Leaves from the Diary of a Young Confederate:: A Soldier's Recollections

Personal accounts are preeminent. Here we learn about life in the Army of Northern Virginia through young Randolph H. McKim's diaries. Randolph H. McKim was a first lieutenant and aide de camp in the 3rd Brigade, Johnston's Division, of the Army of Northern Virginia. Although McKim served first as a Confederate soldier, he later went into full time chaplaincy since he had studied for the Christian ministry before the war and because of the great need for chaplains. He eventually became Chaplain of the 2nd Virginia Cavalry. As an alternative to giving histories of campaigns, McKim gives his own experience as a soldier and chaplain. He wrote in this manner, "That I may thereby contribute in some small degree to a better understanding of the spirit of the epoch." His goal was to present the Confederate soldier's "purity of motive and his heroic constancy in danger and adversity." After the war, he was a "low church" minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church and resolute in his stand for orthodox theology.