Before his Washington stint Sneden saw battle, and had his share of close calls.
Weak from scurvy and rheumatism, Sneden scratched away in his shorthand diary, obsessively documenting everything he witnessed.
An exhibit of 100 Sneden watercolors not included in the book will begin touring this fall.
After 13 months in prison, Sneden finally returned to the North in a prisoner exchange.
Because of his drafting skills, Sneden, then 29, got a coveted post as a mapmaker.
Sneden's war odyssey started in the patriotic summer of 1861, just after the fall of Fort Sumter.
The scrapbooks, it turns out, were only a fraction of Sneden's documentary legacy.
"As the Raiders ran between the double lines of men they were showered with blows without mercy, " writes Sneden.
By this time the Society staff had verified most of Sneden's account.
More than a century later Sneden's war diary is being published in book form, together with paintings and maps he made of his experience.
The retiree, Charles Ash, had inherited the scrapbooks from his parents, who had received them as partial payment for a debt from Sneden's nephew during the Depression.
Details are at the Virginia Historical Society's www.sneden.com.
Sneden wrote the core of it during the war, sketching on scraps of paper and scribbling in the margins of a New Testament, then hiding his work in the soles of his shoes and the seams of his clothing.
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