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Title details for A Thousand May Fall by Brian Matthew Jordan - Available

A Thousand May Fall

Life, Death, and Survival in the Union Army

by Brian Matthew Jordan
Christopher Douyard
Audiobook
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The Civil War ended more than 150 years ago, yet our nation remains fiercely divided over its enduring legacies. In A Thousand May Fall, Pulitzer Prize finalist Brian Matthew Jordan returns us to the war itself. Creating an intimate, absorbing chronicle from the ordinary soldier's perspective, he allows us to see the Civil War anew-and through unexpected eyes. At the heart of Jordan's vital account is the 107th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which was at once representative and exceptional. Its ranks weathered the human ordeal of war in painstakingly routine ways, fighting in two defining battles, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, each time in the thick of the killing. But the men of the 107th were not lauded as heroes. Most of them were ethnic Germans, set apart by language and identity, and their loyalties were regularly questioned by a nativist Northern press. In the course of its service, the 107th Ohio was decimated five times over, and although one of its members earned the Medal of Honor, few others achieved any lasting distinction. Reclaiming these men for posterity, Jordan reveals that even as they endured the horrible extremes of war, the Ohioans contemplated the deeper meanings of the conflict at every turn-from personal questions of citizenship and belonging to the overriding matter of slavery and emancipation.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 9, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781696603140
      • File size: 239512 KB
      • Duration: 08:18:58

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 23, 2020
      Historian Jordan (Marching Home) delivers a captivating chronicle of the 107th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during and after the Civil War. Composed mainly of German immigrants living in Ohio, the 107th was the target of Stonewall Jackson’s furious attack at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Two months later, the 107th was “thrashed” at the Battle of Gettysburg. For these two disastrous encounters, the regiment was vilified by the northern press. Jordan portrays Ohio as a hotbed of antiwar sentiment; details how one private in the 107th won the Medal of Honor; and recounts the lengths veterans went to in order to secure pensions and medical benefits for themselves and their loved ones. Annual reunions brought emotional relief to the 107th’s survivors, Jordan writes, and produced two regimental histories that served to fend off criticism of the Union Army’s ethnically German soldiers in the years after the war. Jordan profiles his characters with precision, revealing the deep emotional and physical scars they carried back from the conflict. This meticulous and engrossing history brings the Civil War to vivid life.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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