Product Description

The American Civil War was slightly more than a year old—already having lasted longer than most had anticipated—when an eighteen-year-old named William Royal Oake left his family’s farm in Charlotte, Iowa, to join the Union forces.

He fought in a total of twenty major battles, was captured and incarcerated as a prisoner of war, and was wounded during his long odyssey as a soldier.

In the winter of his sixty-ninth year, Oake wrote a detailed and thoughtful memoir of his years at war from the moment he told his parents he had joined the army until the day the campaign-hardened soldier walked back to the farm and into their grateful arms.

Discovered 80 years after his death, this remarkable memoir brings to light the inner thoughts and experiences of an engaging storyteller.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2502953 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
A gem of a memoir! On the Skirmish Line is one of the best postwar recollections. -- William Cooper, Boyd Professor, Louisiana State University

Oake wrote one of the best Union memoirs available... with an engaging frankness that makes one care about his life. -- Earl J. Hess, Lincoln Memorial University

William Royal Oake spins an uncommonly good yarn to detail his experiences as a soldier in the 26th Iowa Infantry. -- Terrence J. Winschel, historian, Vicksburg National Military Park

About the Author
About the Editor:
A native "jayhawker" and graduate of the University of Kansas, Stacy Dale Allen is a twenty-year veteran of the United States National Park Service. Currently Chief Park Ranger at Shiloh National Military Park, Stacy manages interpretation, law enforcement, resource management, and historic preservation programs at the famous West Tennessee Civil War site, which also stewards prehistoric cultural resources associated with Shiloh Indian Mounds National Historic Landmark and a new National Civil War Interpretive Center located in Corinth, Mississippi.

Author of numerous articles on the Civil War, Stacy has prominent contributions in seven book and served as researcher/preparer on several National Park Service historic resource studies and management documents.

Customer Reviews

Welcome addition to Civil War studies and testimony shelves.
On the Skirmish Line Behind a Friendly Tree is personal memoir of Civil War veteran William Royal Oake, who left his family farm in Iowa to fight for the Union at the young age of eighteen. He fought in twenty major battles, was captured and incarcerated as a prisoner of war, and suffered injury during the course of his service. When he turned sixty-nine, he penned his experiences at length, from the day he volunteered for the army to the day he returned home, hardened from the brutal realities of his service. On the Skirmish Line Behind a Friendly Tree is his collected writings as discovered by his family eighty years after his death, and they offer a one-of-a-kind literate, thoughtful, serious-minded insider's view of the terrible war. Black-and-white photographs and extensive clarifying notes by editor Stacy Dale Allen enhance this invaluable primary source and welcome addition to Civil War studies and testimony shelves.

First hand glimpse at camp life.
William Royal Oake was a private in the Federal Army during the American Civil War. Well after the war he decided to put his experiences on paper. His memoirs were not discovered until 80 years after his death.

Private Oake had a wide and varied experience as a soldier. Long marches, picket duty, prisoner of war, home on parole, midnight exchanges with rebel pickets, war profiteering (mildly), interaction with freed slaves, parade marching, wounded in battle, evening dances with southern belles, and more. This is a detailed account of true soldier life from someone who experienced it first hand.

I would definitely recommend this book to Civil War enthusiasts or history buffs. If these are not among the reader's interests the book will likely not be fiercely engaging.