Thirteen Months in Dixie, or, the Adventures of a Federal Prisoner in Texas: Including the Red River Campaign, Imprisonment at Camp Ford, and Escape ... (The Savas Beatie Battles & Leaders) Hardcover – Import, 8 November 2022

You have to read the book to find out; I'm not going to spoil it for you! But this is a gripping tale that you won't want to miss. The editors have done an amazing job corroborating the geography, history and personalities described in the book. When I hear "original source document" I think of something boring or tedious. But Federhen was quite a story teller, and the modern editors provide the supplemental information to give the tale credence. Great stuff!

What a compelling, page-turning story! This heretofore unpublished firsthand account of a Union soldier on the run jumps off the page. Federhen’s own language is preserved in this text, which transported me in time and place. The editors did a wonderful job providing contextual information (including maps, sketches, definitions, and images) that make the text accessible to those of us who are not Civil War historians. Did Federhen accurately document every event? No, but that’s not the point. He tells a gripping story based on his experience. The editors help readers contextualize the reported events in history. I spent a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon with this text (via Kindle) and highly recommend it!

First rate account written in first person of a genuine Union prisoner multiple escape attempts and desperate adventures in the Texas wilderness.

This book is the diary of a Federal (Union) soldier captured by the Confederate Army and held prisoner multiple times. He escaped, survived, and lived to a ripe old age. His diary is annotated in footnotes and suggested that some parts of the diary can’t possibly be accurate. So what. It’s an interesting story, fun to read, quick and easy and gives insight into that period of time in the words and dialect of someone from that period. If you have any interest in the Civil War, and/or that period, or are simply looking for a fun “beach read” you’ll find this interesting. I think of this as historical fiction, the details are less important than the overall picture painted. Definitely worth the time to buy and read.

It’s rare to read primary source material from the Civil War that is so thoroughly literate. Oscar Federhen had a remarkable story to tell, and he shares it with considerable flare and the artfulness of an accomplished writer, though one is left to assume this is his sole magnum opus. This reader appreciated the copious research that attests to the veracity of most of the story, which makes it all the more remarkable. The conditions of Federhen’s frequently alternating imprisonment and flight clearly made contemporaneous journaling impossible, yet the author’s memory for detail contributes to his tale’s authenticity. Above all, a story that might in other hands have seemed repetitive and endless in Federhen’s becomes an edge-of-your-seat adventure. The author’s wry sense of humor and understated portrayal of himself leave the reader with a real sense of his humanity—both his strengths and his weaknesses—ands it’s impossible not to admire his courage and tenacity as well as his obvious likability. That this extraordinary manuscript might well have been lost to the ages but for the realization by his step-great-granddaughter that she had a real gem on her hands is a stroke of good fortune, and we can be grateful that Jeannine Honstein and Stephen Knowlton did such an intelligent and thoughtful job of bringing this work to publication. One small quibble: I found the odd typeface distracting. Otherwise, this was a terrific read.