In their own words: NH’s Civil War soldiers

From Nashua Telegraph: In their own words: NH’s Civil War soldiers 

“New Hampshire and the Civil War: Voices from the Granite State” by Bruce D. Heald, Ph.D.; The History Press; paperback; 128 pages; $19.99.

These days, it seems that interest in the Civil War is at an all-time high, as increasing numbers of people try to reconnect to the roots of their own family histories and to grasp a greater understanding of one of the bloodiest conflicts in our nation’s history.

It was a war that tore the country in half, and one that took many long years after it mercifully ended in 1865 for America’s wounds and deep divisions to finally heal.

The bitter conflict literally pitted brother against brother and nearly destroyed the United States of America during a critical period in its history when it was still a young nation seeking to find its place in the world.

It was also a war that gave rise to one of our greatest political figures; Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president.

In his latest book, “New Hampshire and the Civil War: Voices from the Granite State,” Dr. Bruce Heald, a professor of American military history at Plymouth State University, reaches across time, takes readers by the hand and leads them through the murky pages of history. And he does this in a mere 128 pages by capturing the words and photographic images of New Hampshire’s soldiers who wore the blue of the Grand Army of the Republic – The Union.

For a good many of us who look back at the Civil War from this time and this place, it’s often the misty images of the Confederacy that seem to fill our mind’s eye, for there is a timeless and dreamy mystique that still hangs over the old romantic South. The port city of Charleston, S.C., gallant military figures such as Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, are the stuff of distant dreams, the stuff that movies are made of.

It’s fair to say that just as many people today aren’t aware of the fact that New Hampshire, this most Northern and Yankee of states, played its own unique role in the war, supplying 10,657 recruits for the infantry, cavalry and field artillery divisions in 1861. The majority of these first recruits enlisted for three years of service to the Union cause.

In his book, Heald makes it possible for these long-ago soldiers from the Granite State to tell their story to us in their own words by weaving together a collection of their letters to those they left behind – the families in Nashua and Portsmouth and sweethearts in Concord and Manchester.

A wonderful tapestry of artist renderings, photographs and personal letters from the camps and battlefields draws in readers in a way that fosters a wonderful and intimate connection to New Hampshire’s contribution to the War Between the States through the voices of its heroic sons.

Through a series of brief introductions to each volunteer regiment, accounts of scores of personal letters and a fascinating look at camp life, vivid images emerge shedding new light on the wartime experiences of New Hampshire soldiers. 

In these modern times, the Civil War is so remote in our collective conscience that much of it has been hidden and lost behind the gauzy veil of time. Taking this into consideration, one of the interesting aspects found in reading this book is the way in which the author deftly weaves together a blend of traditional military history as well as a social and cultural study of New Hampshire’s warriors.

Reading their letters home to loved ones, one comes away with the strong sense of how the horror of war transcends the bonds of time. The fears, frustrations, loneliness and war-weariness of these young Civil War soldiers comes across every bit as real, and as palpable, as the emails that today’s soldiers send home to their loved ones from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the final analysis, the only thing that seems to separate the New Hampshire soldiers of today from their ancestors who fought in the Civil War 150 years ago is the time itself.

This book has a great deal to offer to anyone who’s interested in the Civil War, and especially to those people from New Hampshire who seek to know more about the contributions their ancestors made in fighting to hold the nation together in its darkest hour.

Many young soldiers from the Granite State served and sacrificed in that war that now lives only in the pages of history books, and this insightful modern-day study from a scholar provides a wonderful opportunity to reach back and get to know them better from across an enormous chasm of time.