3. 'A bonnie little lass'

My grandfather, Evert F. Nordstrom, selling war bonds.

The previous post in this series consists of two letters written the day Elizabeth Jeanette (Bonnie) Pride was born. During the war Bonnie became a talisman for the family. My father, Charles M. Pride, and my mother’s two brothers, Joe and Carl Nordstrom, all went to war in 1944. Bonnie was the daughter my father could not hold; she was the baby daughter of Carl and Joe’s kid sister, the first Nordstrom child of her generation and the third Pride (my Uncle Bob and Aunt Jean had twins born in 1934, Don and Ron). In a personal sense, Bonnie represented the future for which the boys were fighting the war.

But as will be seen here and in future posts, the family letters also disclose class differences between the Prides and the Nordstroms. My dad’s father, Royal D. Pride, had lost his job during the Depression and become downhearted. By 1943 he was a quiet man who disliked the menial jobs he could get. By contrast, Evert F. Nordstrom, my mother’s father, was a successful businessman in his late 40s and an active figure in the campaign to sell war bonds. In 1940 he had built a large house in Fairfield, where my mother and Bonnie lived with him and his wife, Frieda.

Here are two letters written to my dad, who was stationed in Oregon, shortly after Bonnie’s birth. The first is by Frieda, his mother-in-law, the second by his father, Royal.

Evert and Frieda Nordstrom flank their daughter Bernadine (my mother) on her wedding day, Sept. 2, in 1940. She was 19.

                                                           Saturday [Sept. 25, 1943] Bridgeport

Dear Charlie,

You may appreciate a few lines from me too. I’m afraid it will only be a few tho. This has been a busy week. Now I’m cooking and baking to be ready for the callers tomorrow. They may all come here as they are prevented from coming to the hospital. I know things will taste good to Bernadine. There is no time in a womans life when things taste so good as after having a baby.

I dont know just what condition she will be in. The doctor said she could come home tomorrow only because she is assured of care here. Premature babies dont make the easiest kind of births. But she will be alright. The reason the baby isnt gaining is because it was early, the doctor said. Once it gets started she will also be fine, Im sure. Ive had considerable experience with premature babies, and I’m not at all afraid . 

Bernadine seems worried about the baby tho, which is natural. They make a little more work, and you have to be very careful of them when they are early, thats all

Dont you worry about anything. She will be a bonnie little lass when you come home.

After I see her Ill write you again and try to describe her. Mean while we will take pictures, if I know grandpappies.

   

                                                                                   Love

                                                                                   Mother

And here is the letter to Charlie from his dad, Roy:

                                                                                   Bridgeport, Conn. 

                                                                                   Sept. 29, 1943

Dear Son,

Received your letter Friday and was going to answer Sun but thought I would wait until I saw your daughter. That hospital was tough and Berns Mom & Pop was the only ones who got to see her all last week, they are short of help up there and don’t want visitor.

Bern came home Sunday and Bob [Charlie’s older brother] came down Tue afternoon and took me up to see them. Well Bern is fine and the Baby is a beaut, rather tiny with long legs and perfect small hands and quite dark hair. Bern wanted to know how she could get fat when you pour her dinner in one end and it comes right out the other, but I guess Bedelia will do all right with all the attention she gets. Mother has not seen her yet. She went to N.Y. Sunday a.m. to her convention and will not be home until Thur, but she went to see Bern several times last week.

This is Wed morn, 8:00 a.m., just got home from work. Back on a twelve hour shift and feel like a zombie. Got a new job now as boss of filing on receivers and have a gang of women filers and they are an awful headach. If I don’t get eight hours soon will chuck the whole thing overboard and take a month off to catch up on some sleep. Well I don’t feel too ambitious right now so will try the bed in about five mins.

You have a great wife and fine daughter and at last we have a girl in the family so you do your job out there and later you will be glad that she will be proud of her Dad.

There are some other things to write about but am crossing my D’s now for T’s so will write again soon.

