"A Good Cause" Letters from the Ninth New York Heavy Artillery

by Jonathan A. Noyalas

The 9th New York Heavy Artillery, originally organized as the 138th New York Infantry in the summer of 1862, spent its first twenty months of service in the defenses of Washington, D.C., but in the spring of 1864 was assigned to General James Ricketts' division of the Army of the Potomac's Sixth Corps. From that moment until the Civil War's end in the spring of 1865 the regiment found itself in some of the fiercest engagements in Virginia and Maryland--Cold Harbor, Monocacy, Third Battle of Winchester, Cedar Creek, and Petersburg. This collection of sixty letters, written between March 1863-June 1865, provides much insight into the defense of the national capital, combat during the Civil War's final year, perspectives on politics, evolving attitudes toward war, the difficulties United States soldiers, and their families, confronted during our nation's most tumultuous moment, and how they coped and adjusted.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR "A Good Cause": Letters from the Ninth New York Heavy Artillery

"After spending twenty toilsome months manning the fortifications encircling Washington, D.C., the men of the 9th New York Heavy Artillery sprang to the front in the bloody summer of 1864, packing an astounding degree of marching, entrenching, and hard fighting into the space of a year. Presenting nearly sixty previously unpublished letters from a handful of the regiment’s enlisted men, “A Good Cause” supplies a unique, welcome, and multi-vocal perspective on our nation’s defining episode. Ably edited, annotated, and assembled by the historian Jonathan A. Noyalas, these letters yield valuable insights into how men navigated the war’s extremes, toggled between various forms of duty, and adjusted to the conflict’s changing cadences. From the defenses of Washington to the horrors of Cold Harbor, from the tedium of trench life to the exhilaration of victory in the Shenandoah Valley, this gem of a collection illustrates the diversity and demands of soldiering in the Civil War." (Brian Matthew Jordan, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Marching Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War and Chair, Department of History, Sam Houston State University)

"The compilation of letters in A Good Cause offers an opportunity to experience the Civil War through the eyes of a dozen soldiers in the 9th New York Heavy Artillery. Readers interested in the defenses of Washington, D.C., the Overland Campaign, or the 1864 Valley Campaign, will find much of value in these fifty-nine letters, assembled in a smartly and thoroughly annotated collection." (Jennifer M. Murray, author of On a Great The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park )

Paperback

Published January 3, 2022