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War? What did soldiers eat? What did they wear? What weapons did they use? How did they get for example, from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg? Why did so many men die fighting over sleepy little towns throughout Virginia and Pennsylvania?. Follow the diaries of Charles Kelly, an officer in the 44th New York Infantry Regiment, as he journeys to Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. From there, with General Meade’s Army of the Potomac, he pursued General Robert Lee, as Lee fled from Gettysburg and crossed the Potomac. Charles was with General Ulysses Grant in the first clash between Grant and Lee in the Wilderness. From there Charles fought at Spotsylvania, the North Anna River, Cold Harbor , Petersburg, and a dozen other places.. But there is a greater story behind Charles’ diaries. What was the war about? Why did so many men of the South, of whom very few held slaves, fight so hard to drive the Yankees from their Southern homeland? Why were the vast, sparsely populated territories to the west so important to the North and South, both before and during the war? Why was Abraham Lincoln willing to send hundreds of thousands to their death, in order to hold a country together, when so many did not want the country to remain whole?. Charles Kelly came to this country when he was fifteen years old and became a successful businessman in the small town of Penn Yan, New York. He left his family and business when his new country called. This is his wartime story.