Their Patriotic Duty : The Civil War Letters of the Evans Family of Brown County, Ohio / ed. by Robert F. Engs, Corey M. Brooks.
Brooks, Corey M., editor.; Engs, Robert F., editor.
2022
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Title Their Patriotic Duty : The Civil War Letters of the Evans Family of Brown County, Ohio / ed. by Robert F. Engs, Corey M. Brooks.
ISBN 9780823293322
DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823293322
Published New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2022]
Copyright ©2008
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (384 p.) : 8 Illustrations, black and white
Item Number 10.1515/9780823293322 doi
Summary Many of the farm families in the river country of southern Ohio sent fathers, husbands, and sons to fight and die in the Civil War. Few families have bequeathed a record of that experience as remarkable as that created by the Evans family: an extraordinary collection of letters that offers a unique portrait of life both on the home front and on the front lines. From his homestead near Ripley on the Ohio River, patriarch Andrew Evans sent two sons to war, and from 1862 to 1866 father and sons wrote each other hundreds of letters. Called "the soldier's letters" by the family, this cache lay untouched in a barn until the 1980s, when Robert Engs was invited to edit them. Here are 273 family letters, most between Andrew and son Samuel, that draw us into the complicated lives of a Midwestern family not just suffering the dislocations of war, but also experiencing-and describing in intimate detail-the sorrows and occasional joys of rural life in nineteenth-century America. From the front lines with the 70th Ohio and, later, as an officer commanding a unit of "colored troops," Samuel writes of the horrors of Shiloh, of the loneliness and fear of patrolling Union lines in Tennessee. Andrew writes of the seasons of rural life, of illness and deaths in the family, of the complicated politics of this borderland where abolitionists and "Copperhead" pro-slavery voices shared daily debates. One of the very few collections of Civil War letters from home front and front lines, this meticulously edited book is an engrossing chronicle of war and peace, family and country, and an indispensable addition to the history of the Civil War.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 03. Jan 2023)
Added Author Brooks, Corey M., editor.
Engs, Robert F., editor.
Series The North's Civil War
In Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
Fordham University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
Available in Other Form print 9780823227846
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Frontmatter
Contents
Acknowledgments
Editors' Note
Evans Family Tree
Introduction
Maps
''I Have Seen the Elephant'' February 1862-April 1862
''We Can Endure'' May 1862-April 1863
''The Duty Imposed Upon Us'' May 1863-November 1863
''Forced into a Responsible Position'' December 1863-November 1864
''I Am Ready for Them to Give Up'' January 1865-April 1865
''To Lay Aside All Prejudice''? May 1865-January 1866
Epilogue
Timeline
Bibliography
Index

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