• Full Citation: Louis Bir, "Remenence of My Army Life," ed. George P. Clark, Indiana Magazine of History 101, no. 1 (March 2005): 15-57.
• Home: Clark County
• Year: 1862-1865
• Regiment:93rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Co. K
• Abstract: Bir (1843-1923) prepared his Civil War memoir in 1893-1894. Written nearly thirty years after his Civil War service, Bir's memoir is personal, reflective, and conversational. Clearly, many of the stories had been told before, as Bir addresses his audience, jokes, and pauses for laughter. Bir chronicles his experiences from enlistment in August 1862 until he returned home in August 1865. The account is rich in descriptions of soldier life including joke playing, marching without rathions, drinking and sleeping with lice. He was captured at the Battle of Brice's Crossroads in June 1864, but escaped en route to prison (unlike Melville Cox Robertson, see below.)
• Sample Text:
  1. "I will never forget the day we Were Examined I was at this time very thin and Light & I was afraid I would be Rejected we were all in line and taken one at a time and Had to Stripp as naced as the day we were borned and I being a bashfull-good-Boy it was about the hardest Stask I stood during the war the Doctor turned me around Several tims and then gave me a slapp and told me I was all Right." (p. 18)
• LC Subject Headings:
  1. Brice's Crossroads, Battle of, Miss., 1864
  2. Vicksburg (Miss.) History Siege, 1863
  3. Mobile Bay (Ala.), Battle of, 1864
  4. Tupelo, Battle of, Tupelo, Miss., 1864
  5. Nashville, Battle of, Tenn., 1864

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