annie wittenmyer

This remarkable book has been out of print for over a century and yet is one of the most intimate and compelling personal memoirs of the Civil War.

Widow Annie Turner Wittenmyer spent the years of the American Civil War in the thick of exploding shells, shattered bodies, exhausted souls, and the great figures of the war. She was an advocate for better medical treatment and better diets for fighting men and personally took her cause to Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln.

She held the hands and comforted many a wounded and dying solider from both sides and provided treatment to them alongside their doctors.

She spares no detail and does not attempt to provide a history of the war. Her story is intimately human and will draw you in like few other memoirs.

Julia Dent Grant was a friend with whom Wittenmyer spent time whenever Grant was at her husband's headquarters. She sat with Abraham Lincoln in his office at the White House discussing dietary issues when the telegram of Sheridan's victory in the Shenandoah arrived.

With an introduction by Julia Grant, this book then opens with Wittenmyer's first meeting with General Grant. She has many stories of him here including how his 13-year-old son, Fred, rode the front lines with the General at Vicksburg daily.

Wittenmyer spent the rest of her life as a social reformer and was friends with Margaret Sanger and many other luminaries of the temperance and suffragist movements.

This is an account of sorrow and victory that you won't soon forget.

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