author

William G. Stevenson

A Civil War memoirist with a reporter’s eye for detail, he wrote from the unusual perspective of a Northerner forced into Confederate service. His best-known book offers a vivid, personal account of camp life, military discipline, and survival in the South during the war.

1 Audiobook

Thirteen months in the Rebel Army : being a narrative of personal adventures in the infantry, ordnance, cavalry, courier, and hospital services; with an exhibition of the power, purposes, earnestness, military despotism, and demoralization of the South

Thirteen months in the Rebel Army : being a narrative of personal adventures in the infantry, ordnance, cavalry, courier, and hospital services; with an exhibition of the power, purposes, earnestness, military despotism, and demoralization of the South

by William G. Stevenson

About the author

William G. Stevenson is known for Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army, a first-person Civil War narrative that has remained his most visible work in major public-domain and reader catalogs. The book stands out for its unusual point of view: Stevenson describes his experiences as a Northerner caught up in the Confederate war effort and records what he saw across infantry, cavalry, courier, hospital, and ordnance service.

Available catalog and bookseller records identify him as a physician from Troy, New York, and note that he studied at Bellevue Medical College in New York City. Those same records connect him with reporting work for the Memphis Avalanche during the war, which helps explain the observant, scene-by-scene style of his writing.

Beyond those points, reliable biographical details are hard to confirm from the sources I found. What does come through clearly is the appeal of his work itself: Stevenson left behind a memoir valued for its directness, specificity, and rare angle on the Civil War experience.