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Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War Audiobook
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Publisher Description
A groundbreaking investigation examining the fate of Union veterans who won the war but couldn't bear the peace. For well over a century, traditional Civil War histories have concluded in 1865, with a bitterly won peace and Union soldiers returning triumphantly home. In a landmark work that challenges sterilized portraits accepted for generations, Civil War historian Brian Matthew Jordan creates an entirely new narrative. These veterans- tending rotting wounds, battling alcoholism, campaigning for paltry pensions- tragically realized that they stood as unwelcome reminders to a new America eager to heal, forget, and embrace the freewheeling bounty of the Gilded Age. Mining previously untapped archives, Jordan uncovers anguished letters and diaries, essays by amputees, and gruesome medical reports, all deeply revealing of the American psyche. In the model of twenty-first-century histories like Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering or Maya Jasanoff 's Liberty's Exiles that illuminate the plight of the common man, Marching Home makes almost unbearably personal the rage and regret of Union veterans. Their untold stories are critically relevant today.
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“Jordan convincingly shows that from the time of Lee’s surrender, veterans found themselves still bound to the war, struggling with its meaning and trying to make sense of their military service…Jordan’s thoughtful, well-researched book exposes the under-acknowledged realities faced by Civil War veterans—with disturbing echoes in the modern era.”
— Publishers Weekly
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“Exhaustively researched…[through] a rich trove of journals, letters, and published accounts revealing the enormous toll that the Civil War took on its participants…Books like [Marching Home] contribute to a much broader cultural narrative.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“[A] narrative of veterans profoundly and permanently alienated from a civilian public…A powerful exploration of how some Union veterans made the transition from military service to civilian life.”
— Washington Post -
“Readers of this clearly written and exhaustively researched book will come away with a deeper appreciation of the sacrifices soldiers make; many living veterans will thank Jordan for his attention to an often neglected but important aspect of US military history.”
— Foreign Affairs magazine -
“A brilliant and bracing study of Civil War soldiers’ efforts to adapt to a peacetime environment that had no place for them and even considered them a burden on public resources.”
— Library Journal -
“His book is entirely founded on the words of those who fought, extracted from letters, recollections and reflections. The boys in blue who rallied around the flag are gone, but in Jordan’s history, their words survive.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“John McDonough’s resonant voice narrates this account…McDonough’s pacing, inflection, and enunciation are always well done, and this production is no exception. His reading of this superbly written history will quickly capture the listener’s attention and keep it to the end.”
— AudioFile
Awards
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Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History
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About Brian Matthew Jordan
Brian Matthew Jordan is a historian and author of three books of nonfiction. His first book, Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History. He is an associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University.
About John McDonough
John McDonough, one of AudioFile magazine’s Golden Voices, has narrated dozens of audiobooks, and won eleven Earphones Awards. He is known for his narrations of children’s books, including Robert McCloskey’s Centerburg Tales and Albert Marrin’s Commander-in-Chief Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Outside of his audiobook work, he has starred in a revival of Captain Kangaroo on the Fox Network.