Mother, May You Never See the Sights I Have Seen: The Fifty-Seventh Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers in the Army of the Potomac, 1864-1865

Mother, May You Never See the Sights I Have Seen covers the relatively short but extremely brutal service of the Fifty-Seventh Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers from initial recruitment in the fall of 1863, through Grant's Overland Campaign, and on to the trenches surrounding Petersburg, Virginia. Of the 900+ members who started with the regiment when it left Worcester, Massachusetts, in early spring 1864, only ten men made it through the last year of the war unscathed. The regiment was one of Fox's famous "300 fighting regiments", having lost 19.1% killed or mortally wounded. Wilkinson disputes this figure, and his calculations raise the total to 20.5% of the total killed or mortally wounded. Regardless of the exact numbers, this regiment suffered appalling casualties in a short amount of time. This story is dramatic enough in the hands of a pedestrian writer. Wilkinson, however, kept me interested sentence by sentence, page by page through 371 total pages of text. Wilkinson describes the experiences of these men, both the good and the bad, in great detail. He doesn't fall prey to idolizing his subject matter. A reader learns that these were men with human failings, but that some were able to rise above these failings to fight resolutely for their cause. The roster located just after the text is amazing as well. Even privates receive quite a lot of attention. The roster runs from page 403 to page 623, and is a valuable reference for genealogists and other researchers. Wilkinson is not finished there, however. His appendices relate even more useful information on the regiment in easily read tables. The first appendix shows regimental strengths and casualties broken down by company for all of the major engagements of the 57th Massachusetts. Wargamers in particular will be interested in this material. If every author of a unit history included this information in as detailed a manner as Wilkinson did, there would be no need for unit strength research in the National Archives. The last two appendices cover statistical summaries of the men in the regiment, and a list of the ten who made it through the war without getting killed or wounded.In conclusion, I am very glad I picked this particular volume to start seriously reading unit histories. To everyone who recommended that I read the book, I thank you. I truly believe this book would appeal to a wide range of readers, even those who are not necessarily Civil War "buffs". In the same way Glory is an excellent, far-reaching film, Mother, May You Never See The Sights I Have Seen has the ability to reach out to a larger audience. I plan to recommend this book to those that ask me why I'm so interested in the Civil War. It hooks you and doesn't let go, much like a well-written novel. Although I've read only a couple of unit histories, I get the feeling that few I read in the future will be as good as this one. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Gives a very authentic picture of civil war soldiers, describes what their lives were really like.

This is the book that should have been made into a movie - not Killer Angles

Very, very good book!

Received this today and will use it for family history reasearch.

This book started out as a geneology project. Warren Wilkinson discovered that his maternal great great grandfather Martin Farrell was a veteran of the 57th. Wilkinson did more digging. He discovered that a history of the 57th had been published by John Anderson, a former captain of the 57th. After several readings, Wilkinson was irked. He ended up discovering that Anderson's history was a highly sanitized version. No doubt Anderson was trying to spare veterans and their families of the less than savory aspects of the war. Freed from such restraint, Wilkinson embarked on a four year journey to find the real history of the 57th. The result was this work and it is a magnificent effort from beginning to end. Having done his research in chronological order, he ended up with over 1500 manuscript pages which also included a complete regimental roster of all who served with the 57th. Many Civil War books are deeply researched, but sometimes their authors lack skill with a pen. Not so with Wilkinson, his account of the 57th's first action in the Wilderness on May 6th is some of the most vivid battle writing you will ever encounter. As if that wasn't enough, his account of the Crater and the 57th's role in that fiasco is even better. In short, Wilkinson makes the war come alive. I was reminded of Bruce Catton's Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, "A Stillness at Appomattox," many times while reading. If anything, this book could be called the regimental version of the same story. With any luck, hopefully a university press will reprint this Civil War classic. Without doubt, this is one of the best regimental histories ever written. Whitman's absurd statement that "the real war will never get into the books," is proved wrong by Wilkinson's magnificent book.

I cannot believe there are no reviews of this book. It is one of the most vivid, absorbing, horrifying books about men in war you will find. Even if you are not a dedicated Civil War buff, this is worth reading for the quality and immediacy of its writing. I can't recommend this enough.

A meticulously researched history of the 57th Massachusetts Volunteer Veteran infantry from 1864-65. Probably the touchstone by which other regimental histories should be judged. Details of all the campaigns day by day as well as a detailed name-by-name record of all who served during that time, company by company. A harrowing account at times of the Wilderness through to Appomattox and the disbanding of the regiment afterwards. How could humans survive with their sanity intact? Few survived physically untouched from the thousand or so who re- enlisted, just handfuls from each company, but the mental scars and memories must have afflicted any that were involved. Read it and weep for the folly of mankind