Between Home and the Front (eBook)

Civil War Letters of the Walters Family

Lynn Heidelbaugh, Thomas Paone (Herausgeber)

Smithsonian National Postal Museum (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2022
230 Seiten
Indiana University Press (Verlag)
978-0-253-06298-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Between Home and the Front offers not only a unique first-person account from those that experienced the Civil War but an annotation in meticulous detail to provide valuable historical context for the events, people, and material culture described in the letters.

-Selections of transcribed letter between family members, held at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.

-Usually only the "letters home" survive, but Between Home and the Front features both sides of the correspondence.

-Offers a first person account of this important period in US history.

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The personal letters of Americans during the Civil War preserve first-person records of news, people, and emotions that humanize the horrific events of the war and provide unique insights into the conflict's effects on individuals, families, communities, and America. Often, however, only the letters sent home survived, leaving half of the story missing. Between Home and the Front presents previously unpublished letters from the Walters family's collection held by the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, which include the exchange of correspondence between the home front and front line, a perspective not often seen.

Between Home and the Front gives us a glimpse into the poignant questions, answers, and sentiments Private David Walters of the 5th Indiana Calvary and his wife Rachel shared in their correspondence. The letters from David give details about some of the lesser-known actions of the western theater of combat, such as Morgan's Raid. The letters by Rachel Walters record how she managed the household and a young child while becoming hub of communication for the family, often receiving missives from David's brothers, Isaac and John Wesley, both of whom served with Indiana units, and relaying the information to others. From the early letters describing a Civil War soldier's enlistment to his widow's struggle in the aftermath of the war, the letters of the Walters family add incomparable details to the study of the Civil War.

Between Home and the Front offers not only unique first-person accounts from those that experienced the Civil War but also meticulous annotations that provide valuable historical context for the events, people, and material culture described in the letters.

Autor

Lynn Heidelbaugh, curator at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, specializes in the history of the US Postal Service. She has published essays and created several exhibitions about military mail, including "Letters Home" in Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection, and the exhibition My Fellow Soldiers: Letters from World War I, for which she received a Smithsonian Secretary's Award for Research in 2018.

Thomas Paone curates the lighter-than-air collection, including balloons, blimps, and airships, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Paone's research focuses on ballooning in the Civil War, as well as the use of airships and blimps in America. He is coauthor of Milestones of Flight: The Epic of Aviation with the National Air and Space Museum.

Inhalt

Family Trees
Maps
Acknowledgments
About the Letters
1. Introduction
2. 1861–1862
3. 1863
4. 1864
5. 1865 and Post-War Years
Epilogue
Afterword
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.9.2022
• Zusatzinfo: 27 b&w illus., 3 maps, 2 charts
• Verlagsort: Bloomington
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Briefe / Tagebücher
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
• Schlagworte: 20th Indiana Infantry • 46th Indiana Infantry • 5th Indiana Cavalry • Cass County • Clara Barton • Indiana • military mail • Missing Soldiers Office • Morgan's Raid • Petersburg • Prisoners of war • Pulaski County • soldiers • War correspondence
• ISBN-10: 0-253-06298-5 / 0253062985
• ISBN-13: 978-0-253-06298-7 / 9780253062987