New and Noteworthy: Illinois Soldiers In Their Letters, in Their Words

In Their Letters, in Their Words: Illinois Civil War Soldiers Write Home,  Mark Flotow, editor, Southern Illinois University Press, 320 pages, 12 illustrations, 2 maps,  bibliographic notes, bibliography, index, October 2019, $26.00.

From The Publisher: A vital lifeline to home during the Civil War, the letters of soldiers to their families and friends remain a treasure for those seeking to connect with and understand the most turbulent period of American history. Rather than focus on the experiences of a few witnesses, this impressively researched book documents 165 Illinois Civil War soldiers’ and sailors’ lives through the lens of their personal letters. Editor Mark Flotow chose a variety of letter writers who hailed from counties throughout the state, served in different branches of the military at different ranks, and represented the gamut of social experiences and war outcomes.

Flotow provides extensive quotations from the letters. By allowing the soldiers to speak for themselves, he captures what mattered most to them. Illinois soldiers wrote about their reasons for enlisting; the nature of training and duties; necessities like eating, sleeping, marching, and making the best of often harsh and chaotic circumstances; Southern culture; slavery; their opinions of commanding officers and the president; disease, medicine, and hospitals; their prisoner-of-war experiences; and the ways they left the army. Through letters from afar, many soldiers sought to manage their homes and farms, while some single men attempted to woo their sweethearts.

Flotow includes brief biographies for each soldier quoted in the book, weaves historical context and analysis with the letters, and organizes them by topic. Thus, intimate details cited in individual letters reveal their significance for those who lived and shaped this tumultuous era. The result is not only insightful history but also compelling reading.

Preface ix

1. A Lifeline of Letters                                      2. Illinois Citizens Become Soldiers

3. Camp Life and Bonding with the Boys         4. Soldiering

5. Managing Affairs from Afar                         6. Seeing the Elephant

7. Southern Culture through Northern Eye       8. Officers, Generals, and “Old Abe

9. Debility and Diseases                                  10.  Writing the Indescribable as P.O.Ws 11. Soldiers No More

Appendix A: Soldiers’ Brief Biographies

  Appendix B: Chronology of the Civil War

   Appendix C: Quoted Soldiers, by County of Origin

Endorsements:  “Words matter, and by allowing Illinois soldiers to speak for themselves, the Civil War comes alive anew. Flotow helps us envision the ‘real war’ that Walt Whitman observed would ‘never get in the books.’ The editor’s fresh approach provides an intimate and illuminating portrait of the war and those who fought it. In Their Letters, in Their Words is a superb addition to Civil War literature.”—Stephen D. Engle, author of Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln and the Union’s War Governors

 “Flotow has done a fine job of linking together, as well as comparing and contrasting, the comments of 165 Illinois soldiers on a wide variety of Civil War subjects. The result is an enjoyable and thought-provoking read for anyone with an interest in the Civil War.”—Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein, author of The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine

New and Noteworthy: Midnight During the Civil War--What Dreams May Come?

Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War, Jonathan W. White, University of North Carolina Press, 296 pages, $34.95, publication date, March 24, 2017

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The Civil War brought many forms of upheaval to America, not only in waking hours but also in the dark of night. Sleeplessness plagued the Union and Confederate armies, and dreams of war glided through the minds of Americans in both the North and South. Sometimes their nightly visions brought the horrors of the conflict vividly to life.

But for others, nighttime was an escape from the hard realities of life and death in wartime. In this innovative new study, Jonathan W. White explores what dreams meant to Civil War–era Americans and what their dreams reveal about their experiences during the war. He shows how Americans grappled with their fears, desires, and struggles while they slept, and how their dreams helped them make sense of the confusion, despair, and loneliness that engulfed them.

White takes readers into the deepest, darkest, and most intimate places of the Civil War, connecting the emotional experiences of soldiers and civilians to the broader history of the conflict, confirming what poets have known for centuries: that there are some truths that are only revealed in the world of darkness.

The Author: Jonathan W. White is associate professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University.

Reviews: “Highly original, exhaustively researched, and compellingly written, Midnight in America makes a fresh and vital contribution to the essential Civil War literature. This is literally a dream of a book. And Jonathan W. White is one of the very best young historians in the field.” --Harold Holzer, winner of the 2015 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize.
 
“In a winning combination of marvelous research and creative analysis, Jonathan White examines how Civil War Americans experienced, thought about, and shared their dreams. Thick with clever arguments about war and society, Midnight in America illustrates how we might learn from the murky world of sleep and dreams and wartime.” --Matthew Gallman, author of Defining Duty in the Civil War

CWL----The Last Letter Home: On Campaign, On The Battlefield, In The Hospital, In Prison

Proud To Say I Am A Union Soldier: The Last Letters Home From Federal Soldiers Written During the Civil War, 1861-1965, Franklin R. Crawford, Heritage Books, 238pp., , 20+ photographs, notes, bibliography, index, $29.95.

Crawford has done good service to Federals who died during the war. Similar in many ways to a portion of Greg Coco's work focusing on Gettysburg, Crawford organizes and edits the letters home of 31 Federal soldiers. He is a careful researcher who offers between 15 and 40 notes for each of the individuals. Crawford's comments are not overwrought with Victorian pathos but are clear and concise summaries of the soldiers journeys, camplife and encounters on the battlefield.

Private Pliny F. White, Company E. 14th Vermont encounters drills, picket duty, drills, weapon care, drills after he enlists in early September 1862. With other Vermont regiments that enlisted during the early fall of 1862, the 14th travel to Washington D.C. to man the forts. White frets that his term of service will expire and no combat will be seen. Fortunately Confederate raider Mosby strays to close to Washington DC and two Vermont brigades are ordered out of the forts. Marching from northern Virginia, through Maryland, the Vermonters arrive in Gettysburg on July 2. He writes on July 2 to his sister, "The chances are that today we shall go into battle." Pliny must wait 24 hours for that to happen. Wounded severely in the arm, Pliny is sent on July 5 to the Seminary Hospital. His last letter is July 31. One other letter follows. Francis Bell writes to White's family that Pliny died at 10pm on August 5 due to fever and diahrea (sic).

Ernst Damkoehler,a veteran of the Prussian army and private in Company I, 26th Wisconsin, has commissary duties which bores him but does allow him to sell his free time as a horse groom. Safe during the 1862 and 1863 campaigns of the Army of the Potomac due to his rear eschelon duties. The Eleventh Corps in which Ernst serves is transferred to Chattanooga and participates in the breakout. Stripping the commissary to the barest essentials, Sherman orders commissary soldiers to be transferred to the front in the Atlanta campaign. His last letter home is April 17 1864. He is wounded and captured at Resaca, sent to Andersonville Prison. He dies in June 1864 from complications of the wound and diarrhea. Twelve graves in Anderson hold men of the 26th Wisconsin.

Crawford sets forth soldiers' remarks with a simplicity and directness that is sobering. Each soldier's story takes about 20 minutes to read. The impact of reading the soldiers' description of the ordinariness of their camps, their marches, their cooking, their drills helps the reader to understand these were ordinary men. Loving and missing terribly their families contrasts with the aloneness of being one dying soldier in the Seminary Hospital that held over 700 or being one of the fifty a day who died at Andersonville.

Readers who are reenactors or those who wish to recall to memory the lives of Civil War soldiers will enjoy this book. Also, those editing family letters would do well to look to this book as a model of a difficult task well done.