Rev. David G. Young, born in New York in 1829 and orphaned as a young boy, today enlists in Company D, Eighty-first Regiment Illinois Infantry. During his service he spends time in Confederate prisons and falls victim to yellow fever. Yet he survives the war, in the post-war era serving for a number of years…
The Civil War years are a time of story-telling, corporately and personally. Soldiers and civilians on both sides oftentimes pass along personal stories that reinforce sectional pride and prejudices. The truth of such stories typically cannot be qualified, yet the stories themselves convey truths that transcend questions of factual accuracy. One of the tens of…
Readers of Southern newspapers this week learn of a seemingly harsh letter written by Union General Henry Halleck regarding the families of Confederate soldiers in the General’s jurisdiction West of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. In some of these western states, such as Missouri, many men are fighting for the Confederacy, although the remaining Confederates…