Yorkshire attorney turned Union volunteer soldier Bradbury became a "privileged private" with extraordinary access to powerful Union generals including Daniel Butterfield, future president Benjamin Harrison, and Clinton B. Fisk, the region's administrator for the Freedmen's Bureau during Reconstruction. The letters also provide an in-depth look at this driven land speculator and manager for the Atchison Topeka Santa Fe Railway. As a reporter for the and the Bradbury was both eyewitness to and participant in the shaping of events in the world as it moved west.