Front-line soldiers of the North and the South in the Civil War apparently often acted with friendship rather than hatred towards those on the opposing side when their encampments were close together. This book describes many accounts of this, mostly taken from contemporaneous diaries and letters. I find this heartwarming.

The author occasionally inserts comments about racism and about the "Lost Cause" theory. The former make sense because the camaraderie apparently did not extend to Black Union soldiers. The latter seem at most tangentially relevant. Both give the feeling that they were inserted upon the request of the author's thesis supervisor or a reviewer. ( )