A Thrilling Narrative

This Civil War memoir of Capt. Dennis E. Haynes is both unique and rare. Not only did few southern unionists write of their experiences after the war, Haynes’s is the only publication by a Louisiana unionist. Furthermore, it is the only account by a member of the First Louisiana Battalion Cavalry Scouts, a unit that existed for less than three months and saw its only real action during the Red River Campaign of 1864. Haynes’s memoir is a historic collection of his wartime experiences as a unionist in the Confederate South. Among his writings, Haynes describes how he opposed the secession of Texas and thus became a hunted man. He also tells of his harrowing odyssey to reach Union troops in Louisiana. Every step of the way, Haynes provides details, sometimes graphic, of the harassment and cruelty he and many others like him suffered at the hands of his Confederate neighbors.