Jennifer Cain Bohrnstedt, ed., While Father is Away: Civil War Letters of William H. Bradbury Signed

Description

Jennifer Cain Bohrnstedt and Kassandra Chaney compiled and edited While Father is Away, and gave us an unusual picture of an Illinois soldier in the field who focused his writing largely on the lives and fortunes of his loved ones at home.

While Bradbury does describe life in the army from the point of view of a headquarters clerk this collection is quite valuable for the real-time portrayal of his efforts with his wife, Mary, to maintain their home affairs and play a role in the lives of his children. Also included are letters that Bradbury wrote to newspapers for publication. His voluminous letter to the Manchester Guardian, in the U.K., is of great value in describing the city of Nashville on the day after Lincoln’s assassination. He describes with gratification the wrath of military authorities against secessionists as a “reign of terror.”

Excellent; dust jacket. Signed bookplate pasted in.

Bohrnstedt, Jennifer Cain, editor & Chaney, Kassandra R., compiler. While Father is Away: The Civil War Letters of William H. Bradbury. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. 1st edition, 386p., frontispiece, illustrations, dust jacket.