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xiii Acknowledgments Without John Gurnish of Mogadore, Ohio, this book would not have been written. He invited me into his home on a rainy October evening fifteen years ago, and the story he told me provided the spark for this project. The book would be far poorer were it not for John’s lifelong pursuit of the history of the Twenty-Ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment and of the Akron scene during the Civil War. Friends and family accompanied me during many of my travels along the regiment’s path. My mother, Margaret B. Fritsch, served tirelessly as my assistant during research trips to Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. She discovered several soldier-written letters during our visits to the National Archives. Bradley Jahnke of St. Paul, Minnesota, was my enthusiastic companion on tramps over battlefields in Pennsylvania and Virginia and was with me on the tracing of the Chattanooga-Atlanta-Savannah leg of the regiment’s campaigning. Betty Auten of Waterloo, New York, was instrumental in bringing to light the formative years in frontier upper New York of the Twenty-Ninth’s revered first commander, Lewis P . Buckley. Susan Conklin and Irene Hogg Gates of Batavia, New York, provided provocative clues on Buckley’s origins and boyhood. John G. Wilson of Warsaw, New York, opened his own research files for me on the history of Middlebury Academy, in Wyoming, New York, where Buckley took his first formal education. Judith A. Sibley, Alicia Mauldin, and Suzanne Christoff of the United States Military Academy at West Point provided material on Buckley’s background and his cadet career, as well as a wealth of information on cadet life in the 1820s. Dozens of librarians in as many states provided help. Among them were Marion Davies, Summit County, Ohio; Carol W. Bell, Warren, Ohio; Evan Kelley, Dakota County, Minnesota; and Jenifer Zies, Scottsdale, Arizona. Gary Arnold and Jeff Thomas of the Ohio Historical Society and Library, Columbus, gave freely of their time on every occasion it was requested. Mr. Arnold unearthed correspondence important to an understanding of the regiment’s organization at Jefferson, Ohio, in the autumn of 1861. Elizabeth Reeb, formerly of the society, made valuable suggestions on the course of my research in the early going. The staff of the Military Records and Rare Documents sections at the National Archives, Washington, D.C., assisted me in every way and made the research room my second home during my many visits there. The Library of Congress staff retrieved records for the Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Ohio, illuminating the declining years of that great veterans’ organization in Summit County. Duke University located and gave permission to use the letter by Col. Charles Candy recalling his brigade’s harrowing day at the battle of Cedar Mountain, Virginia. Mae Colling of Ashtabula, Ohio, spent dozens of hours locating for me important information that I otherwise might have overlooked. Marisa Simmons Back of Pinehurst, North Carolina, mined the information on which I recreated the life of one of the regiment’s authentic heroes, Maj. Myron T. Wright. During moments of frustration, Marisa buoyed me with her constancy. She also led a campaign to restore the cemetery in which Wright is buried. Dr. Lewis Leigh of Fairfax, Virginia, gave permission for my use of the poignant letters of soldier Alonzo Sterrett. James C. Roach and Scott Hartwig of Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, answered my endless questions regarding the Twenty-Ninth’s experiences there. Bill Burnett of the Friends of Andersonville Prison, Andersonville, Georgia, provided records on the regiment’s soldiers whose unhappy fate it was to find their way into that place. Steve Zerbe of Cherry Hill, New xiv a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s Jersey, applied his knowledge of the collections of the Library of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to this effort, and suggested profitable avenues for further research into the postwar activities of the Twenty-Ninth’s officers. Marvin Sauder and Polly Boggess of Dalton, Georgia, personified the hospitality for which the South is rightfully famous. Each provided valuable material on the battle of Dug Gap. Dan and Betty Shackelford of Rapidan, Virginia, live near Cedar Mountain battlefield in a house that sits in the woods where Stonewall Jackson rallied his troops. They know the battlefield’s secret places and shared them with me during several visits to their home...

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