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Back From Battle - by Jim Remsen & Brad Upp (Paperback)
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Highlights
- In the final year of the American Civil War, a special Union Army post was constructed just outside Philadelphia to handle a jumble of returning citizen-soldiers.Many soldiers bore bullet wounds, broken bones, and other scars of combat.
- Author(s): Jim Remsen & Brad Upp
- 252 Pages
- History, United States
Description
About the Book
The authors reclaim that remarkable history and trace the often tumultuous lives of the Pennsylvania volunteer soldiers who passed through Camp Discharge's gates.
Book Synopsis
In the final year of the American Civil War, a special Union Army post was constructed just outside Philadelphia to handle a jumble of returning citizen-soldiers.
Many soldiers bore bullet wounds, broken bones, and other scars of combat. Some had lost limbs. Some were laid low by illness. Hundreds arrived half-dead as survivors of wretched prison camps. Others were blessedly unscathed-but all grappled with the fresh, ferocious memories of their time at war.
The post, known as Camp Discharge, did its best to move the young Union veterans on to their next assignment or, more often, back to civilian life. During its brief existence, it sat on a bluff overlooking what is today one of the nation's busiest highways, the Schuylkill Expressway. The post was quickly dismantled, its story forgotten. The authors reclaim that remarkable history and trace the often tumultuous lives of the Pennsylvania volunteer soldiers who passed through Camp Discharge's gates.
Review Quotes
"By adding the details of these soldiers and their noble service to the nation, the book brings many poignant facts to the surface. It details many hardships these men endured and the agony of what seemed like interminable waiting for their release." - Anthony Waskie, Ph.D., historian of Grand Army of the Republic Civil War Museum & Library, Philadelphia
"This is raw history with no battles, no generals, no marching bands and without the glamor...just the reality of the everyday courage that was needed in order to survive the physical and psychological trauma of conflict. These men were the heroes and the victims and their story needs to be told and not forgotten." - Jerry Francis, president, Lower Merion (Pa.) Historical Society