     

                                                                                   Love

                                                                                   Mother & Dad

Next: A letter from a passing acquaintance.      

2. 'We decided she was satisfactory. You would too.'

My mom with Bonnie (Elizabeth Jeanette Pride). probably in the spring of 1944. 

In the last post, my pregnant mother joked about what a stir it would cause if she had her baby in church, where her mother was playing the organ. She never made it to church. When she went to bed Saturday night after writing my dad, an Army lieutenant stationed in Oregon, she was nearly three weeks from her due date. She felt ill at midnight and woke her Aunt Lenny Johnson, who was also living at 147 Davis Road in Bridgeport, Conn.

Let’s hear what happened next, first from Lenny and then from my mother’s father, Evert. F. Nordstrom. On Sept. 19, both wrote to my dad, a cavalry lieutenant stationed in Oregon, to give him the news. Dad’s brother, Bob, the delinquent letter-writer mentioned in the last post, sent a telegram.

Lenny first:

                                        Bridgeport, Conn., Sep 19 – 43 (Red Letter Day)

Daddy

Dear Cholly,

I can’t think of anything but that song and you,

In my arms, in my arms

When will I ever get a girlfriend in my arms.

Now you have two.

Well this has surely been a hectic day. Your little girl Bride of three years made the first allarm a little after midnight, and said I don’t feel good. Oh, I wish I knew more about getting babies. My advice did on regester very well and she was reluctant to call Daddy & Mommy for Mommy was to play communion service in the morning, but I said nothing doing she can get someone else to play, so off she trotted and called Daddy [and said] I have to go to the hospital. What he said that must be a false allarm. That kept her a while but at 4 they called the Dr. and he advised to give her 3 aspirin. Well, it ended up at 4:30 the little mother to be marched off to St. Vincents. They seemed to be in a cloud, all of them. Bernadine said right after she woke, if Charlie had been here he would have had me at hospital double quick. Yes I said even in a wheel barrow if he could not have come over anything else.

Evert called the hospital before starting for church and they said no change, so off to church we went, and right after the offering the telephone rang and the janitor came, and called Evert. That was Bob’s [my dad's brother's house]  they had called here and then called there. It was laughable to hear the new Grandpappy say how the whole choir looked at him and asked what it was and he whispered a girl but the new grandmommy it did not make any effect on whatsoever. He said he had to very near poke her in the ribs before she caught on. I had seen nothing, so all at once I heard 2 grand thumps on the organ as I said to myself all is up, she is going to fall down on her job but on she went to the finish, so on our way hime we went to St. Vincents so they two gained addmittance but me I was not big enough only the new Daddy and Grandparents can go once a day.

When they came out they notified me they had seen both Mother & child, a 5 & 3 ounce bit of humanity. Must not have been very good looking at that for Frieda said has it been hurt. No said the nurse., she only need a good bath so she will turn out allright, a little redskin turns out all the whiter. I could not help to but think of the twins they said if it is a girl throw here in the ashcan. Frieda said she won’t go to church next Sunday she is going to bathe that baby well said Evert I’m going to stay home and help you, for they said her Mommy will want to do it afterward.

They went off to hospital tonight and was to take your Mother with them so will wait and let you in on the news. Just came back and they said all is well so maybe you will get your every day letter from your little wife soon again. Your Daddy was working, they said.

Had a card from Del he is E.M.’s in the Navy stationed in Williamsburg, Va.

I will sign off have wanted to write you for some time and I know you will like it at this time to hear.

                                                                

                                                                          Love, Len

. .

My grandfather Evert, standing and laughing here, was a confident, happy-go-lucky family man.

