As Ulysses S. Grant faced his destiny with fate, suffering from the effects of throat cancer, he recalls the surrender at Appomattox through the eyes of a dying man.

from Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, 1885

Private Frank Wilkeson, the son of war correspondent Samuel Wilkeson Jr., was just sixteen years old when he enlisted in a New York artillery battery. At the start of the 1864 campaign season, a veteran gunner offered the young soldier some valuable advice from his years of experience.

Recollections of a Private Solider in the Army of the Potomac, 1887