Company Aytch or a Side Show of the Big Show

COMPANY AYTCH has reigned as one of the most memorable and honest depictions of the American Civil War since its original publication in 1882. Sam R. Watkins’s firsthand account of life as a Confederate soldier eloquently captured the realities of war, the humor and pathos of soldiering, and the tragic, historic events in which he participated. Intending to republish after his first edition sold out, Watkins edited and revised Company Aytch but died before accomplishing his goal. Now more than one hundred years later, Watkins’s great-granddaughter Ruth Hill Fulton McAllister is fulfilling Watkins’s dream. Although there have been other versions of Company Aytch published, this is the first with new material and revisions by Sam Watkins himself. Featuring a new introduction by New York Times best-selling author Robert Hicks and over forty original images, including his own pencil-marked edits, this volume combines the ageless text with Sam’s intended revisions—at once an incredible memoir of one man’s experience during war and the story that forever shaped American history.