And now from Evert F. Nordstrom, my mother's dad:

                                                                                Sunday Sept. 19, 1943

Dear Charlie: — Congratulations! Your daughter weighing 5 lbs 3 oz arrived at 10:13 this morning. And we have seen her. And she’s swell and lovely and Bern is fine. Bern became sick right after she went to bed last nite. She called us about 12:30 this morning. We stalled around as long as we could and brought her up to the hospital at 3:30 a.m. There we left her. At nine o’clock, I telephoned the hospital but there was no report at that time. So, since Frieda had to play in church today and there was no way to do anything for Bern anyway, we went to church. In the middle of the service, the janitor came and got me saying I was wanted on the phone. It was Jean [Bob's wife; Mom and Dad's sister-in-law] . Since nobody was home at our house, the hospital had phoned your mother and she (Jean) then called me at the church.

So, as soon as the service was over, we went up to the hospital. There, I had a heart to heart talk with the sister on duty and the upshot of it was, we were permitted to go up and see Bern. We found her sleepy and still a little dopey from the anesthesia but otherwise cheerful and happy. Also – she was hungry – and I don’t know of a more healthful sign!

Then I talked to the nurse on the floor and the upshot of that was that we got a preview of the baby. She’s little! She’s fat! She has a double chin! Sge was dirty! (They hadn’t washed her there) She was red! She has head hair! I don’t know about the color of her eyes. Guess she didn’t want to spoil her entrance into the world by looking at me. She waved her arms, clenched her little fist – opened up and then had a most prodigious and toothless yawn for herself. So we decided she was satisfactory. I’m sure you would too. No other visitors may see her now. The rules are that the baby will be shown to the father just once during the week it is in the hospital. And I guess we usurped your place in that.

Bern has a corner room which she shares with another girl. So as soon as she gets rested and something to eat, I’m sure she will be quite content there. The only visitors she can have – aside from you – are the grandparents. She can have only two at a time and only between 7 & 8 p.m. So we are going up there tonite. I’m going to bring your mother up tomorrow nite. She couldn’t go tonite because it would be at a time when your father was going to work and she had not made the proper arrangements to be away then. Anyway I suspect Bern will be a little more presentable tomorrow nite.

However, you can be sure that both your wife and your daughter are ok and I’m sure Bern will have time to write you from the hospital during her stay there.

I think the matter of coming 2½ weeks early is simply a matter of miscalculation or error in arithmetic. Bern didn’t slip or fall or do anything yesterday that would bring it on. It was all as normal as could be.

So – that’s the news up to the minute. Love from us.

                                                                                        Pop

                                                                  Or should it be Grandpappy Nordstrom.

(On the envelope) 6:15 p.m. – Jean just phoned & said your mother would go up with us tonite. Swell.

(And this note from Bern in shaky hand) Hi ya honey. How does it feel to be a Papa?

Next:: 'A bonnie little lass'

1. We’re losing a lot of men. It all seems so useless'

A drawing of my dad done at Fort Riley, Kans., on Dec. 12, 1942.

Shortly before my father died in 2007, he gave me many letters he wrote and received during and after World War II. Recently I found a dozen more family letters written between 1943 and the early 1950s. The letters tell an interesting story, heartbreaking at times, and while it is a story personal to me, others may appreciate it, too.

I already shared one post – “Somewhere in New Guinea” – about a poem my father co-authored while serving in the Pacific during World War II, and readership was high. All the writers of these letters are dead, but I will provide some context where it might be useful. 

My father, Charlie Pride of Bridgeport, Conn., was a few days short of 26 years old when he joined the army on Jan. 14, 1943. He had worked before that as a men's clothing salesman in a department store, a salesman for a Ford-Mercury dealer and a toll-collector. The day he joined happened to be the 22nd birthday of his wife, Bernadine, the daughter of Evert and Frieda Nordstrom, who had recently built a large house in Fairfield.

My grandfather, Evert F. Nordstrom (right), sold refrigeration  equipment. 

Dad was a high school dropout who, as the letters disclose, considered himself and his family inferior to the Nordstroms. Evert Nordstrom, known as Nordy, was a successful salesman, an expert in refrigeration, a community leader and a church choir director. He had written a book about refrigeration technology. His wife Frieda was the church organist, a graduate of the New England Conservatory. Their two sons (my uncles) were on the way to careers as college professors, although the war interrupted their journeys.

