There it is: my new book, A Union Tested, is out in the world. I hadn’t expected it for a few more weeks, but now that it’s arrived, here’s a quick intro and plug for anyone who’s teaching about loyalty, gender, marriage, illness, and the border West during the Civil War. #booksky #skystorians 🧵 - ThreadSky

jeremyneely.bsky.social • 102 days ago

There it is: my new book, A Union Tested, is out in the world. I hadn’t expected it for a few more weeks, but now that it’s arrived, here’s a quick intro and plug for anyone who’s teaching about loyalty, gender, marriage, illness, and the border West during the Civil War. #booksky #skystorians

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matthewmu.bsky.social•101 days ago

I got you. https://bsky.app/profile/matthewmu.bsky.social/post/3kzaj56buuc2h

jeremyneely.bsky.social•101 days ago

My dude. I owe you a beer. And pickles.

justcallmemimi.bsky.social•101 days ago

Congratulations! Looks very interesting.

jeremyneely.bsky.social•102 days ago

I stumbled across the 400-plus wartime letters that Lucy and Henry Fike exchanged while I was researching a book on Reconstruction in Missouri. The State Historical Society of MO has Henry’s diary, which he started in 1851 and kept until his death…in 1919. I wondered if more stuff was out there.

jeremyneely.bsky.social•102 days ago

I later found his Civil War letters, which are over at the University of Kansas. (A family’s papers divided between Mizzou and KU. Somebody oughta write a book on that sort of thing.)

https://upress.missouri.edu/9780826219640/the-border-between-them/

jeremyneely.bsky.social•102 days ago

Anyway, the letters were better than the diary. Henry was a fine writer and showed a keen eye for detail as his regiment, the 117th Illinois, moved across the trans-Appalachian West. As regimental quartermaster, he reveals a lot about the workings of the Union Army’s logistics machine.

jeremyneely.bsky.social•102 days ago

Lucy, however, quickly emerged as the real story in this collection. Her evolution as a writer was something to behold. Her first replies were a few sentences long, but within a year she was cranking out 12-page letters. We see in her example how the Civil War became a kind of hands-on classroom.

jeremyneely.bsky.social•102 days ago

Over the next few weeks I’ll highlight some of the strengths that make this collection fascinating, but today I’ll focus on my favorite theme—the way that she gave hell to the Copperheads and antiwar neighbors in Mascoutah, the Illinois town where they lived, just across the river from St. Louis.

jeremyneely.bsky.social•102 days ago

Even though Illinois was a solidly Union state—and home of the President of the United States—there were a substantial number of Confederate sympathizers in Mascoutah and especially in the conservative Little Egypt counties to its south.

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