(above: promo material at the Illinois State Military Museum; image courtesy Bill Lear, ISMM)
BOOK NEWS
MOST RECENT Book Review here (as of August 2023)
UPCOMING Civil War Programs Appearance Schedule (BSE = Book Signing Event; PE = Presentation Event; V = Virtual option)
** 21 November 2024, BSE, PE; Abraham Lincoln Unitarian Universalist Congregation building, 745 Woodside Road, Springfield Illinois, 62711; starting at 6:30 pm; presentation title: “Surviving Vicksburg: An Illinois Soldier’s Evolution of Remembrance.” This is part of the Mr. Lincoln’s Hometown Civil War Round Table monthly meeting; visitors welcome. [Note: this is the week before Thanksgiving.]
** 3 October 2024, BSE, PE; Conference on Illinois History at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, 212 North Sixth Street, Springfield Illinois, 62701; starting at 8:30 am; presentation title: “Surviving Vicksburg: An Illinois Soldier’s Evolution of Remembrance.” SIU Press will have book tables, which will include my book. This is part of the 26th annual edition of the conference; registration is required. Here is a link to the conference schedule: https://presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/Resources/889c502a-62c7-41d1-bfc9-f13e1c50073d/2024-IL-History-Conference.pdf
** 1 July 2024, BSE, PE; Macoupin County Historical Society monthly meeting at the John Anderson mansion (Ruyle building), 920 W. Breckenridge St., Carlinville, Illinois, 62626; starts at 7:00 pm; presentation title: “Early Civil War Camp Butler and William Tecumseh Sherman: Separating Fact from Fiction.” This meeting is open to the public.
** 16 March 2024, BSE, PE; Illinois State Military Museum, 1301 N. MacArthur Blvd., Springfield, Illinois, 62702-2399; 2:00-3:30 pm; presentation title: “Early Civil War Camp Butler and William Tecumseh Sherman: Separating Fact from Fiction.” Free; visitors welcome. [Brief recap and images here.]
** 19 November 2023, BSE, PE; Girard Township Library, 201 West Madison Street, Girard, Illinois; 2:00-3:30 pm; presentation title: “From the Monticello Female Seminary Archives: The Civil War Letters of Captain David Norton to Mary Chapman.” This is part of the Macoupin County Civil War Round Table monthly meeting; visitors welcome.
** 17 October 2023, BSE, PE; John Wood Community College, Fine Arts Center, Room D24, 1301 South 48th Street, Quincy, Illinois; 7:00-8:00 pm; presentation title: “In Their Letters, in Their Words: Illinois Civil War Soldiers Write about U.S. Grant.” This is part of the Tri-States Civil War Round Table monthly meeting; visitors welcome.
** 6 October 2023, BSE, PE; Conference on Illinois History, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, 212 N. 6th Street, Springfield, Illinois; 10:15-11:45am, as part of a session titled “Nineteenth Century Illinois” (with my paper the first of four presenters); presentation title: “Through Sickness and Health: Illinois Civil War Soldier Charles A. Hobbs’s Medical Maladies, in His Own Words.” You must be registered for the conference to attend. Signed copies of the book will be available at the Southern Illinois University Press table in the vendors area at the conference.
Image from September 2022 presentation on U.S. Grant given at the current Illinois State Capitol Building (image courtesy Joe McMenamin)
[Other programs are pending; please keep watching this space.]
MOST RECENT PAST Civil War Programs (BSE = Book Signing Event; PE = Presentation Event; V = Virtual option)
** 10 June 2023, BSE, PE; Immanuel Hall historic site, 302 S. Grant Street, Hinsdale, Illinois; 2:00-3:30 pm; presentation title: “Managing Affairs from Afar: Illinois Civil War Soldiers’ Attempts to Stay Connected with Home.” This event was sponsored by the Hinsdale Historical Society. The public is invited; free event, but registration with HHS is required. (HHS website events page: here.) There currently are plans for me to give a different presentation at this same location in February 2024.
Katherine Korte Andrew (Hinsdale Historical Society) and I examine an HHS artifact: an envelope with a Confederate 10-cent stamp, at the 10 June 2023 book presentation (image courtesy HHS).
** 14 March 2023, BSE, PE, V; Illini Country Club, 1601 Illini Road, Springfield, Illinois; 11:30 am-1:15 pm; presentation title: “My Source of Pleasure Is Your Letters:” Illinois Civil War-Era Couples in Love. (This was part of the University of Illinois-Springfield’s “Lunch-and-Learn” series, sponsored by the UI-S Alumni SAGE Society and the Illinois State Historical Society. See here for more information.) THIS PROGRAM CAN BE VIEWED HERE.
As of March 2023, plans are currently in the works for the entire book to be read aloud as an ongoing podcast project with Southern Illinois University-Carbondale’s Blanket Fort Radio Theater. Each 20-25 minute podcast will feature a portion of the book, followed by a featured mini-biography of one of the soldiers heard in the episode. While production is well underway, the project has not yet been scheduled for appearance on the BFRT website. It may be as soon as late 2023 or, perhaps more likely, in 2024. Please stay tuned to this page for more details.
ABOUT THE BOOK . . .
Hello, I am Mark Flotow and author/editor of In Their Letters, in Their Words: Illinois Civil War Soldiers Write Home, published by Southern Illinois University Press.
This is not your ordinary Civil War history book. In fact, I wrote this book because I could not find another one like it, especially regarding Illinois soldiers. The book features what soldiers wrote regarding the war, politics, the military, the South, combat, and much more, all through their personal letters. The book is arranged topically, but secondarily it also goes through the war era and its evolution through the writings of those who experienced it.
If you enjoy reading about the Civil War, you will relish the soldiers’ intimate details of daily living and military experiences, as well as their wide-ranging opinions of the nature of the war, slavery, President Lincoln’s policies, state and national politics, and other subjects. In fact, there are few topics Illinois soldiers did not write about. It is as if each letter writer was asked “what is on your mind today, soldier, and what do you want to share about that with your family and friends at home?” Their stories and insights are refreshingly honest and often straight from the heart. And Civil War soldiers’ letters were not censored by the military (with prisoner-of-war mail being an exception).
If you have family, friends, or a significant other who are not Civil War enthusiasts, this book also is especially for them. The focus is not on the war per se, but how and why ordinary people responded in a variety of ways to extraordinary circumstances. It is about citizen soldiers’ lives during wartime. In essence, the book focuses much more on personal and social history than military and political history. However, by perusing the soldiers’ experiences shared in their letters, the reader will learn about the circumstances and history of the Civil War as a natural byproduct. I have included a concise Civil War timeline that also serves as an outline of the era’s events.
Need a little more information about the nature of the book? Then visit The Seven Secrets of the Book page here.
ABOUT THIS WEBSITE . . .
While first and foremost an informational and promotional vehicle, this website also is meant to be a source of fresh material and insights, particularly about the Illinois soldiers featured in the book. In a sense, the website allows the book to be more of a living document. The website is not a blog, nor does it have a dedicated page for visitors’ postings. That stated, I welcome anyone to write to me by going to the Contact Me page (with a link here) and provide comments, ideas about additional (new or old) information regarding the soldiers, possible corrections, and other interpretations of the content of the featured letter excerpts. There also are two Question of the Week pages (here) that were updated every Friday until mid-2022. However, please contact me if you have a question. I cannot guarantee that whatever you write will become part of the website or be included in its content. However, what you do send me I will assume I potentially could include on this site unless you explicitly state otherwise.
SCHEDULE AND APPEARANCES . . .
Please check out the details of my scheduled appearances here.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING . . .
Want to know more about the book? Please visit the other pages of this website.