My dad trained at Fort Knox, Ky., and went to Cavalry Officers Candidate School at Fort Riley, Kans, He was a good rider and thought of the cavalry in the original sense as soldiers on horseback, but by the time he joined the First Cavalry as a second lieutenant, the horses were history.

Mom managed to spend some time with dad at Fort Riley, but she lived mainly with her parents during the war, as did her Aunt Lenny. She wrote to my dad nearly every day they were apart. He did not keep all her letters, but he kept some.

We begin our look at their story with two letters she wrote to him on Sept. 17-18, 1943, a Friday and a Saturday. At the time he was across the country as a member of Troop F, 104th Cavalry.in Salem, Ore.

                                                         Friday Sept. 17, 1943

                                                         3 weeks from today [a reference to her due date]

Dear Charlie –

I can’t be using my good stationery on you so I bought this at the 5&10 – Poor neglected little boy. You don’t care as long as I write, do you? – I don’t know why I shouldn’t use good stationery – you’re better than everybody else – Boy, I won’t be able to touch you.

We had a blackout tonight – It lasted about a half hour – Very exciting – Helmer was here for supper so also got caught here – We had just finished doing the dishes so we can’t complain –

Of course dear little Bernadine ate bananas tonight and has a tummy ache – I thought when you were pregnant your whole system changes and you can do things you never could before. I still can’t eat bananas – I’ll learn tho – not to eat them.

I didn’t know you skipped the night of the alert cause I got a letter today anyway. I didn’t understand half of what you wrote about the alert – It must have been quite an experience tho – something different – It’s too bad some of the boys got hurt – I just read your letter to Dad so now I know what you’re talking about – I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what a “ford” was – He did – Why don’t you tell me these things –

Gee, from the sound of it Capt. and Charlie are hitting it off fine – I hope you continue to do so and also hope he’s nothing like Putt Putt – In personal matters I mean – I know – none of my business –

Why didn’t you let your men drive? You’re going to get yourself in real trouble one of these days and then you won’t act so smart – I have to bawl you out once in a while – I can’t be so sweet to you all of the time –

It’s blowing out right now – I guess it’s pretty cold out – The wind blowing reminds me of Kansas – I’ll still take Kansas even though we didn’t like it there –

Mother bought a dress today and I bought a pair of shoes – Remember the ones Jean had without toes and heels and I said I liked them –

I called Ethel today – She’s fine – Poor Kay, she feels lousy – She’s changed doctors so maybe he can help her – She said he seemed to take a personal interest in her instead of this matter of fact stuff – I sure hope he can help her – She mentioned how Normie had a toy gun and one day tried to balance a penny on the gun and she asked where he saw that and he said – Remember the soldiers at Auntie Ethel’s who did that – Boy, I don’t even remember your doing that. In fact I’ve never seen you do it –

Pappy, can you buy me some bonds this month? It’s the 3^rd war loan you know and it’s money saved – Next month I’ll buy one for the baby –

Gee, I’m getting scared – 3 more weeks – I’m getting fidgety – I’m not really scared – I guess just anxious – I feel the same way as I do when I go to the dentist’s office –

Del is in the “Seabees” stationed at Williamsburg, Virginia – I wish he’d given me that negative – now I’ll probably never see it –

The news is pretty good but gee they must be doing some awful fighting and I know we’re losing a lot of men – It all seems so useless –

Good night, pappy – I love you very much – Take care.

Lots of hugs and kisses

Always from me –

                                                                              Saturday

                                                                                          September 18, 1943

Hi ya honey child –

They are playing “Put Your Arms around Me” – Mmmm – How about it?

