On the Plains in ’65

Glenn V. Longacre's passion for Appalachian history is evidenced in this annotated edition of George H. Holliday's resurrected memoir, On the Plains in '65. Longacre follows Holliday, a southern Ohioan who enlisted in the new state of West Virginia during the American Civil War. Holliday wrote about his yearlong experience (1865–66) protecting the US government's communication and transportation services on the Great Plains and in the Rockies as a member of the 6th West Virginia Cavalry. While this historical narrative is known to Western scholars, Longacre seeks to return it to Appalachian history by integrating and contextualizing Holliday's childhood, family, comrades, and postwar life. Grounding this memoir in Appalachia allows new meanings to arise and a new regional audience to find an interest in George H. Holliday and the 6th West Virginia Cavalry. — West Virginia History: A Journal of Regional Studies

“Glenn V. Longacre has extensively annotated George H. Holliday’s original manuscript, providing an up-to-date bibliography and an introduction that supplies context for Holliday’s life and western adventures. All those interested in the military history of the western United States will welcome this scholarly edition of Holliday’s memoirs of his service.” — Nicole Etcheson, Alexander M. Bracken Professor of History, Ball State University

“For George Holliday, the Civil War did not end at Appomattox. As thousands of Union soldiers trundled north, the cavalryman lurched west, where punitive expeditions, guard duties, and a bone-chilling winter awaited. Decades later, crooked by rheumatism and in need of a pension, the veteran produced a memoir. Expertly introduced and annotated by Glenn Longacre, it affords a welcome look at frontier army life: when Union soldiers turned their attention from southern rebels to indigenous peoples.” — Brian Matthew Jordan, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War

“An invaluable contribution to nineteenth-century American History, this new edition of On the Plains in '65 is an unreservedly recommended addition to community, college, and university library American Civil War, biography, and Native American history collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of students, academia, Civil War history buffs, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that [the title] is also readily available in a digital book format.” — Midwest Book Review