Charles Frederick Gunther, who would eventually endow the Chicago History Museum with much of its Civil War Collection and become a leader in Chicago politics at the turn of the twentieth century, descended from a family which moved from Wurttemberg, Germany to Pennsylvania and then eventually to Peru, UHnois.(Figure 1) He had tried several occupations prior to the outbreak of the Civil War - clerking in a retail store, working for an druggist, cashiering at a bank, and peddling ice for the Bohlen, Wilson and Company firm in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a young man of twenty-four searching for adventure and his niche in upwardly mobile society when the South seceded and he was trapped in Memphis. Fearing that Confederate authorities would impress him into the army or the local populace would suspect his northern sentiments and brand him a traitor, he accepted a job as purchasing agent and purser aboard the Rose Douglas, a steam packet commanded by Captain James L. McGinnis, an old and experienced steam boater who had served as a pilot, owner and master of ships plying the Mississippi River. The principle task of the Rose Douglas for the years 1861 and 1862 was to assist the Confederacy's effort to ferry men, material, and provisions up and down the Mississippi, White, and Arkansas Rivers for Confederate authorities in the Trans-Mississippi Department. These were the two years that Gunther chronicles in his war time diaries and which tell this, his story, of the life of a Yankee working for the South. The first two years of the War Between the States were exciting ones for Charles Gunther. He not only met and assisted Confederate leaders in the states bordering the Mississippi River, but he became an eyewitness to history, facing dangers from the Union Navy, suffering under the same privations as the local river folk when food and medicine became scarce, contracting malaria from the swamps and lowlands of the Mississippi Delta, and seeing northern troops eventually strangle the South and its commerce with overwhelmingly superior naval and land forces. All of these historical trends were meticulously recorded in two small, five by seven inch diaries, recently uncovered, that described his day-to-day experiences during this period of his captivity. (Figure 2) These daily journals were crammed full of his private thoughts, hopes, aspirations, and fears hidden from the eyes of even his fellow river men and his southern friends he met in numerous river ports lest they reveal his true northern sympathies and brand him as a traitor to the cause. When he could finally enter his true thoughts on December 28, 1862, the relief in his words was evident. To our great joy we are once more in the land of freedom - am bound for home now (Peru, Illinois) - sure very much unexpected - but thank God I am free to again speak my opinion.1 Charles Gunther's diaries seem at first to be openly pro Confederate. But when the researcher reads between the lines, it becomes evident he is merely afraid his personal entries will be seen by southern authorities and spell his doom. Once this duplicity is understood, the diaries provide a unique perspective of a northerner trapped in southern service that shares an intimate portrait of life on the rivers during the crucial early years of the Civil War when the fate of the Trans-Mississippi theatre and perhaps the whole nation was decided. In his own words, these are the impressions that defined this man and his understanding of the war that it still being fought today. This is Charles Gunther's story. As Gunther begins his diary in January 1861, his personal situation seems grim and directionless. His ice company, due to the seasonal nature of the business, just laid him off. He is forced to take a few menial labor jobs chopping wood, slaughtering hogs, and shucking corn. Travelling through Arkansas and back to Memphis looking for work, playing poker, and discussing Illinois issues with his good friend Asa Hoffman, an old acquaintance from Peru, Illinois, consume much of his time. …