History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry

Excerpt

It will be remembered by those connected with the military service that towards the end of the late Civil War, there went through the camps and barracks of the volunteer soldiers agents of publishing houses busily engaged in procuring material for "company histories," and still more anxiously soliciting subscriptions for the same. These histories were mere broadsides or charts, giving the name and rank of each man, with a few other personal facts, compiled from the muster rolls, and in addition an abstract of campaign movements, battles, and so forth; all the information being brought up to date of subscription. Of course as permanent and final records such publications would be failures, there being no "next" in which to "conclude" their stories.