Böcker av Howard Coffin

On the Fourth of July, 1863, reporting on the aftermath of the Civil War's most crucial battle, the New York Times wrote: "A Vermont brigade held the key position at Gettysburg and did more than any other body of men to gain the triumph which decided the fate of the Union." The citizen soldiers led by General George J. Stannard helped stabilize the line, and then shattered the right flank of Pickett's famous charge just when the battle's outcome hung in the balance.Over a decade since its original release, Nine Months to Gettysburg is now available in paperback. 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. And in the nine months leading up to Gettysburg, they recorded, in extraordinary detail, foraging for food, enduring homesickness, monotony, and often fatal diseases. This book movingly captures their myriad anxieties as they are thrust suddenly into the most important infantry maneuver directed against the Confederate assault.

Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign from Brandy Station, VA, to Petersburg involved 100,000 men, 40-days, the battles of Second Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor, the Army of the Potomac, and a two-to-one casualty margin compared to the Confederates. Coffin weaves together stories of the participating military units, outlines the overall campaign, and gives voice to several hundred personalities on the battlefield and back home, primarily through diaries and letters. The family correspondence gives a glimpse into small-town Vermont life as well as life at the front.

Take a tour that follows the military movements through the Champlain Valley region and allows you to relive history.