William Wilkinson Green Diary

Green’s diary includes a table of contents, written on the inside of the front cover, and hand-numbered pages. Topics include clothing and other items drawn from government supplies and prices paid; dates and amounts of pay received; several pages of places visited while on campaign and fighting encountered along the way; deaths and diseases in the regiment; deserters; and weather. Scattered references in the diary indicate that Green served during the Yorktown campaign (1862), the Rapidan Offensive (1863), and the Battle of the Wilderness (summer, 1864). He also mentions meeting President Abraham Lincoln while the president and his wife toured a hospital in Virginia April 8, 1865. In May 1865 Green marched in the General Review of the Army in Washington, D.C.; he later records the welcoming receptions given his regiment in various cities as they traveled back to Michigan, and notes his own discharge from duty in June 1865. He later notes moving to Kansas in 1872, where he purchased a claim in Sumner County and settled there.