What the bestsellers Flags of Our Fathers was to Iwo Jima and Duty to the mission of the Enola Gay, Honor Untarnished is to the World War II tour of duty of young graduate of a West Point. Whether it was fighting Rommel's fierce Afrika Korps hitting the beaches of Normandy on D Day, surviving the Battle of the Bulge, or just being in the next room during the infamous "slapping incident" of Blood-n-Guts General George Patton, Donald Bennett experienced the fiery crucible of World War II and survived to tell about it. As a recent graduate of West Point, First Lieutenant Bennett was given the charge of training inexperienced and scared recruits, and leading them into battle against the Axis forces. From orientation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma through the fiercest battles of the war right up to the liberation of the death camps and our complicit confrontation with the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe, Don Bennett, not yet thirty, preserved the honor of the corps, and the liberty of the free world. Lindbergh, Patton, Bradley, and Eisenhower are just names in a history book to most-but to Don Bennett they were personal acquaintances.

This collection of letters bears witness to the Civil War of the common soldiers and junior officers of the Army of Tennessee. Brothers Alex and Tom Spence described to their family in detail not only the many battles in which they served, but the hardship of campaigning (they marched literally thousands of miles), the pride of serving in battle-proven units, and the pain of losing comrades to bullets and disease. The Spences were a wealthy family who owned land, slaves, and the main hotel in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. With their successful careers and extensive property, they were among Clark County's most prominent families when the shadow of secession fell across Arkansas. Four years later, Arkansas would be ravaged by war, and Tom and Alex Spence would lie in soldiers' graves, far from home. Mark Christ has assembled their powerful letters from a collection in the Old State House Museum, weaving in other letters from their extended family and friends, brief but thorough introductions to each chapter, and evocative photographs. The story moves chronologically from the outset of war to the final letter from Alex's grieving fiancée.