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A thousand may fall : life, death, and survival in the Union Army / Brian Matthew Jordan.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation, A division of W. W. Norton & Company, [2021]Edition: First editionDescription: 360 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781631495144
  • 1631495143
Other title:
  • Life, death, and survival in the Union Army
Subject(s):
Contents:
"We feel it our duty" : August and September 1862 -- "To crush out the ... ungodly rebellion" : October to December 1862 -- "Stop all firing in the rear of us" : January to April 1863 -- "Completely and scientifically flanked" : April to May 1863 -- "Heaping upon us ... ignominy and shame" : May to July 1863 -- "All that mortal[s] could do" : July to August 1863 -- "We are not cowards" : August 1863 to February 1864 -- "So many hardships" : February 1864 to July 1865 -- "The feelings of a soldier" : July 1865 and beyond.
Summary: "From a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a pathbreaking history of the Civil War centered on a regiment of immigrants and their brutal experience of the conflict. Brian Matthew Jordan's Marching Home, a "powerful exploration" (Washington Post) of the fates of Union veterans, vaulted him into the first rank of Civil War historians. Now, in A Thousand May Fall, Jordan sends us trundling along dusty roads with the 107th Ohio, an ethnically German infantry regiment whose members battled nativism no less than Confederate rebels. The 107th was at once ordinary and exceptional: its ranks played central roles in two of the war's pivotal battles, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, even as language, identity, and popular perceptions of their loyalties set them apart. Drawing on many never-before-used sources, Jordan shows how, while enduring the horrible extremes of war, the men of the 107th Ohio contemplated the deeper meanings of the conflict-from personal questions of citizenship to the overriding matter of emancipation. A pioneering account from the view of the ordinary, immigrant soldier-200,000 native Germans fought for the Union, in total-A Thousand May Fall overturns many of our most basic assumptions about the bloodiest conflict in our history"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 973.7471 J82 Available 33111010451298
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Civil War ended more than 150 years ago, yet our nation remains fiercely divided over its enduring legacies. In A Thousand May Fall, Pulitzer Prize finalist Brian Matthew Jordan returns us to the war itself, bringing us closer than perhaps any prior historian to the chaos of battle and the trials of military life. Creating an intimate, absorbing chronicle from the ordinary soldier's perspective, he allows us to see the Civil War anew--and through unexpected eyes.

At the heart of Jordan's vital account is the 107th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which was at once representative and exceptional. Its ranks weathered the human ordeal of war in painstakingly routine ways, fighting in two defining battles, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, each time in the thick of the killing. But the men of the 107th were not lauded as heroes for their bravery and their suffering. Most of them were ethnic Germans, set apart by language and identity, and their loyalties were regularly questioned by a nativist Northern press. We so often assume that the Civil War was a uniquely American conflict, yet Jordan emphasizes the forgotten contributions made by immigrants to the Union cause. An incredible one quarter of the Union army was foreign born, he shows, with 200,000 native Germans alone fighting to save their adopted homeland and prove their patriotism.

In the course of its service, the 107th Ohio was decimated five times over, and although one of its members earned the Medal of Honor for his daring performance in a skirmish in South Carolina, few others achieved any lasting distinction. Reclaiming these men for posterity, Jordan reveals that even as they endured the horrible extremes of war, the Ohioans contemplated the deeper meanings of the conflict at every turn--from personal questions of citizenship and belonging to the overriding matter of slavery and emancipation.

Based on prodigious new research, including diaries, letters, and unpublished memoirs, A Thousand May Fall is a pioneering, revelatory history that restores the common man and the immigrant striver to the center of the Civil War. In our age of fractured politics and emboldened nativism, Jordan forces us to confront the wrenching human realities, and often-forgotten stakes, of the bloodiest episode in our nation's history.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-342) and index.

"We feel it our duty" : August and September 1862 -- "To crush out the ... ungodly rebellion" : October to December 1862 -- "Stop all firing in the rear of us" : January to April 1863 -- "Completely and scientifically flanked" : April to May 1863 -- "Heaping upon us ... ignominy and shame" : May to July 1863 -- "All that mortal[s] could do" : July to August 1863 -- "We are not cowards" : August 1863 to February 1864 -- "So many hardships" : February 1864 to July 1865 -- "The feelings of a soldier" : July 1865 and beyond.

"From a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a pathbreaking history of the Civil War centered on a regiment of immigrants and their brutal experience of the conflict. Brian Matthew Jordan's Marching Home, a "powerful exploration" (Washington Post) of the fates of Union veterans, vaulted him into the first rank of Civil War historians. Now, in A Thousand May Fall, Jordan sends us trundling along dusty roads with the 107th Ohio, an ethnically German infantry regiment whose members battled nativism no less than Confederate rebels. The 107th was at once ordinary and exceptional: its ranks played central roles in two of the war's pivotal battles, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, even as language, identity, and popular perceptions of their loyalties set them apart. Drawing on many never-before-used sources, Jordan shows how, while enduring the horrible extremes of war, the men of the 107th Ohio contemplated the deeper meanings of the conflict-from personal questions of citizenship to the overriding matter of emancipation. A pioneering account from the view of the ordinary, immigrant soldier-200,000 native Germans fought for the Union, in total-A Thousand May Fall overturns many of our most basic assumptions about the bloodiest conflict in our history"-- Provided by publisher.

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