This is the never before told story of hundreds of Americans who went to war in defense of their beliefs, to seek adventure and to see some of the world beyond their rural Pennsylvania neighborhoods. Developed largely in the words of the soldiers of the 145th Pennsylvania Infantry, Common Men highlights some of the men's lives before the war and then carries the reader through trials and triumphs from enlistment, Jubilant send-off, action from Antietam through Gettysburg and casualty, Democracy and the Union are sustained through the actions of common men, men not always given the best of orders.

How did Civil War soldiers endure the brutal and unpredictable existence of army life during the conflict? This question is at the heart of Peter S. Carmichael's sweeping new study of men at war. Based on close examination of the letters and records left behind by individual soldiers from both the North and the South, Carmichael explores the totality of the Civil War experience--the marching, the fighting, the boredom, the idealism, the exhaustion, the punishments, and the frustrations of being away from families who often faced their own dire circumstances. Carmichael focuses not on what soldiers thought but rather how they thought. In doing so, he reveals how, to the shock of most men, well-established notions of duty or disobedience, morality or immorality, loyalty or disloyalty, and bravery or cowardice were blurred by war. Digging deeply into his soldiers' writing, Carmichael resists the idea that there was "a common soldier" but looks into their own words to find common threads in soldiers' experiences and ways of understanding what was happening around them. In the end, he argues that a pragmatic philosophy of soldiering emerged, guiding members of the rank and file as they struggled to live with the contradictory elements of their violent and volatile world. Soldiering in the Civil War, as Carmichael argues, was never a state of being but a process of becoming.

This is the rest of the story of the men of the 145th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, at least those who survived the clean-up at Antietam and the devastation at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Letters, diaries, service, pension and medical records from the Nationl Archives, reminiscences and historical texts merge to tell the men's stories in one of the most comprehensive regimental histories written. From casualty at Bristoe Station to the Bloody Angle to Cold Harbor and Petersburg, the reality of patriotism is enmeshed in disease, death and prisons the likes of Andersonville. The soldiers' successes contribute to saving the Union, freeing the enslaved and improving the blueprint for America's special destiny.

The shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews.

Explains the motivation of ordinary soldiers to enlist, serve and fight in the armies of eighteenth-century Europe.

Republicans and Democrats continue to fight with each other, but the truth is that neither side is really presenting Americans with solutions to their most pressing problems. One reason the so-called mainstream right and left cant understand the struggles of everyday people is that virtually all of them are far removed from regular life. A Common Mans View provides a fresh perspective from middle-class America in a bid to get the country back on the right track. Join a former US Marine Corps helicopter pilot who was deployed twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as he focuses on what being a hero means; where to find modern-day heroes; what is at stake in the War on Terror; what faith, attitude, and a little bit of perspective can do; and what to do to achieve individual and collective success. The common people do not have nannies to watch over their children, and they somehow balance their household budgets as the economy goes up and down. Discover what makes the United States great and play your part in reversing its decline by holding up old-fashioned, common values.

This moving collection of photographs is a t estimony to the common men who answered the call to arms, fo llowed their neighbours into uniform and fought the Civil Wa r. '