Porter Farley was an officer in the 140th New York Infantry during the Civil War, serving in every campaign of the Army of the Potomac from late 1862 until he was discharged in 1864.  He started writing a history of his unit in the 1870s based on diaries and letters he had saved from the war, along with correspondence from notable Civil War leaders due to his interest in presenting an accurate account of the war.  Farley’s work garnered praise among his colleges, but was never fully reproduced in book form.  An Unvarnished Tale reproduces Farley’s entire “Reminisces of the 140th Regiment, N.Y. Volunteer Infantry”, as well as all of his Known post-war correspondence and writings.