New Fields of Adventure

Book excerpt: "Lyman Gibson Bennett (1832-1904) was a Federal soldier who saw extensive service in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. A writer of considerable energy, wit, and intelligence, Bennett's wartime diaries recount his diverse and wide-ranging military record, stretching geographically from the prairies of Illinois to the Rocky Mountains, while a postwar account details, among other things, his labors to recruit "Mountain Feds" in the Ozarks. This volume provides the perspective of an individual who was both a topographical engineer and a common soldier. As a member of the Thirty-Sixth Illinois Infantry, Bennett provided one of the most detailed contemporary accounts of the pivotal Battle of Pea Ridge, March 7-8, 1862. By December 1863, Bennett was promoted to first lieutenant in the newly formed Fourth Arkansas Cavalry (US) and wrote an invaluable first-person account of guerrilla fighting in the Ozark mountains. M. Jane Johansson's critical presentation of his writings will prove useful to scholars of the Ozarks, landscape studies, and the Civil War in the West"--