The story of the Civil War has been told from many different perspectives. Here on PBS, Ken Burns' now famous series used both historians and personal diaries and letters to tell the epic story. And now the journals of another Civil War veteran have come to light and are the basis of an exhibit at the Pritzker Military Museum and Library in Chicago.

As Eddie Arruza explaines, the journals went unnoticed for about century but now are seen as an historic treasure trove.

TRANSCRIPT

Eddie Arruza: For much of the 19th century, the United States was a nation at war. Many of the conflicts were regional, but the most significant one involved the country at war with itself. And if there was one man who personified the 19th century American soldier, it was Erasmus Corwin Gilbreath.

Kenneth Clarke, President and CEO of Pritzker Military Museum and Library: Erasmus Corwin Gilbreath was a man who grew up in Valparaiso and who as part of a volunteer infantry during the Civil War, fought in pretty much every major battle there was during the Civil War.

The thing that distinguishes him is he actually documented all of that activity from the end-of-the-rifle perspective of what happened at the end of the war.

EA: Erasmus Corwin Gilbreath was born in Ohio but his family moved to Indiana when he was still young. He was 21 when the Civil War began and he immediately answered the call to serve by helping muster the 20th Indiana Volunteer Regiment. Within months Gilbreath was on the battlefield for the first of many times. And he began documenting what he witnessed.

... To help me make a connected story with the hope that it may be slightly interesting, I've tried to relate my own experiences and to tell what I saw so that it is all the more personal than a general history of either the 20th Indiana volunteer infantry or of the events in which we took our part.

– Erasmus Corwin Gilbreath

KC: Some of his words are the definitive words of what happened during those actions. There's nothing like his writings detailing what that group went through during the war.