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Editorial Method The editing of these letters has proved to be somewhat complex. At all times I wanted to maintain Charles’s voice in these letters and therefore did not alter any misspellings or grammatical errors present in his work. Brackets ([ ]) were reserved solely for words that were illegible owing to his handwriting, missing portions of pages (indicated with [torn]), or efforts to reduce confusion for the reader. As best as possible the use of brackets was kept to a minimum. On rare occurrences, brackets may include a word with a “?” mark to indicate the editor’s best guess of what Charles was stating with that word. Additionally, whenever Charles began a letter with “dear brother,” every effort was made to identify which brother the letter was addressed to and indicated with brackets. Charles was certainly an educated man and therefore the errors that did appear were few and far between, yet they were preserved wherever possible in order to facilitate a smooth reading and interpretation of Charles’s work. Because there has been an effort made to reduce the interruption of Charles’s writing I have avoided the use of sic for misspellings and have left the spelling as is in these instances. Furthermore, wherever possible I have endeavored to provide background information on individuals included in the letters. There are inevitably individuals whose associations to Charles could not be determined. In addition, there are individuals who have close family ties to Charles that have been made known through the tireless and detailed efforts of Russ and Roz Howard, as indicated in the acknowledgments . For these individuals, you will not find reference material, as this is Russ and Roz’s genealogical work. For the scope of this project I restricted myself to the correspondence of Charles Henry Howard located in his collection at Bowdoin College. During the war Charles wrote various accounts of battles for a variety of Northern newspapers, Editorial Method xxvi but they have not been included here. The focus solely on the writing of Charles Howard is rewarding in and of itself, and provides the reader with the truest exploration of Charles’s thoughts and ideas during his lifetime. The letters included in this collection are a mere portion (110) of the collection housed at Bowdoin and reflect the correspondence that provides the reader with the greatest understanding of Charles Howard’s beliefs and thoughts on life in the nineteenth century while not overwhelming the reader with too much superfluous work. Additionally, the entire manuscript collection of Charles Henry Howard at Bowdoin College has been transcribed. Owing to the work of Russ and Roz Howard in collaboration with the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives at Bowdoin, the transcriptions have been posted online and can be located on the Bowdoin College Special Collections website at http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/ mss/chhcl.shtml. Finally, it should be noted that references to Otis Howard invariably arise in the various chapter introductions. Although primarily a work on Charles Howard that explores his correspondence, Otis periodically enters into the equation owing to the close relationship between these two brothers on a personal level, but also a professional level—especially during their Civil War service. When it came to a majority of Charles’s Civil War tenure, he acted as a direct subordinate to Otis, and therefore much of his correspondence details the relationship between the two of them and the struggles they both faced. For all other questions, the notations will help to provide clarity within the various letters. ...

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