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Acknowledgments Many persons and institutions have been involved in the preparation of this book and deserve recognition and thanks. I owe special thanks to the Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill., for preserving on microfilm copies of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung for the Civil War years and making them available to researchers. Many of the letters in this work were discovered in copies of such microfilm. The library also furnished a typed English translation of Pvt. Max Schlund’s diary. Special thanks is also due to the Thomas Jefferson Library at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, where I obtained copies of the letters of Rudolph Müller and other information located in the Friedrich Hecker Papers archived there. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, granted me access to both microfilm copies of several German American newspapers, the diary of Friedrich August Braeutigam, and other documents. The United States Army Military History Institute provided copies of the letters of Friedrich P. Kappelmann. Benjamin Stephen, Giles Hoyt, and Liesel Knudson provided invaluable, prompt, and critical assistance in translating certain problematic parts of the letters and are due my sincere appreciation. I am grateful to Dick Skidmore, who has edited a journal and a collection of letters in his own right, for his careful reading of a near final copy of the manuscript and providing important criticism and recommendations. Eric Benjaminson also read and criticized a near-final draft of the manuscript and deserves thanks for his suggestions. My thanks to Scott Hartwig, Chief Historian at the Gettysburg National Military National Military Park, for critiquing the Gettysburg chapter and making several critical suggestions for changes. Mark A. Moore, author and mapmaker, also deserves thanks for his close review of the Final Battles chapter and for furnishing a detailed map of the Battle of Bentonville . Nonetheless, any errors in this work are solely my responsibility. My thanks to those who provided photos: Frances L. Luebke, Chicago History Museum, Missouri History Museum (St. Louis); and Jerome Hunt. xi I also want to thank the librarians, archivists, and others at the Bellarmine University Library (Louisville, Ky.), Belleville (Ill.) Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Chicago History Museum, Danville (Ill.) Public Library, Filson Historical Society (Louisville), Hennepin County Library-Minneapolis, Illinois State Archives, Louisville Free Public Library, Manatee County (Fla.) Public Library System, Missouri History Museum, Library and Research Center (St. Louis), Morrison-Talbott Library (Waterloo, Ill.), National Archives, New College Library (Sarasota, Florida), Sarasota County (Fla.) Public Library, University of Kentucky, W. T. Young Library, University of Louisville, Ekstrom Library, University of Miami Library, University of South Florida Library, and the United States Army Military History Institute (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.). I also extend thanks to Christian B. Keller, who loaned me his microfilm copies of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, Marilyn Lotz, Tom Lowry, Richard M. McMurry, Mike and Vicki Peake, Dennis Suttles, Kari Stacy, Lee White, John S. Gray, Andrea Mehrländer, Hank Meves, and Melissa Petersen. Finally, I want to thank my wife Virginia for her love, and her patience and understanding while I spent untold hours immersed in translating and editing the letters in this work. xii acknowledgments ...

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