A book of letters from a soldier in the Civil War. This soldier, Frank McGregor, was born in England and spent his childhood in Scotland. His parents settled in Ohio in the early 1850s. He entered the Union army in 1862. He served in the western theater of the war, spending time in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. He was writing to his 20 year old school teacher girlfriend. The author considers the letters "timeless, because in addition to capturing the spirit and mood of loneliness, camaraderie, boredom and anxiety that soldiers of every era have experienced, Frank raised questions that thousands of Americans asked themselves again in World Wars I and II and in the Korean War, and are asking themselves even more intensely today...whether war is futile or necessary; whether all the suffering is worth it."
