Jonathan W. White – författare

Between 1863 and 1871, Harriet M. Buss of Sterling, Massachusetts, taught former slaves in three different regions of the South, in coastal South Carolina, Norfolk, Virginia, and Raleigh, North Carolina. A white, educated Baptist woman, she initially saw herself as on a mission to the freedpeople of the Confederacy but over time developed a shared mission with her students and devoted herself to training the next generation of Black teachers.

The geographical and chronological reach of her letters is uncommon for a woman in the Civil War era. In each place she worked, she taught in a different type of school and engaged with different types of students, so the subjects she explored in her letters illuminate a remarkably broad history of race and religion in America. Her experiences also offer an inside perspective of the founding of Shaw University, an important historically Black university. Now available to specialists and general readers alike for the first time, her correspondence offers an extensive view of the Civil War and Reconstruction era rarely captured in a single collection.

A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era

A rare glimpse into the life of one young man who chose not to fight

Nearly three million white men of military age remained in the North during the Civil War, some attending institutions of higher learning. College life during the Civil War has received remarkably little close attention, however, in part because of the lack of published collections of letters and diaries by students during the war. In Untouched by the Conflict, Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn seek to fill that gap by presenting the unabridged letters of Singleton Ashenfelter, a student at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, to his closest friend at home near Philadelphia.

Ashenfelter was arrogant, erudite, witty, impulsive, self-interested, reflective, and deeply intellectual. His voice is like none other in the published primary source literature of the Civil War era. Following the war, he became a newspaper editor and the US attorney for the Territory of New Mexico. The letters’ recipient, Samuel W. Pennypacker, went on to become the 23rd governor of Pennsylvania.

Covering the years 1862–1865, Ashenfelter’s correspondence offers a rich, introspective view into the concerns and experiences of a young, middle-class white man who chose not to enlist. His letters reveal, too, the inner world of a circle of friends while they mature into adulthood as he touches on topics of interest to scholars of 19th-century America, including romance, religion, education, social life, friendship, family, and the war.

A rare glimpse into the life of one young man who chose not to fight

Nearly three million white men of military age remained in the North during the Civil War, some attending institutions of higher learning. College life during the Civil War has received remarkably little close attention, however, in part because of the lack of published collections of letters and diaries by students during the war. In Untouched by the Conflict, Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn seek to fill that gap by presenting the unabridged letters of Singleton Ashenfelter, a student at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, to his closest friend at home near Philadelphia.

Ashenfelter was arrogant, erudite, witty, impulsive, self-interested, reflective, and deeply intellectual. His voice is like none other in the published primary source literature of the Civil War era. Following the war, he became a newspaper editor and the US attorney for the Territory of New Mexico. The letters’ recipient, Samuel W. Pennypacker, went on to become the 23rd governor of Pennsylvania.

Covering the years 1862–1865, Ashenfelter’s correspondence offers a rich, introspective view into the concerns and experiences of a young, middle-class white man who chose not to enlist. His letters reveal, too, the inner world of a circle of friends while they mature into adulthood as he touches on topics of interest to scholars of 19th-century America, including romance, religion, education, social life, friendship, family, and the war.