Quiet Corner of the War

Regular price €26.50
Regular price €29.99 Sale Sale price €26.50
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
A01=Esther Claflin
A01=Gilbert Claflin
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Esther Claflin
Author_Gilbert Claflin
automatic-update
B01=Judy Cook
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BJ
Category=DND
Category=HBJK
Category=HBLL
Category=HBWJ
Category=NHK
Category=NHWF
Category=NHWR3
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Format=BB
Format_Hardback
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch

Product details

  • ISBN 9780299294809
  • Format: Hardback
  • Weight: 455g
  • Dimensions: 162 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 17 Feb 2014
  • Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns
In 2002, Judy Cook discovered a packet of letters written by her great-great-grandparents, Gilbert and Esther Claflin, during the American Civil War. An unexpected bounty, these letters from 1862–63 offer visceral witness to the war, recounting the trials of a family separated. Gilbert, an articulate and cheerful forty-year-old farmer, was drafted into the Union Army and served in the Thirty-Fourth Wisconsin Infantry garrisoned in western Kentucky along the Mississippi. Esther had married Gilbert when she was fifteen; now a woman with two teenage sons, she ran the family farm near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, in Gilbert’s absence.

In his letters, Gilbert writes about food, hygiene, rampant desertions by drafted men, rebel guerrilla raids, and pastimes in the daily life of a soldier. His comments on interactions with Confederate prisoners and ex-slaves before and after the Emancipation Proclamation reveal his personal views on monumental events. Esther shares in her letters the challenges and joys of maintaining the farm, accounts of their boys Elton and Price, concerns about finances and health, and news of their local community and extended family. Esther’s experiences provide insight into family, farm, and village life in the wartime North, an often overlooked aspect of Civil War history.

Judy Cook has made the letters accessible to a wider audience by providing historical context with notes and appendixes. The volume includes a foreword by Civil War historian Keith S. Bohannon.
Gilbert Elton Claflin (1822–79) was born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts.

Esther Patience Colby Claflin (1830–1900) was born in LeRoy, Ohio, and grew up in western New York State. In 1844, each moved to Wisconsin, where their families had bought adjacent forty-acre farms. Gilbert and Esther married in Oconomowoc in 1845.

Judy Cook tours universities and historical societies in the United States and United Kingdom, performing multimedia presentations based on the Claflin letters and songs of the Civil War era. Her CDs include If You Sing Songs, Far from the Lowlands, Tenting Tonight: Songs of the Civil War, and Lincoln’s America.

More from this author