The years 1864-5 were a season of desperate battles, but in that time many more Union soldiers were slain behind the Rebel armies, by starvation and exposure, than were killed by cannon and rifle. The country has heard much of the heroism and sacrifices of those loyal youths who fell on the field of battle; it has heard little of the still greater number who died in prison pens. It knows full well how grandly her sons met death in front of the serried ranks of treason, but little of the sublime firmness with which they endured unto the death, all that ingenious cruelty their foes could...

A classic novel of the Union Army at War
McElroy's novel of the American Civil War, The Red Acorn takes its title from the divisional insignia of the First Division of the Fourteenth Army Corps-a cornerstone of the Army of the Cumberland. The division fought at Mill Springs, Shiloh, Corinth, Stones River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Atlanta, Jonesville, the March to the Sea and Bentonville. Under Thomas's command it never knew defeat and gathered to itself the laurels of dozens of victories and a reputation unsurpassed by any division in the war. McElroy's story is, of course, strongly...

A classic novel of the Union Army at War
McElroy's novel of the American Civil War, The Red Acorn takes its title from the divisional insignia of the First Division of the Fourteenth Army Corps-a cornerstone of the Army of the Cumberland. The division fought at Mill Springs, Shiloh, Corinth, Stones River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Atlanta, Jonesville, the March to the Sea and Bentonville. Under Thomas's command it never knew defeat and gathered to itself the laurels of dozens of victories and a reputation unsurpassed by any division in the war. McElroy's story is, of course, strongly...