Reimagining one of the oldest genres of Civil War history, this book engagingly presents the story of the war and its aftermath through the lens of a single regiment, the Sixth Wisconsin. One of the core units of the famed Iron Brigade, the Sixth was organized in July 1861 and mustered out in summer 1865, playing major roles at Second Manassas, Antietam, and Gettysburg, and in the Overland campaign of 1864. But the regiment's full history is found in the stories of its men learning to fight and endure far from home amid violence, illness, and death, and in the lives of families that hung on every word in letters and news from the front lines. Those stories also unfolded long after the war's end, as veterans sought to make sense of their experiences and home communities struggled to care for those who returned with unhealed wounds.

Marshaling a vast archive, James Marten has crafted a compelling and highly original biography of the Sixth Wisconsin in war and peace. In seeing the fight through the eyes of the regiment's roughly 2,000 men and those connected to them, readers will understand the long history of the Civil War as never before.

James Marten is professor of history emeritus at Marquette University. He is author or editor of many books, including Sing Not War: The Lives of Union and Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America.