Charles F. Larimer

3917. Love and Valor The Intimate Civil War Letters Between Captain Jacob and Emeline Ritner, Edited by Charles F. Larimer (read 4 Aug 2004) This is a book of the author's great-great-grandfather's Civil War letters, together with his wife's. I found this absorbing. Captain Ritner was a schoolteacher in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and was a three-month enlisted man fighting in Missouri and Arkansas and then became an officer in the 25th Iowa Infantry, and was at Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, Atlanta, and on Sherman's March and at the Grand Review in D.C. in May 1865. These letters are very telling and one stands in admiration of the loving and patriotic sentiments which breathe so strongly through all the correspondence. He tells of the events in a knowledgeable way and one gets a vivid picture of what the war was for him, and for his wife who was in Mount Pleasant with four little kids. I found myself thoroughly caught up by this book.… (meer)