<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: superb
Review: Many hard hours have been put into this book. First the letters had to be transcribed from a handwriting to a typed print. You feel everything from this aspect...especially when you know lineage. The reader appreciates the finest detail. A movie could come from these letters so easily...this was the time!
Rating: 
Summary: Great letters but lackluster editing
Review: The letters included in this collection are noteworthy for their content and relative completeness. Rarely does one get to read both sides of a Civil War correspondance. Usually letters from home were lost or destroyed during troop movements and only the soldier's letters remain. Grant Taylor, however, managed to hold on to many of his wife's letters and the perspective this gives on the dynamics between husband and wife is fascinating. Anyone who doubts the impact of homefront hardships on the frontline soldier need only follow Grant Taylor's growing frustration as he slips from uneasy acceptance of his military service in 1862 to depressed introspection and resignation toward his own death in 1865. Editorially, this book suffers from a military slant that avoids discussing the very things that make these letter important: the soldier's concern for family and home and the impact that concern had on his mental and emotional condition. Footnoting is haphazard at best and wavers between military history and endlessly repetitive genealogy. I can appreciate the work that went into identifying each person mentioned either by given or nicknames, but by page 30 we are already familiar with who the cousins and brothers are and don't need to be reminded. Read the book for its appeal as a primary source but skip the notes.
Rating:
Summary: Great letters but lackluster editing
Review: The letters included in this collection are noteworthy for their content and relative completeness. Rarely does one get to read both sides of a Civil War correspondance. Usually letters from home were lost or destroyed during troop movements and only the soldier's letters remain. Grant Taylor, however, managed to hold on to many of his wife's letters and the perspective this gives on the dynamics between husband and wife is fascinating. Anyone who doubts the impact of homefront hardships on the frontline soldier need only follow Grant Taylor's growing frustration as he slips from uneasy acceptance of his military service in 1862 to depressed introspection and resignation toward his own death in 1865. Editorially, this book suffers from a military slant that avoids discussing the very things that make these letter important: the soldier's concern for family and home and the impact that concern had on his mental and emotional condition. Footnoting is haphazard at best and wavers between military history and endlessly repetitive genealogy. I can appreciate the work that went into identifying each person mentioned either by given or nicknames, but by page 30 we are already familiar with who the cousins and brothers are and don't need to be reminded. Read the book for its appeal as a primary source but skip the notes.
Rating:
Summary: Two views of the Civil War told personally
Review: This book is a collection of 160 letters between soldier-husband and homefront-wife from 1862-1865. The remarkable quality about this collection is the interaction between Grant relating his military experiences and Malinda keeping him informed about their children, the farm, and friends and relatives in their community. Very readable book!
<< 1 >>
| 
