For more than fifty years the journal Civil War History has presented the best original scholarship in the study of America’s greatest struggle. The Kent State University Press is pleased to present a multivolume series reintroducing the most influential of the more than 500 articles published in the journal. From military command, strategy, and tactics, to political leadership, abolitionism, the draft, and women’s issues, from the war’s causes to its aftermath and Reconstruction, Civil War History has published pioneering and provocative analyses of the determining aspects of the Middle Period.

Private Silas W. Haven, a native New Englander transplanted to Iowa, enlisted in 1862 to fight in a war that he believed was God’s punishment for the sin of slavery. Only through the war’s purifying bloodshed, thought Haven, could the nation be redeemed and the Union saved. Marching off to war with the 27th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, Haven left behind his wife Jane and their three young children. Over the course of four years, he wrote her nearly two hundred letters, collected here for the first time.

“Feel the Bonds That Draw” presents nearly 200 images from the extensive Civil War photographic collections of Cleveland’s Western Reserve Historical Society, complementing author Christine Dee’s reflections on topics such as historical memory, the war as economic engine, and the impact of mobilization and combat on civilians and the environment. “Feel the Bonds That Draw” is a fine addition to the library of anyone interested in the history of America’s cruelest conflict.

The Battle of Antietam, fought in Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 7, 1862, was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, with 23,000 casualties on both sides. While the battle was tactically inconclusive, it resulted in two significant milestones. First, because Robert E. Lee failed to carry the war successfully into the North, Great Britain was dissuaded from recognizing the Confederate States of America diplomatically. Second, the battle gave President Abraham Lincoln the confidence to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Written at the behest of his former comrades in the 105th Ohio, The Story of a Thousand draws on Tourgée’s own wartime papers, as well as diaries, letters, and recollections of other veterans, to detail the remarkable story of the regiment during its campaigns in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Sherman’s March to the Sea. Tourgée concentrates on the lives and experiences of the enlisted soldiers, describing the backgrounds of the men and how they rallied around the Union flag as citizen soldiers and also on discussions about the role of slavery as the impetus of the war. Tourgée’s concern for the common soldier prefigures the scholarship of twentieth-century historians, such as Bell Irvin Wiley, who devoted attention to the men in the ranks rather than the generals and politicians in charge.

“They Have Left Us Here to Die” is an edited and annotated version of the diary Sergeant Adair kept of his seven months as a prisoner of war. The diary provides vivid descriptions of each of the five camps as well as insightful observations about the culture of captivity. Adair notes with disdain the decision of some Union prisoners to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy in exchange for their freedom and covers the mock presidential election of 1864 held at Camp Lawton, where he and his fellow inmates were forced to cast votes for either Lincoln or McClellan. But most significantly, Adair reflects on the breakdown of the prisoner exchange system between the North and South, especially the roles played by the Lincoln administration and the Northern home front. As a white soldier serving with African Americans, Adair also makes revealing observations about the influence of race on the experience of captivity.

Eric J. Wittenberg presents many of this newspaperman’s captivating writings in their original form. Kidd wrote eloquently about his Civil War experiences, especially his service with Custer. His speech given at the dedication of the Custer monument in Monroe, Michigan is particularly important, as it provides readers with one of the first revisionist views of the tragedy that befell Custer at Little Big Horn. Much like Wittenberg’s first book of Kidd’s writings, this latest collection offers insightful, articulate, and entertaining commentary on what it was like to serve in the Civil War and with “the boy general.”

Primarily known for his postwar exploits, most famously his 1876 defeat at Little Big Horn, George Armstrong Custer is receiving renewed interest for his successful Civil War generalship. He led the Michigan Cavalry Brigade in more than sixty battles and skirmishes. Forming perhaps the finest single cavalry brigade in the war, these horse soldiers repeatedly proved themselves as formidable opponents to the Confederates, earning them the nickname of “Custer’s Wolverines.”

Told in his own words, this is the story of Sgt. Thomas W. Smith’s service in the Civil War—the greatest adventure of his life. It is also the story of his regiment, the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, known as Rush’s Lancers, named both for the distinctive wooden lances they carried for the first two years of the war and for their first commanding officer, Col. Richard H. Rush. These letters provide rare insight into the workings and daily life of a noncommissioned officer. They are filled with humor and humanity and demonstrate the hardships withstood by the common soldier of the Civil War. The added narrative and annotations assist the reader in identifying the persons and events described and in placing them in the proper historical perspective and context.

Three related themes are examined in this fascinating study: the social dynamics of race relations in Union Army camps, the relationship that evolved between Southern and Northern black soldiers, and the role off-duty activities played in helping the soldiers meet the demands of military service and the challenges of freedom. By vividly portraying the soldiers’ camp life and by carefully analyzing their collective memory, the author sets the camp experience in the broader context of social and political change.