author
Henry Harrison Eby
1841–1932
A Civil War cavalryman turned memoirist, he wrote with plainspoken detail about battle, prison, and survival. His best-known book offers a firsthand view of the war through the eyes of a young Illinois soldier.
1 Audiobook
Observations of an Illinois Boy in Battle, Camp and Prisons—1861 to 1865
by Henry Harrison Eby
About the author
Born in 1841 and dying in 1932, Henry Harrison Eby is remembered for Observations of an Illinois Boy in Battle, Camp and Prisons—1861 to 1865, a memoir drawn from his service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The book was published in Mendota, Illinois, and presents his experiences as a member of the 7th Illinois Cavalry in a direct, personal style.
As a young man, Eby moved west with his family from Pennsylvania to Illinois and later farmed there. During the war he served as a cavalryman and was honorably discharged in 1864. Those years gave him the material for the work that keeps his name alive today.
What makes Eby interesting to modern readers is the closeness of his account. Rather than writing like a distant historian, he wrote as someone who had lived through marches, combat, and imprisonment himself, leaving behind a vivid soldier's-eye record of the Civil War.