Journey To Honor

"Journey to Honor" follows the 23rd New Jersey Infantry Regiment from disaster to redemption in the American Civil War. The story is based on the unpublished diary of Josiah Crispin, a young Quaker who believes he must fight to save the Union. In August 1862, he joins the 23rd New Jersey. The war is going badly. Confederate victories threaten to entice Maryland and other states to secede. The North needs a victory and the Army needs reinforcements, so Crispin and his friends are rushed to Fredericksburg without basic training. The 23rd arrives so ill disciplined and untrained that they are written off as a bunch of "Yahoos." The Yahoos are honor-bound to serve nine months. They start an intense on-the-job transition from citizens to soldiers and learn the Rebels are not their only enemy. Incompetent officers, deadly new weapons, sickness and savage weather are just as lethal. Crispin keeps a day by day account of these events in his diary. But, when Josiah is wounded and captured, he finds he has only minutes to choose between losing the record forever and trusting an enemy soldier to send the diary home. "Journey to Honor" is the true story of the Yahoos epic struggle as seen through the eyes of the soldiers who lived and died in it.