Characterized by precision of statement and clarity of detail, W.W. Blackford's memoir of his service in the Civil War is one of the most valuable to come out of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. It also provides a critically important perspective on one of the best-known Confederate cavalrymen, Major General J.E.B. Stuart. Blackford was thirty years old when the war began, and he served from June 1861, until January, 1864, as Stuart's adjutant,...