Among the piles of obsolete farm and household implements, haystacks, dust, and debris abandoned in her historic barn, Katie Aldridge discovered a box containing the Civil War letters of Charles Freeman Biddlecom. Painstakingly transcribing and lightly editing more than 100 letters written by the soldier to his wife during his service, Ms. Aldridge resurrected the voice of the Civil War combat soldier. The tone and character of "Charlie's" detailed accounts of the war compelled Ms. Aldridge to find out more.From letters written throughout Grant's Overland Campaign and the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, the reader gains an insider's view of the war: fear, hunger, sickness, longing, and concern for those left behind as well as detailed insights about the political climate. Writing from the perspective shaped in an Upstate New York community closely linked to the abolitionist cause, woman's suffrage, and the Quaker philosophy, the reader will learn how Charlie's background shaped his actions and view of the war.

The Army of the Potomac was a hotbed of political activity during the Civil War. As a source of dissent widely understood as a frustration for Abraham Lincoln, its onetime commander, George B. McClellan, even secured the Democratic nomination for president in 1864. But in this comprehensive reassessment of the army's politics, Zachery A. Fry argues that the war was an intense political education for its common soldiers. Fry examines several key crisis points to show how enlisted men developed political awareness that went beyond personal loyalties. By studying the struggle between Republicans and Democrats for political allegiance among the army's rank and file, Fry reveals how captains, majors, and colonels spurred a pro-Republican political awakening among the enlisted men, culminating in the army's resounding Republican voice in state and national elections in 1864. For decades, historians have been content to view the Army of the Potomac primarily through the prism of its general officer corps, portraying it as an arm of the Democratic Party loyal to McClellan's leadership and legacy. Fry, in contrast, shifts the story's emphasis to resurrect the successful efforts of proadministration junior officers who educated their men on the war's political dynamics and laid the groundwork for Lincoln's victory in 1864.

How did Civil War soldiers endure the brutal and unpredictable existence of army life during the conflict? This question is at the heart of Peter S. Carmichael's sweeping new study of men at war. Based on close examination of the letters and records left behind by individual soldiers from both the North and the South, Carmichael explores the totality of the Civil War experience--the marching, the fighting, the boredom, the idealism, the exhaustion, the punishments, and the frustrations of being away from families who often faced their own dire circumstances. Carmichael focuses not on what soldiers thought but rather how they thought. In doing so, he reveals how, to the shock of most men, well-established notions of duty or disobedience, morality or immorality, loyalty or disloyalty, and bravery or cowardice were blurred by war. Digging deeply into his soldiers' writing, Carmichael resists the idea that there was "a common soldier" but looks into their own words to find common threads in soldiers' experiences and ways of understanding what was happening around them. In the end, he argues that a pragmatic philosophy of soldiering emerged, guiding members of the rank and file as they struggled to live with the contradictory elements of their violent and volatile world. Soldiering in the Civil War, as Carmichael argues, was never a state of being but a process of becoming.

James McPherson’s classic book For Cause & Comrades explained “why men fought in the Civil War”—and spurred countless other historians to ask and attempt to answer the same question. But few have explored why men did not fight. That’s the question Paul Taylor answers in this groundbreaking Civil War history that examines the reasons why at least 60 percent of service-eligible men in the North chose not to serve and why, to some extent, their communities allowed them to do so. Did these other men not feel the same patriotic impulses as their fellow citizens who rushed to the enlistment office? Did they not believe in the sanctity of the Union? Was freeing men held in chains under chattel slavery not a righteous moral crusade? And why did some soldiers come to regret their enlistment and try to leave the military? ’Tis Not Our War answers these questions by focusing on the thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of average civilians and soldiers. Taylor digs deep into primary sources—newspapers, diaries, letters, archival manuscripts, military reports, and published memoirs—to paint a vivid and richly complex portrait of men who questioned military service in the Civil War and to show that the North was never as unified in support of the war as portrayed in much of America’s collective memory. This book adds to our understanding of the Civil War and the men who fought—and did not fight—in it.

The fraught relationship between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan is well known, so much so that many scholars rarely question the standard narrative casting the two as foils, with the Great Emancipator inevitably coming out on top over his supposedly feckless commander. In Conflict of Command, acclaimed Civil War historian George C. Rable rethinks that stance, providing a new understanding of the interaction between the president and his leading wartime general by reinterpreting the political aspects of their partnership. Rable pays considerable attention to Lincoln’s cabinet, Congress, and newspaper editorials, revealing the role each played in shaping the dealings between the two men. While he surveys McClellan’s military campaigns as commander of the Army of the Potomac, Rable focuses on the political fallout of the fighting rather than the tactical details. This broadly conceived approach highlights the army officers and enlisted men who emerged as citizen-soldiers and political actors. Most accounts of the Lincoln-McClellan feud solely examine one of the two individuals, and the vast majority adopt a steadfast pro-Lincoln position. Taking a more neutral view, Rable deftly shows how the relationship between the two developed in a political context and ultimately failed spectacularly, profoundly altering the course of the Civil War itself.

On September 7, 1864, William Whitlock, aged thirty-five, left his wife and four children in Allegany, New York, to join the Union army in battle. More than 100 years later, his unpublished letters to his wife were found in the attic of a family home. These letters serve as the foundation for Allegany to Appomattox, giving readers a vivid glimpse into the environment and political atmosphere that surrounded the Civil War from the perspective of a northern farmer and lumberman. Whitlock’s observations tell of exhausting marches, limited rations, and grueling combat. In plainspoken language, the letters also reveal a desperate homesickness, consistently expressing concern for the family’s health and financial situation and requesting news from home. Dunham’s detailed descriptions of the war’s progress and specific battles provide a rich context for Whitlock’s letters, orienting readers to both the broad narrative of the Civil War and the intimate chronicle of one soldier’s impressions.

At the beginning of October 1864, the only equipment most Union soldiers near Petersburg, Virginia, needed was a shovel--including Gen. Edgar Gregorys new reserve brigade, which was digging trenches around the besieged city. Most of the brigades volunteer members from New York had never fired a musket upon marching into the swamps and woods southwest of Petersburg. But the dusty blue-collar workers became a force to be reckoned with as they dug and marched westward to force Gen. Robert E. Lee to extend forces away from Petersburg. Following the brigades largest battle, Five Forks, the Union marched rapidly westward to keep Lee from joining Gen. Joseph Johnston. The brigade was selected to assist in the surrender at Appomattox. Those acts alone would have solidified the brigades place in history, but its men also served as caretakers of the peace during their march back to Washington, D.C.--especially after the assassination of President Lincoln. Gregorys New York Brigade deserves to be honored as much as those who fought in the major battles of the war. Find out why in this detailed account of its well deserved place in history.