ABSTRACT
While my family and I were living in upstate New York, in the city of Geneva, I once attended a sidewalk auction. Near the end of the auction, the master of ceremonies offered a peck basket filled with books. I bid a quarter and was given my prize. Under the hymnals were four manuscript diaries kept by a local farmer during the Civil War. This article is based on those diaries and local newspapers. When it appeared the piece attracted a lot of attention. Professor Gates later referred to it as ‘this little gem of an article,” which was high praise indeed. A physician on Long Island disputed my sinus problems diagnosis, suggesting that these attacks were probably migraine headaches. Others used the diary and the article, and one colleague turned this and some other work into a doctorate at Tokyo University. I believe that this shows what can be done with diaries, especially if a computer can be part of the number crunching. This piece first appeared in New York History, vol. xlvii, (October 1969), pps. 352–360
