Thursday, November 15, 2007

From Blue Mills to Columbia: Cedar Falls and the Civil War

by Kenneth L. Lyftogt

From the publisher:
Historian Kenneth Lyftogt introduces us to the volunteer soldiers of the Pioneer Grays and Cedar Falls Reserves infantry companies and in turn examines Iowa’s role in the Civil War. Many of these soldiers served the Union for the duration of the war, from the early fighting in Missouri to Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Sherman’s destructive marches through Georgia and the Carolinas. Their letters home are Lyftogt’s primary sources, as are editorials and articles published in the Cedar Falls Gazette.

Kenneth Lyftogt is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Northern Iowa. He has walked all the major battlefields of the Civil War and participated in reenactments. He is editor of Left for Dixie and the author of Iowa's Forgotten General: Matthew Mark Trumbull and the Civil War (Iowa, 2007) and the novel Road Freaks of Trans-Amerika.