Rating: 
Summary: Startling insight
Review: As an amateur war historian, I find that all too rarely do we see the war on both sides. The hardships of everyday Americans during the Civil War were not only occurring on the battlefield, but in the homes left behind in the cornfields of Iowa. This unique perspective is presented in the heartfelt correspondence between Jacob and Emeline. A rare opportunity to behold the searching meditations of a man gripped by both love, and patriotism.
Rating:
Summary: Startling insight
Review: As an amateur war historian, I find that all too rarely do we see the war on both sides. The hardships of everyday Americans during the Civil War were not only occurring on the battlefield, but in the homes left behind in the cornfields of Iowa. This unique perspective is presented in the heartfelt correspondence between Jacob and Emeline. A rare opportunity to behold the searching meditations of a man gripped by both love, and patriotism.
Rating:
Summary: How it really was during the Civil War
Review: As I read this remarkable volume I felt I was being transported back to those Civil War days, telling me how it was both in the war zone and back home in Iowa. Jacob Ritner is a remarkable figure, inspiring admiration and eminently worthy of emulation. His accounts of the battles he was in are vivid and immediate, and the editor of this volume has performed a most worthwhile service in resurrecting from the buried past this correspondence to inspire all who value patriotism and fidelity to duty and to one's marriage vow. One cannot but be enriched by following Captain Ritner and his wife thru those perilous years from 1861 thru 1865.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I am not a reader of books nor a student of the civil war. However, I found this book to be fascinating. The horrors of war and the loneliness of soldiers are universal, and the insights into this particular war and historical era are compelling. It is very easy to read, and is both educational and entertaining. Please give me more by this writer!
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I am not a reader of books nor a student of the civil war. However, I found this book to be fascinating. The horrors of war and the loneliness of soldiers are universal, and the insights into this particular war and historical era are compelling. It is very easy to read, and is both educational and entertaining. Please give me more by this writer!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully Interesting correspondance!
Review: I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book!. Some times, historical correspondance can be dry. However, these letter are not! They are very readable, offering a interesting insight into the real lives of people during the turbulent era of the Civil War. Charles Larimer has done excellent research and his annotations add to the context of when the letters were written. Highly recommended. I look forward to reading his Scottish Stories from Loch Ness.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully Interesting correspondance!
Review: I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book!. Some times, historical correspondance can be dry. However, these letter are not! They are very readable, offering a interesting insight into the real lives of people during the turbulent era of the Civil War. Charles Larimer has done excellent research and his annotations add to the context of when the letters were written. Highly recommended. I look forward to reading his Scottish Stories from Loch Ness.
Rating: 
Summary: Some of the ghost stories from my research . . .
Review: Of course I always felt the warmth of Jacob looking over my shoulder, providing assurance that I was on the right track, and that my hours, days, months and years of research would eventually come to fruition. Emeline was a missing piece for most of this period. I started with carbon copies of Jacob's war time letters typed by my grandmother's sister in the 1930s, but I had no correspondence from Emeline, only correspondence addressed to her. My father kept advising me that without Jacob's original letters, I was working on an unsubstantiated story. We both knew it was a true story, but how would you convince the world without producing the original letters? He suspected that the originals might have been with his long lost cousin Martha Lou, whom he hadn't seen in over 50 years. His clues for finding Martha Lou were "she married a man named Bugbee, and lives on a turkey farm in North Dakota. At least she did 25 or 30 years ago." Jacob counseled me to pursue those clues, and I found Martha Lou with relative ease. This may not count as a religious conversion, but my father was so shocked that I actually found Martha Lou that he kept repeating "I believe in the Tooth Fairy, I believe in the Easter Bunny." She had just moved into a senior citizen home with her husband Steve Bugbee, and under her bed were family Civil War letters and a picture album. She sent me those pictures and letters, which turned out to be a second set of letters - correspondence from Jacob before and after the war (including the mushy letter Jacob wrote in 1851 just before they were married) and other family correspondence throughout the war. But I was still without the originals of Jacob's war time letters. Eventually, following clues that my grandmother's sister specifically left for me in the 1930s (I was born in 1953), I found those letters in Iowa City, in a building two blocks away from my college apartment in the mid 1970s. During my last