
Hardtack Books
all things civil war.
Specializing in republishing classic Civil War books
Spring 2025 Edition

HARDTACK ILLUSTRATED
Current Edition
Spring 2025 Issue
“The Most Sickening Sight of the War”
A pioneer in the development of ether volunteers his services during the Overland Campaign, 1864
By Dr. William T. G. Morton
Lincoln in Richmond
On April 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln visited the recently abandoned capital of the Confederacy with his son, Tad. A navy captain assigned to protect the President’s party provided a detailed account of the historic event.
By Captain John S. Barnes
“I Accept these Terms: Witnesses of the Surrender at Appomattox
Walter Taylor, Robert E. Lee’s aide, recounts Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. His account of the demeanor of Lee and Grant established the narrative of the surrender.
As Ulysses S. Grant faced his destiny with fate, suffering from the effects of throat cancer, he recalls the surrender through the eyes of a dying man.
By Walter Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant

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HARDTACK BOOKS
Campaigns of a Non-Combatant: The Memoir of a Civil War Correspondent by George Alfred “GATH” Townsend, edited by Jeffrey R. Biggs
George Alfred Townsend was a special war correspondent for the Philadelphia Press and New York Herald during the Civil War. He followed McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and Pope’s Army of Virginia in the spring and summer of 1862, filing dozens of dispatches to his editors. Finally, after suffering from the effects of ‘swamp fever,’ he took a two-year break in Europe, where he lectured about his experiences. Townsend returned to the war front in 1865 and - after taking the pen name of “GATH” - was the first correspondent to describe the war’s climax at Five Forks. He released his memoir in 1866, detailing his personal experiences and recollections of the Civil War and those dramatic days.
This Hardtack Books reissue of Campaigns of a Non-Combatant is not a facsimile of the original work. Instead, it reimagines Townsend’s work in a modern font with dozens of illustrations and editorial footnotes.
Reviews of the Hardtack Books revised edition
“…published in 2024 through Hardtack Books, this new version is highly readable and informative. The editor has skillfully interwoven most of Townsend’s original verbiage with slight revisions to clarify the text (replacing obsolete or outdated words, for example) and make it appealing to modern readers who may be unfamiliar with young Townsend’s writings…the use of carefully selected photographs (not present in the 1886 version) further enhances this volume.”
- Cannonball, York County Record, by Civil War author Scott Mingus
“In this new edition, editor Jeffrey Biggs revises Townsend's 1866 memoir (excising the non-Civil War chapters), re-formats the text in a more attractive modern font, and reorganizes the original chapters into three parts…newly added period illustrations and photographs are peppered throughout, and the editor also indexes the material..”
- Booknotes: Civil War Book and Authors, Andrew J. Wagenhoffer
Praise for George A. Townsend (“GATH”):
“Townsend is the Sheridan of correspondents - as rapid, as dashing, as lawless and yet as successful, as the great cavalry commander.”
- Cleveland Daily Leader, 1866
“Townsend was the Ernie Pyle of his day, more interested in the human side of the news than in strategy ... his pen more concerned with little people than generals.”
- The Miami Herald, 1950
“Townsend had the quality, rare among partisans, of perspective. He was able to sense the sometime pathetic, sometimes uproarious humor of a desparate but essentially artificial hostility.”
- Baltimore Evening Sun, 1950

HARDTACK BOOKS
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Hardtack Books Illustrated Edition, edited by Jeffrey R. Biggs
This classic novel penned by Stephen Crane was published thirty years after the Civil War and was one of the first unsentimental works of fiction on the great American conflict. A psychological tale of the horrors of war, the novel is a timeless classic and still one of American fiction’s most acclaimed works. Initially serialized in newspapers in an abridged format, the text contained here is the final version published by Appleton in 1895.
In the Hardtack Books Illustrated Edition, each chapter is introduced with ambrotypes of ordinary Union soldiers inspired by Crane’s eternal tale of fear, redemption, and sacrifice in earning one’s own “red badge of courage.”
Praise for Red Badge of Courage
“…one of the finest books of our literature, and I include it entirely because it is all as much of a piece as a great poem is.” - Ernest Hemingway