Book excerpt: Eighteen-year-old Sumner A. Cunningham joined his local home guard near Shelbyville, Tennessee, in late October 1861, and immediately was assimilated into a new Confederate regiment, the 41st Tennessee Infantry. Rising to senior noncommissioned-officer rank, his experiences were those of the Army of Tennessee through the next three years. He received limited military training, was captured at Fort Donelson, and spent time as a prisoner of war in Camp Morton, Indiana. After his exchange, he marched in the failed Mississippi campaign to free Vicksburg, saw action around Jackson and Raymond, at Port Hudson, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and the Atlanta and Tennessee campaigns. There, he fought with bravado at Franklin and Nashville before he deserted. Reminiscences of the 41st Tennessee: The Civil War in the West is based on his wartime diary, which he published in 1871 for his middle Tennessee market. Cunningham's military account is a refreshingly candid examination of his daily life in the Army of Tennessee. From combat and heroism to fear, cowardice, and disease, his is an unusually honest insight into the Confederacy in the West.