In recording his experiences in diary entries between March 1861 and March 1865, Elisha Hunt Rhodes, a twenty-year-old Union soldier, provides a raw, firsthand perspective on the conduct of the American Civil War, the costliest conflict in the history of the United States in terms of military casualties and the loss of physical infrastructure. His opening entry in the account illustrates how quickly and profoundly life changed for those called upon to serve in either the Union Army or Confederate Army. The war between the two commenced when the army of the Confederacy fired on the federally controlled Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861.