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What Is Company Aytch A Primary Source

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Company Aytch as a Primary Source

Company Aytch is a book written from the point of view of a confederate soldier during the American civil war. The book does succeed in being a historical primary source. The soldier, Samuel R. Watkins, speaks of all the events he participated in or heard about during the war times from the beginning to the confederate surrender. His telling of the stories are from his own point of view from during the war for the majority of the book. The entirety of his participation in the war is documented throughout the book with the intention of someone else reading it. The book, Company Aytch, is a good example of a primary source because it is from somebody involved in the events described, shows the confederate side …show more content…

Company Aytch is a strong primary source because it is a wealth of information written by someone directly involved in the war with the purpose of informing the readers about the events of the war. Even Samuel himself acknowledges that the soldier knows the most about the events of the war in the book. He says that anyone who is not directly fighting in the war with weapons does not know about the hardships and horror of the war which is shown to be true throughout the book. This is a strong reason for why this is a good primary source. The author could not have possibly been more involved in the events that he is describing. However, when he writes the book, the events have already ended. The book is weak as a primary source because the events are all written down after they were over. While they seem to be accurate descriptions from a person involved in the events, they are written after the events have happened. Being written during the event is a very important piece of being a primary source. The author fails to actually write them down while they are happening which makes the argument that the book is a primary source weaker. While that does make the argument weaker, the book is still written by an involved person, which stands out much more than the …show more content…

While he writes about the events after they happened, his experience and detail involved in the book make up that. This book provides a greater understanding of the civil war from a side that is not usually written about. Overall, understanding of the civil war is expanded after reading this book. So it stands not just as a good source for information but also a primary source because of the author’s perspective. The confederate side of the story is silenced often because they lost. However, hearing the loser’s side of any story is extremely helpful in understanding the full scope of the story. Understanding both sides of any event helps the reader understand why the story unfolded the way it did. Reading Company Aytch helps readers understand what the confederate soldiers were going through and why they lost the war. Understanding what was going through soldiers minds and what mistakes they made helps the reader understand the entire war more overall. In the end, Company Aytch is a primary source because it is from someone directly involved in the war, gives great detail about the war, and it shows a side of the war that is not usually

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