author
Winthrop Dudley Sheldon
1839–1931
Best known for his vivid Civil War regimental history, this Yale-educated writer also turned to classical literature later in life, translating Lucian for English readers. His work bridges firsthand American history and the wit of the ancient world.
1 Audiobook
The "Twenty-Seventh" : a regimental history
by Winthrop Dudley Sheldon
About the author
Winthrop Dudley Sheldon was an American writer and scholar born in 1839 and died in 1931. He is best remembered for The "Twenty-Seventh": A Regimental History (1866), an early account of the 27th Connecticut Volunteers in the Civil War, a book that helped preserve the experiences of that regiment close to the events themselves.
He was also connected with Yale's class of 1861, and later literary records show him returning to academic and historical work over many years. In 1901, he published A Second-Century Satirist; or, Dialogues and Stories from Lucian of Samosata, translating the sharp, playful ancient Greek writer Lucian for modern readers.
That mix of interests gives Sheldon a distinctive place among older American authors: he wrote with one foot in lived nineteenth-century history and the other in the classical tradition. For readers today, his books offer both a direct window into the Civil War era and a glimpse of the broad humanistic learning that shaped many writers of his generation.