two years at the University of Iowa, I walked past Jacob's letters everyday on my way to class. While I lived in Iowa City I frequently went to visit the grave of Jacob's daughter and my great grandmother, Eulalie (Lulie) Ritner Chase, who was married to a college professor, and is buried near the famous Black Angel. All those spiritual visits to Lulie paid off in a big way. While doing research in Savannah, I wanted to find an ancestor of Alfred Haywood, the wealthy ice merchant, with whom Jacob had Christmas dinner at the end of Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864. Unfortunately there are no Haywoods in the Savannah phone book today. While at Fort Jackson, just outside Savannah, I had a brief discussion with a man dressed in a Confederate private's uniform, who was providing information to tourists at the fort. When I first told him I was a descendant of a Union soldier who participated in Sherman's March to the Sea, he looked like he wanted to punch me, but he composed himself and asked me about my research. I mentioned Christmas dinner with Alfred Haywood, and the Johnny (Scott Smith) responded "you mean the ice merchant?" When I asked Smith how he knew about Alfred Haywood, Smith responded that his brother-in-law was Haywood Nichols, great grandson of Alfred Haywood. Eventually I met Haywood Nichols, who is a famous Savannah wood sculptor. (The person guiding me on this Savannah expedition was Margaret Wayt DeBolt, author of "Savannah Spectres and Other Strange Tales," who may have had her first actual spectral experience with the ghost of Alfred Haywood.) But I was still without Emeline's letters, which I thought no longer existed. In September 1998 I took a trip to Mt. Pleasant to see the Old Thresher's Reunion. On the way I stopped off in Danville, Iowa, to see if I could find the grave of Jacob's father, Henry Ritner. Eventually I found Henry's grave, but was startled to find another grave - that of Evangeline Ritner, Jacob and Emeline's first child who died in 1853, just before her first birthday. While in the cemetery, I spent a lot of time thinking about Emeline, and how sad it would have been for a mother to bury her first child out in the frontier. Before then, I had never really connected with Emeline the way I had with Jacob, but I really began to sense her sorrow of that situation. The longer I stayed, the stronger that sensation became. Eventually I left and drove to Mt. Pleasant and the Thresher's Reunion, but the spirit of Emeline stayed with me. That was on a Saturday, and by Tuesday morning Emeline's letters had found me. Ken Smith, a Civil War collector who lives in Utah, found my name next to Jacob's on an Internet web site for Iowa soldiers of the Civil War. Ken had obtained copies of Emeline's letters in the 1980s, through contacts his mother had made at a garage sale in New Mexico. After a brief flurry of emails, Ken sent me copies of Emeline's letters. After some more investigation and clues from Ken, I was able to find and acquire Emeline's original letters, which had made their way to Nevada. But the collective gatherings I attend are in Mt. Pleasant, where I can walk through a section of the Forest Home Cemetery where Jacob and Emeline are buried and recognize most of the names and personalities. You can too, after you read "Love and Valor."
Rating: 
Summary: Love and Valor a Welcome Change of Pace
Review: Unlike more typical published letters or diaries, "Love and Valor" gives us the thoughts of both a soldier husband and a wife raising their family back home. Jacob and Emeline Ritner were highly literate and observant, and their expressed affection and concern for each other provide a nice counterpoint to Jacob's vivid and discerning descriptions of Wilson's Creek, the Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns, the final push to end the war, and the assorted details of camp life that made up most of a soldier's existence. Editor Charles Larimer's family had lovingly preserved the letters for years. He has done a nice job of weaving throughout the book, excerpts from outside sources (including regimental histories of the 1st and 25th Iowa infantry regiments) to place the letters in a larger historical context. Though certain of the corresondence has been edited out, there is still plenty of detail. Don't let that put you off. You will feel that you know Jacob and Emeline by the end, and they are acquaintances worth having.
Rating:
Summary: Love and Valor a Welcome Change of Pace
Review: Unlike more typical published letters or diaries, "Love and Valor" gives us the thoughts of both a soldier husband and a wife raising their family back home. Jacob and Emeline Ritner were highly literate and observant, and their expressed affection and concern for each other provide a nice counterpoint to Jacob's vivid and discerning descriptions of Wilson's Creek, the Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns, the final push to end the war, and the assorted details of camp life that made up most of a soldier's existence. Editor Charles Larimer's family had lovingly preserved the letters for years. He has done a nice job of weaving throughout the book, excerpts from outside sources (including regimental histories of the 1st and 25th Iowa infantry regiments) to place the letters in a larger historical context. Though certain of the corresondence has been edited out, there is still plenty of detail. Don't let that put you off. You will feel that you know Jacob and Emeline by the end, and they are acquaintances worth having.
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