I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m going to write about – I didn’t do anything exciting today – My days are usually so full of excitement – It gives me a lot to write about – Maybe you’re interested that I just washed my hair & took a shower I’ve been trying to do it all day but it was a necessity so I finally drove myself to it around 7:30 –

Mother plays in church tomorrow for communion – Here’s where I lose 10 lbs – It would be funny if I lost the 24½ pounds – Huh – that would be some excitement – I wouldn’t go only I haven’t taken communion for over a year and besides I can help Mother –

I received a gift today from Peggy Ann Calderwood – It is a very cute sweater and bootie set – Martha also enclosed a picture of the baby – I think she’s adorable – I’m sending it to you so that you can see it but don’t forget to send it back to me – I’ll shoot you if you don’t – I mean it – I keep looking at her trying to figure out who she looks like – She’s so darn cute – I like that pout –

Dad had a fire in the fireplace – It’s pretty cold out – He just said we’d have to go to bed pretty soon cause we’re just about out of wood – Gee, they have to pay about $16 a cord here – and we paid $4.50 – Course it wasn’t logs but it would serve the purpose –

[The dog] is down here – He’s been here all day so we finally put him out seeing Helmer was home – Helmer went away and left him so we left him out anyway and I was pressing my dress down the cellar and he just cried and cried to get in so I finally let him in – I couldn’t stand that anymore – He looks so forlorn and lost – Still is about eaten up tho – Poor dog –

I was talking to Jean today and Bob [my dad's older brother; Jean was his wife] was sleeping when I called so it woke him up so I told her to tell him you said you wanted to hear from him – She gave him a big line so he said sure he’d write – That was just to shut us up – The results remain to be seen –

Gee, the time sure seems to be going fast – I’ve been home now 2½ months – It seems like always but also seems like it went awfully fast – These next couple of weeks will be the longest I guess –

I didn’t get any mail today I probably won’t Monday either – I don’t usually but maybe I’ll get today’s letter today –

I sure hope you took care of your income tax – You never mentioned it – No one knows what’s going on out there anyway – but if you didn’t file, the gov’t sure will.

I can’t think of anything else except that it’s getting pretty cold at night and I could use a bed warmer – especially when I get up about 69 times and the bed is cold each time – I’d probably get pushed away anyway – seeing you’re not crazy about me when I’m cold –

Good night honey child

Again you’re finishing supper

and I’m going to bed – Do

you still have retreat? What

time do you eat now?

Lots of hugs and kisses

always from –

Me

I feel swell

Next: Childbirth, 1943-style

"Somewhere in New Guinea"

Dad's grandson Misha loved to hear about World War II. Here they are together in 1992. 

The letter is dated military-style, 20 July 1944. My father, Lt. Charles M. Pride, has just arrived in New Guinea to fight the Japanese. He has left behind my mother, Bernadine, and their 10-month-old daughter, Elizabeth Jeanette, already known as Bonnie.

Dad is writing to his in-laws in Connecticut, Evert and Frieda Nordstrom, to thank them for taking care of Mom and Bonnie. That his girls are in “such loving and capable hands [takes] a load off my mind, and makes things easier for me.”

He writes that he and the other officers, while censoring mail, have composed “a little poem which describes this place.” It is called “Somewhere in New Guinea,” although Dad says he wanted to call it “A G.I.’s Lament.”

Here it is:

Somewhere in New Guinea,

Where the sun us like a curse,

And each day is followed

By another, slightly worse,

Where the black dust is thicker

Than the dirty shifting sand,

And the white man dreams

Of a greener fairer land.

Somewhere in New Guinea,

Where the mail is always late,

Where a Christmas card in April

Is considered up to date,

Where we never have a payday

And some never have a cent,

But we never miss the money

’Cause we’d never get it spent.

Somewhere in New Guinea,

Where the nights are made for love,

Where the moon is like a searchlight

To the Southern Cross above,

Which sparkles like a necklace

All through the tropic night,

’Tis a shameful waste of beauty

’Cause there’s not a girl in sight.

Somewhere in New Guinea,

Where the women are never seen,

Where the sky is ever cloudy

And the grass is ever green,

Where the natives do night howling

And rob a man of precious sleep,

Where there isn’t any whiskey,

And beer, sometime next week.

