The collection consists of two volumes of a manuscript diary, copied in 1865 of entries that George W. Bonsall wrote between May 23, 1861 (his 16th birthday) and 1865, during the American Civil War. He continues the diary sporatically after the war, with entries indicating his marriage in 1876 and the birth of his daughter in 1877. Bonsall writes in detail about his regiment's movements throughout Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia during the war (particularly 1863 and 1864), but they never engaged in a battle with the Confederates. Bonsall also writes about working as a mason building dormitories for a new college in Berea, Kentucky, in 1869.