Publication of Note | September 2025
David Herbert Donald, editor. “Gone for a Soldier: The Civil War Memoirs of Private Alfred Bellard.” Little, Brown, and Company, 1975.
Alfred Bellard, a native of England who moved to the United States with his parents in the 1850s, served for three years in the Fifth New Jersey Infantry. Throughout his service, Bellard not only wrote extensively, but also sketched a great deal of what he witnessed as a private soldier. This book, while it contains Bellard’s postwar recollections of his military service, includes 74 sketches Bellard made during the conflict.
Bellard’s drawings offer a fascinating visual record and cover a wide array of topics. Some sketches freeze a moment from a particular battle in time, including the grisly aftermath. In one sketch, Bellard details the wound that he received to his leg at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Other illustrations depict various tasks that enlisted personnel performed during the conflict, including constructing earthwork fortifications, serving on guard duty, building pontoon bridges, or foraging for food.
While subscribers to this newsletter are accustomed to the publications highlighted here being in some way connected to the Shenandoah Valley, this one is not. However, Ballard’s sketches are helpful for anyone seeking a visual representation of the daily lives of Civil War soldiers. All of the daily chores Bellard illustrates were performed regularly in the Shenandoah Valley by Union and Confederate troops. Although this book is no longer in print, used copies can be purchased for a reasonable price. Additionally, the book has been digitized by Internet Archive and is accessible online at archive.org.