Somewhere in New Guinea,

Where the snakes and lizards play,

Where 100,000 mosquitoes

Replace the one you slay,

Oh, take me back to Bridgeport,

Let me hear that old church bell

For this god-forsaken outpost

Is a substitute for hell.

Dad went on to write: “I am on my way to join one of the best outfits in these parts, so that compensates for things a little.”

His p.s. reads: “I think you have the sweetest daughter in the world and I’m madly in love with her.”

Mom (Bern) and Bonnie, Christmas 1944. Dad remained in the Pacific till shortly after V-J Day. 

My family's story in letters begins here.

Popular posts

Thanks for continuing to read this blog during a stretch when I am too busy to post. If you are a pack-rat like me moving out of a house you’ve lived in for 36-plus years, you’ll understand my problem. How long the hiatus will last, I can’t say. I continue to find fodder for posts on the Civil War and other topics but just don’t have the time to write and illustrate them.

Here are the top 25 posts, which now range in hits from 1,056 to 217. Numbers in parentheses are last month’s rankings.

1. Killing the Southerners with kindness (1)

2. Why couldn’t Franklin Pierce just keep his mouth shut? (4)

3. Urgent! Telegram from Gettysburg (2)

4. A Gettysburg veteran who knew the battlefield by heart (3)

5. Farewell, my teacher (5)

6. Exeter’s Civil War general (6)

7. Did Abraham Lincoln really free the slaves? (7)

8. A Gettysburg journal (part 3) (8)

9. Unpacking the new ‘Gettysburg’ (9)

10. The soldier’s story behind the love story, Part I (10)

11. Faces of Fort Wagner, Olustee and Andersonville (11)

12. The Civil War: ‘It was not my fault,’ Buchanan insists (12)

13. One school’s proud Civil War heritage (12)

14. The rise and fall of James Willis Patterson (15)

15. A gift from the heart (14)

16. Gallery: Faces of the Fighting Fifth (part one) (16)

17. Gallery: Old soldiers (2), a New England brigade (18)

18. The soldier’s story behind the love story, Part II  (17)

19. ‘The reputation of a regiment if always made by the worst men in it’ (20)

20. Together again: They rode with Cross at Gettysburg (23t)

21. A Gettysburg Journal, part 4 (23t)

22. My friend Chester (returns to list)

23. Backstage with Billy Collins (19)

24. A Gettysburg photo album (23t)

25. Kennedy gave FDR too much credit, shortchanged Ike (21t)

Dear diary

Many Civil War historians begin their journeys the way I did, thinking that getting their hands on soldiers’ diaries is the key to learning what the war was really like. With few exceptions in my experience, this proves to be a false notion. Most Civil War diarists wrote sparsely and sporadically. Some, especially those who had grown up on farms, simply recorded the weather. Others made regular entries consisting of observations like “On guard duty” or “Drill and dress parade.”

Rev. Elias Nason

The real grist of human history about the Civil War is to be found in soldiers’ letters home. These tend to be candid, personal and expansive. Before Grant’s Overland Campaign in the spring of 1864, for example, Union soldiers often rested after battle. They wanted their relatives and friends at home to know precisely what they had gone through, and their letters often show this in detail.

There are exceptions – diaries written during the war that add real flavor to the daily life of military service or record the experiences, opinions, reflections and impressions of their keepers. For this blog I have condensed two such diaries into multi-part series that are among the most frequently read posts on our-war.com. In case you’ve missed them, here are brief introductions to them with links.

The first is a home-front diary, written by the Rev. Elias Nason of Exeter, a highly political southern New Hampshire private-school town of 3,000 at the time of the war.  This diary is interesting in its own right, but it has anothe distinction: It was published during the war. Nason, who turned 50 years old in 1861, had each year’s work bound and issued shortly after he finished it. The first volume was titled Brief Record of Events on Exeter, N.H., during the Year 1861 Together with the Names of the Soldiers of this Town in the War.

