The American Civil War was the most divisive and defining event in the history of the United States of America. Hundreds of books have been written about this war. The greatest and most popular movie ever made, "Gone with The Wind", is about the civil war. Hardly a week goes by without a new book coming out about the Civil Die-heards in the South say it was not a civil war. Former President Jimmy Carter always calls it "The War Between the States". It is almost a heresy in the Deep South to call it a civil war. The author of this book was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He experienced along with his brother some of the heaviest fighting, but he was not American. He was French. He was not just any French guy. He was legally the King of France, also known as Philippe VII of France. He made it to America where he and his brother served as officers in the Union Army in some of the most horrific battles in the American Civil War, including the Peninsula Campaign in South Eastern Virginia where they were lucky to survive. When he got back to France, he never called himself the king even though he was. He preferred to use the title Comte de Paris. There he wrote this book in French, which was translated into English.