Chiefly letters written by Larned to his brothers and sisters relating to campaigns in North Carolina and Virginia and Burnside's interactions with Generals H. W. Halleck, George Brinton McClellan, and William S. Rosecrans. Includes descriptions of the battles of Roanoke Island, New Bern, Beaufort, and Fort Macon, N.C., and mentions the Antietam, Fredericksburg, Knoxville, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg campaigns and the pursuits of Confederate general John Hunt Morgan in Ohio. Other topics include military organization, disputes over rank, discipline, morale, African American troops, entertainment, prisoners of war, foraging expeditions, inflation, disease, furloughs, and the effect of the war on noncombatants in the South.