The Civil War left no corner of the United States untouched, and Brockport--a small western New York town--was no exception. Brockport more than answered the call of duty, sending hundreds of its sons to battle. Brockporters were among the first to respond to Lincoln's initial call for volunteers, and the experiences of that company in the famous "Old 13th" are renowned. Another company led the charge that helped save Little Round Top before the climactic battle at Gettysburg, and still another played a key role in repulsing Pickett's charge. Meanwhile, the homefront was intensely involved in recruitment drives and providing aid to soldiers and their families. Local historian William G. Andrews retells the experiences of Brockport's regiments at war, as well as how life was affected at home. Discover the stories of bravery and endurance from Brockport during the Civil War.

With a new preface and updated historiographical essay. Based on recent scholarship and deep research in primary sources, especially the letters and diaries of “ordinary people,” The Northern Home Front during the Civil War is the first full narrative history and analysis of the northern home front in almost a quarter-century. It examines the mobilization, recruitment, management, politics, costs, and experience of war from the perspective of the home front, with special attention to the ways the war affected the ideas, identities, interests, and issues shaping people’s lives, and vice versa. The book looks closely at people’s responses to war’s demands, whether in supporting the Union cause or opposing it, and it measures the ways the war transformed society and economy or simply reconfirmed ideas and reinforced practices already underway. As The Northern Home Front during the Civil War reveals, issues and concerns of emancipation, conscription, civil liberties, economic policies and practices, religion, party politics, war management, popular culture, and work were all part of what Lincoln rightly termed “a People’s Contest” and as much as the armies in the field determined the outcome of the nation’s ordeal by fire. As The Northern Home Front during the Civil War shows, understanding the experience of the women and men on the home front is essential to realizing Walt Whitman’s oft-quoted call to get “the real war” into the books.

In the summer of 1936, fourteen-year-old Maxwell Breeze was playing in the waters of the Erie Canal in Brockport when a dog jumped into the canal and climbed his back, and the boy drowned. The owner of the dog was served notice to appear at a hearing, at which time a trial was set to determine if the dog should be put down. The unusual case captivated the nation as newspapers from coast to coast covered the story, Paramount Pictures dispatched "The Eyes and Ears of the World" to film the events and a media circus descended on the quiet village. During the trial, more than thirty witnesses were called, including a national expert brought in to evaluate the canine defendant, which journalists referred to as "the most talked-of dog on earth." Authors Bill Hullfish and Laurie Fortune Verbridge reveal the bizarre incident, trial and spectacle that came to Brockport.

Throughout the 20th century, Brockport residents and visitors shared their experiences, sending postcards of the town to friends and family. These postcards present the important places and events that made visitors come back year after year and made residents proud to call the town home. This book complements the author's pictorial history Around Brockport in Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series. Along with Brockport, the towns of Sweden, Clarkson, and Hamlin are included in this extraordinary collection of postcards. The vintage postcards in this volume span a century of the area's history, presenting a portrait of the streets, buildings, events, and disasters that impacted the time and preserving the memories of the past for future generations.

James McPherson’s classic book For Cause & Comrades explained “why men fought in the Civil War”—and spurred countless other historians to ask and attempt to answer the same question. But few have explored why men did not fight. That’s the question Paul Taylor answers in this groundbreaking Civil War history that examines the reasons why at least 60 percent of service-eligible men in the North chose not to serve and why, to some extent, their communities allowed them to do so. Did these other men not feel the same patriotic impulses as their fellow citizens who rushed to the enlistment office? Did they not believe in the sanctity of the Union? Was freeing men held in chains under chattel slavery not a righteous moral crusade? And why did some soldiers come to regret their enlistment and try to leave the military? ’Tis Not Our War answers these questions by focusing on the thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of average civilians and soldiers. Taylor digs deep into primary sources—newspapers, diaries, letters, archival manuscripts, military reports, and published memoirs—to paint a vivid and richly complex portrait of men who questioned military service in the Civil War and to show that the North was never as unified in support of the war as portrayed in much of America’s collective memory. This book adds to our understanding of the Civil War and the men who fought—and did not fight—in it.

"America Through Time is an imprint of Fonthill Media LLC ... Published by Arcadia Publishing by arrangement with Fonthill Media LLC"--Title page verso.