Richard and Rhoda: Letters from the Civil War
- Author: Marion G. Phillips and Valerie Phillips Parsegian
- SKU: 1462
- ISBN:
- Our Price:
$24.95
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Description:
Ed by Marion G. Phillips and Valerie Phillips Parsegian. 128pp. 37 photos, maps, illus., and original documents. Hard cover. Frontispiece photo. Endpapers, dj. 8 1/2" x 11". 1981.
"The book is well edited and beautifully printed. In every respect it is one of the best editions of Civil War letters I have seen." - James M. McPherson, Princeton University Department of History.
In 1862 at the age of eighteen Richard Phillips enlisted in his regional upstate New York regiment, and went off to serve his country and his president in the cause for civil rights and the abolition of slavery. His correspondence with his family at their Naples, New York farm, and his girlfriend, Rhoda McConnell, describes his war experiences in sober, visual detail, sometimes shocking, occasionally humorous. His parents, sisters and Rhoda respond with news of home and the community as well as give a vivid picture of life on a farm during wartime with the only son away: no one to help with the harvest, the mother weaving incessantly to raise some necessary cash, the sisters battling sickness to get through their teacher training. Rhoda, his special girl, wrote him faithfully, since she missed him "awful bad." The result is a rich image of life in a small northern community during the Civil War.
This book is beautifully printed: the many photographs and maps which accompany the often moving letters bring this turbulent period in our nation's history vividly to life.
