"Letters Home" is a 196 page book which follows Company A - 24th Wisconsin Infantry through its many Civil war battles in Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia, primarily using fourteen letters home from Eagle soldiers Pvt. Sidney P. Kline and Pvt. George M. Logan. The book contains images of each original letter, and there are very detailed accounts of Stones River and Chickamauga battles by the soldiers. Young Lieutenant Arthur MacArthur was a gangly teenager in 1862, but by 1863 was the hero of the Regiment as he successfully led this regiment in an assault up Missionary Ridge, bearing the flag in one hand and his pistol in the other. His son, WWII General Douglas MacArthur called him the greatest general in American history. See the war through the eyes of those who were there! It's not only an excellent history book, but is a source of inspiration for future generations.

Winner of Milwaukee County Historical Society's coveted Gambrinus Prize for the best book-length contribution to Milwaukee historiography in 2003 Profiles the courageous 24th Wisconsin Infantry and features the personal stories of members of the 24th, including Arthur McArthur, the father of Gen. Douglas MacArthur Utilizes hundreds of primary sources--letters, diaries, and contemporary newspaper articles Formed in the summer of 1862, the 24th Wisconsin Infantry participated in many major battles of the Western theater, earning a reputation as a brave, hard-fighting unit. Unlike other unit histories, this book makes no attempt, as the author freely admits, to provide "an objective history" of the regiment. Rather, the book digs deeper, following the personal stories of the soldiers themselves, providing hundreds of individual vignettes that, taken together, paint a vivid picture of the life of a Union soldier.

Forgotten for more than a century in an old cardboard box, these are the letters of Guy Carlton Taylor, a farmer who served in the Thirty-Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War. From March 23, 1864, to July 14, 1865, Taylor wrote 165 letters home to his wife Sarah and their son Charley. From the initial mustering and training of his regiment at Camp Randall in Wisconsin, through the siege of Petersburg in Virginia, General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and the postwar Grand Review of the Armies parade in Washington, D.C., Taylor conveys in vivid detail his own experiences and emotions and shows himself a keen observer of all that is passing around him. While at war, he contracts measles, pneumonia, and malaria, and he writes about the hospitals, treatments, and sanitary conditions that he and his comrades endured during the war. Amidst the descriptions of soldiering, Taylor’s letters to Sarah are threaded with the concerns of a young married couple separated by war but still coping together with childrearing and financial matters. The letters show, too, Taylor’s transformation from a lonely and somewhat disgruntled infantryman to a thoughtful commentator on the greater ideals of the war. This remarkable trove of letters, which had been left in the attic of Taylor’s former home in Cashton, Wisconsin, was discovered by local historian Kevin Alderson at a household auction. Recognizing them for the treasure they are, Alderson bought the letters and, aided by his wife Patsy, painstakingly transcribed the letters and researched Taylor’s story in Wisconsin and at historical sites of the Civil War. The Aldersons’ preface and notes are augmented by an introduction by Civil War historian Kathryn Shively Meier, and the book includes photographs, maps, and illustrations related to Guy Taylor’s life and letters.

This book is about the educated Brothertown Indian men who fought in the Civil War and wrote letters home telling of this horrible war. American Indians, who despite the guarantees from the United States, found that same government continually stripping them of their lands. And, still, they rushed to volunteer their services to defend the Union. The Brothertown Indian Nation is unique from many other tribes in that they are an amalgamated group. They are made up of remnants of the coastal tribes who made the first contact with the whites. As a result of the Great Awakening, a religious movement in New England during the 1740s, many Indian people in southern New England converted to Christianity, including the Mohegan, Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, and Niantic. As these people tried to live Christian lives in New England, they found it difficult to resist the pressures from whites around them who encouraged them to abuse alcohol, give up farming and sell their lands. By the 1700s, the tribes were poverty stricken, decimated by wars and disease. A small group of young Natives, educated at Eleazer Wheelocks Indian Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut, became the impetus for forming a new community where they might live amicably together. On November 7, 1784 the band of Christian New England Indians settled on lands given to them by the Oneida Nation in New York and called their Town by the Name of Brotherton, in Indian Eeyam qittoowauconnuck.

"The Civil War as seen from the front ranks of a legendary fighting unit"--Cover.