In this unique eye-witness account, Coffin draws on scores of soldiers' letters to relate how and why young recruits from isolated hill farms flocked to the Union colors in response to Lincoln's call in 1862. During the nine months leading up to their rendezvous with destiny at Gettysburg, they recorded, in humorous detail, foraging for food, and, in more sober terms, enduring homesickness, monotony, and often fatal diseases. We share, too, their anxieties as they are thrust suddenly into the most important infantry maneuver directed against the Confederate assault.
- ISBN10 0881504009
- ISBN13 9780881504002
- Publish Date 17 November 1997
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 7 July 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher WW Norton & Co
- Imprint Countryman Press Inc.
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English