manuscript

This unbound, sixty-eight page manuscript of Robert Duncan Chapman's Civil War memoir, A Georgia Soldier in the Civil War, 1861-1865, describes his war experiences from his enlistment in August 1861 until 1865 as a member of the Fifty-fifth Georgia Infantry.

Chapman describes his capture at the Battle of Cumberland Gap and his subsequent imprisonment at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Chapman was a prisoner at Johnson's Island for five months when he staged an escape and impersonated a book salesman to avoid recapture.

Chapman's memoir was first published in 1922. The memoir was published again in 1929 and included an updated postscript written by the then ninety-year-old Chapman. The manuscript contains the postscript written in 1929 and some minor handwritten edits.