Si Klegg follows Josiah "Si" Klegg, a raw young Union recruit in the 200th Indiana Regiment, as he blunders from farm boy innocence into the hard-earned competence of a Civil War soldier. With his comic, practical partner Shorty at his side, Si's journey captures the humor, hardship, and battlefield adventure of ordinary army life, from enlistment and drill to skirmishes, foraging, and close calls. At first, Si is packed for war with everything from keepsakes and advice to boots, knives, frying-pans, and coffee-pots, only to discover that campaigning strips away sentimentality and excess. Forced marches, rain, broken gear, flooded ground, and hunger teach him to live by improvisation, while his fearful fascination with the bayonet reveals the gap between romantic ideas of war and its practical realities. Even his treasured canteen becomes both blessing and nuisance, and his first "blood" with a bayonet comes not in battle, but through desperate hunger and a stolen pig. Along the way, Si and Shorty face rebels, prisoners, and swarms of graybacks, fleas, ticks, and chiggers, surviving with grit, humor, and tobacco juice. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.