"Diary of Ephraim Shelby Dodd; 1862-1864: Terry's Texas Rangers; Company D; 8th Texas Cavalry Regiment" Civil War Texas Ranger & Cavalry Book 1 by Ephraim Shelby Dodd is the diary of a member of Company D of the storied 8th Texas cavalry regiment also known as Terry's Rangers. Ephraim Dodd was a member of Company D of this famous cavalry unit so this diary records his day-to-day experiences during the Civil War from his frontline prospective in that company. Dodd was captured and hung as a spy by Union forces in early January 1864, ostensibly because he was wearing blue uniform pants and had this diary in his possession. That was the good reason for hanging him as a spy. The real reason was apparently because Generals Sherman and Grant had issued orders that captured confederates wearing Union uniforms and/or carrying papers with Union troop movements were to be dealt with severely. Can't get much "severer" than hanging, can you? At any rate, even Union army officers and at least one Northern newspaper condemned Dodd's execution, on such flimsy grounds, at that time. Terry's Texas Rangers were one of the most famous Texas cavalry units in the Civil war. From a full strength of 1,200 at the start of the war, they could muster only about 200 in their last charge at the battle of Bentonville, North Carolina in 1865. In the original, this short book of approximately 11,000+ words is very costly since it was printed in small numbers in Austin, Texas in 1914, by the Texas State Library as a contribution to the history of Texas units during the Civil War. Meant only for interested students of the war and for research by historians it was not widely circulated. A companion volume, also very rare in its original form, to this book is "Terry's Texas Rangers" by Leonidas B. Giles, (ASIN B00ATQW25Q) also available in e-book format. Giles' book in fact mentions the incident of Dodd's hanging as "one of the saddest events in all our career." A great bit of the storied Civil war cavalry history of Texas military by an eyewitness of that tremendous struggle

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