New Jersey Goes to War: Biographies of 150 New Jerseyans Caught Up in the Struggle of the Civil War, Including Soldiers Civilians, Men, Women, Heroes, Scoundrels—and a Heroic Horse
edited by Joseph G. Bilby, New Jersey Civil War Heritage Association, 2010, $20+$5 shipping
New Jersey may not be the first state the average buff associates with the Civil War, but historian Joseph G. Bilby and his colleagues at the New Jersey Civil War Heritage Association have compiled 150 short biographies designed to change that notion. Their criteria, ranging from being born in the state to merely spending some time there, encompass noteworthy nonnatives such as Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman and Sir Percy Wyndham. But there are also plenty of dyed-in-the-wool Jerseyans who attained fame, notoriety or simply led eventful, interesting lives, including Stephen Crane, who though born in Newark six years after the war ended, rates a place here for his quintessential Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage; and Lilly Martin Spencer, the English-born Newark resident whose equally seminal 1866 painting War Spirit at Home: Celebrating the Battle of Vicksburg, graces the book’s cover.
Originally published in the September 2010 issue of America’s Civil War. To subscribe, click here.
