Scope and Content From the Collection: This collection contains the diary of Charles O. Poland, a private in Company B, 142nd Ohio Infantry (National Guard) during the Civil War. The diary's entries commence on June 15, 1864, with Knox already in the rifle pits before Petersburg. He writes of being detailed to destroy Confederate breastworks, erect fortifications, and fell trees as battles raged nearby. Elsewhere he mentions having seen generals Grant and Burnside, the gunboats on the James River, the discovery of a cache of...