Synopses & Reviews
Eye of the Storm is one of the most important Civil War documents ever published. Four tattered scrapbooks found in a Connecticut bank vault in 1994 have yielded a treasure trove of more than five hundred watercolors and maps that vividly depict America's great national conflict. These scrapbooks, and the accompanying memoir, are the life's work of a long-forgotten Union private and mapmaker named Robert Knox Sneden, who witnessed some of the war's greatest campaigns and spent more than a year in Southern prison camps, including Andersonville.
A must-have for anyone interested in the subject, Robert Knox Sneden's Eye of the Storm is a permanent addition to Civil War literature and art, and a lasting achievement in human expression of the horrors of war.
Review
Doreen Carvajal
The New York Times
Through sheer serendipity and the determined detective work of a Southern historian, the voluminous collection was pieced together, along with the puzzle of Sneden's life and obsessions. Experts say his oeuvre has no equal in Civil War art.
About the Author
We know little about
Private Robert Knox Sneden beyond the pages of his memoir. He returned home to New York after his release from Andersonville and died alone in an old soldiers' home in 1918.
Table of Contents
ContentsPreface
Prologue
CHAPTER ONE To the Front!
CHAPTER TWO Under Fire
CHAPTER THREE Confusion and Darkness: The Seven Days
CHAPTER FOUR Enough of Terrible Fighting
CHAPTER FIVE Captured
CHAPTER SIX "On to Richmond!"
CHAPTER SEVEN Prison Train to Andersonville
CHAPTER EIGHT This Hell on Earth
CHAPTER NINE Freedom
Epilogue
Note on Sources
Editorial Method
Acknowledgments
Index