Stories of the Civil War

                Stories of The Civil War is a book written by Albert F. Blaisdell. Albert is an author who has written several historical short story collections for children. In this book, Stories of The Civil War, we dive into some of the most famous, important, and most heroic stories that happened during the Civil War. Some of these stories include Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, the heroism of Rebecca Wright, and the death of Colonel Ellsworth.

There were many exciting, entertaining, and fascinating stories that were available in this book. Though most of them were good, some of my favorites were The Scout that had Nerves of Steel and The Horrors of Andersonville Prison.These stories were the ones that caught my attention the most.

The first story, The Scout That had Nerves of Steel, started out with a boy who went by the name of Hancock being captured and brought to Castle Thunder Richmond. This was after attacking General Grant’s army in Virginia. One night, after singing and dancing to his inmates, he dropped to the floor like a sandbag. He was pronounced as a sudden-death. On the way to the hospital, Hancock rose up and walked out of the wagon. He had faked his own death, and through doing this, he escaped.

After he had escaped, he went to an expensive hotel, paid with money he had sewed into the lining of his vest, and slept. The next day, he was arrested on Main Street by a squad of Provost Troops. This time, to make himself unrecognizable, he crossed his eyes and made his mouth drawn to one side. After being released a few days later, he was arrested again in a post office. This time he squinted his eyes, drew his mouth to the right side, and pretended to be half deaf. Still, he was taken to the Castle. For seven long days he kept his face twisted and squinting until he got tired of it and resumed to his normal face. Right as he did this, he was recognized by his fellow inmates. The ending of the war gave him his liberty with the rest of the inmates, but ten days longer of him being in prison and he probably would have been shot!

                               

The second story The Horrors of Andersonville Prison begins with Union soldiers entering the prison and experiencing the tragedy and horrors that their fellow Union soldiers faced. They saw lots of men dirty, hungry, wounded, and dead. All throughout the rest of the story, it describes the prison, how bad it was, and how the only way to get out was to go to the graveyard. This prison had a huge impact on the new prisoners and what they would be facing for a while.

These two stories were very intriguing, entertaining, and intense to read. While I was reading it, I had a very easy time picturing what was happening in the book due to the descriptive words Blaisdell uses. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy small stories that happened around the Civil War, and are between the ages of 14 and 16. This book, Stories of The Civil War, was definitely one of my favorites.