Nason introduced the diary by writing that the year would always be remembered for the “most stupendous and wickedest rebellion the world has ever known; and as every correct history of the country must devise its sources in a measure from the current events of the individual towns which make up its sovereignty," he offered “this little brochure” – his first volume – “as a New Year’s Offering to our patriotic and worthy citizens.”

Here are links to the posts from Nason’s diary: 1861, 1862 and 1863.

*

The diary of Capt. Robert Emory Park of the 12th Alabama Infantry is different from Nason’s but equally rich. What I have condensed in three parts is the portion of the diary covering Park’s time in captivity after his capture at the third battle of Winchester on Sept. 19, 1864. I added a fourth post giving his account of the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania and the battle of of Gettysburg.

Only 17 when the war broke out, Park remained a Confederate diehard till the war’s end. In his diary he was candid and expansive about his views of slavery, the American flag, the nation’s history, the 1864 election, Sherman’s March, the taking of Richmond, Lee’s surrender, the Lincoln assassination and the capture of Jefferson Davis. He also records his uneasiness at having to take the oath of allegiance to the United States required of prisoners for a ticket home.

The three posts on Park’s diary are here, here and here. His Gettysburg experience is chronicled here.

A swerve, and a new adventure

My life has taken another swerve, which accounts for the slowdown in posting on this blog. Earlier this month I was hired as administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes with a Sept. 1 start date.

Given the responsibilities of this job, chances I can continue blogging about the Civil War seem slight. But I hope you’ll bear with me a bit longer and maybe check out some of the posts you've missed during the last 20 months. There are now more than 250 posts in all.

Perhaps a new blog will emerge with the new job, or maybe I will find a way to keep delving into Civil War subjects.

Meanwhile, here are the top 10 posts in hit count from the last two months – and below the top 25 all-time.

1. A printing town, 224 years of newspaper history

2. D-Day, then and now

3. Concord, N.H., May 1864: Endless war, boom times

4. Touched with Fire: Holmes on Decoration Day in Keene

5. A war relic comes home to New Hampshire

6. ‘No . . . man shall sit upon the throne of my mind’

7. Memorial Day in Canterbury

8. ‘I never imagined we should see such reverses’

9. Ordinary young men and the price of freedom

10 (tie). First edition: war news, a two-headed pig

      

              To Richmond at last (part one)

Readership has continued at a good clip, for which I thank you. The top 25 posts now range in hits from 1,030 to 208. One post – Why couldn’t Franklin Pierce keep his mouth shut? – zoomed up in the rankings during the last month, moving all the way to fourth place.

1. Killing the Southerners with kindness (1)

2. Urgent! Telegram from Gettysburg (2)

3. A Gettysburg veteran who knew the battlefield by heart (4)

4. Why couldn’t Franklin Pierce just keep his mouth shut? (new to list)

5. Farewell, my teacher (3)

6. Exeter’s Civil War general (5)

7. Did Abraham Lincoln really free the slaves? (6)

8. A Gettysburg journal (7)

9. Unpacking the new ‘Gettysburg’ (8)

10. The soldier’s story behind the love story, Part I (9)

11. Faces of Fort Wagner, Olustee and Andersonville (10)

12. The Civil War: ‘It was not my fault,’ Buchanan insists (11)

13. One school’s proud Civil War heritage (12)

14. A gift from the heart (13)

15. The rise and fall of James Willis Patterson (15)

16. Gallery: Faces of the Fighting Fifth (part one) (14)

17. The soldier’s story behind the love story, Part II  (16)

18. Gallery: Old soldiers (2), a New England brigade (19)

19. Backstage with Billy Collins (17)

20. ‘The reputation of a regiment if always made by the worst men in it’ (new to list)

21 (tie). Kennedy gave FDR too much credit, shortchanged Ike (18)

              History’s touch (20)

23 (tie). A Gettysburg photo album (new to list)

           A Gettysburg Journal, part 4 (23t)

           Together again: They rode with Cross at Gettysburg (new to list)