This book is a work of literary non-fiction written in the form of a first person account. It is based on a very large collection of letters and documents passed down to the author from her father. The letters cover the period 1863 to 1900 and are between the engineer, John Henry Bailey, Jr., and his brother Francis Edward Bailey.

The letters and documents, while providing an excellent outline of John’s life were, by themselves not sufficient. The author used the letters as a guide for additional research, not only into John’s life but also into the circumstances and historical events that were a part of his time and place. The end result is an excellent portrait of the life of a typical railroad engineer which takes the reader from his first involvement with the railroads as a car painter for the Grand Trunk railroad to his hiring on as a fireman on the United States Military Railroad in 1864 and subsequent promotion to engineer during the U.S. Civil War, and his postwar work as an engineer on the LS&MS railroad out of Adrian, Michigan.

The author provides an extensive Afterword in which she details her research efforts and comments on some of her findings. Information about individual railroaders who worked on the railroads during the U.S. Civil War is scarce and any addition to this very small body of work is welcome. I think this book is a worthwhile addition to the genre of first person accounts and I would recommend it to anyone interested in railroad life during the Civil War and its aftermath. (Text Length - 259 pages, Total Length - 275 pages, includes index.) ( )