Clara Barton (1821 - 1912) Massachusetts
Once called "the angel of the battlefield," Clara Barton began attending to the Union wounded after the losses at Bull Run, where she realized that many soldiers had suffered from a need for medical supplies. Standing barely five feet tall, she worked between the "bullet and the battlefield," providing the donations she and her organization had gathered to the medical teams in need of them. She also organized an effort to locate missing soldiers for their families. Unmarried, she was known for her courage in the face of immediate danger: "While our soldiers stand and fight I can stand and feed and nurse them." Clara Barton went on to found the American Red Cross, associated with the International Red Cross, in 1881.

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (1818 - 1893) Louisiana
A West Point graduate and soldier in the Mexican War, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, like Lee, chose to leave the Union army and defend his home state, Louisiana. He had worked for years with the army as an engineer. Present at the opening shots on Fort Sumter and Bull Run--where he defeated one of his former West Point classmates--, Beauregard became one of the Confederacy's eight full generals. Although competent in battle, he was a better engineer than a field commander. His egoism and temper, perhaps in line with his Creole blood and French upbringing, caused him to sometimes question orders. He spent part of his later life arguing with Davis and others over his role in the war. Beauregard recounts a moment of humor after Bull Run: "A comical effect. . . was the destruction of the dinner of myself and staff by a Federal shell that fell into the fire-place of my headquarters."

Mary Ann Bickerdyke (1817 - 1901) Ohio
The only woman allowed by Sherman into his camps, Mary Ann Bickerdyke was known as simply "Mother Bickerdyke" by many Union soldiers. Her reputation was built on an ability to bypass bureaucracy, scrounge together supplies, and perform "cyclone clean-ups" of army field hospitals. One Union soldier called her: "a woman rough, uncultivated, even ignorant, but a diamond in the rough." She spent her time on everything from assisting in amputations to brewing coffee for her "boys." While traveling with Grant's and Sherman's armies, she helped to set up many of the Union's 300 field hospitals. She continued to help veterans in the postwar period as an attorney.

John Wilkes Booth (1838 - 1865) Maryland
John Wilkes Booth was on his way to a respectable acting career when the militia unit he belonged to, the Richmond Grays, joined in the war. Booth did not serve actively, but lived in the North, where he may have been a spy. He felt strongly that the South was being oppressed by the North, and together with some colleagues, planned to kidnap President Lincoln. The plan failed because Jefferson Davis refused to authorize it. After Lee's surrender, he reconvened the group to carry out a more dramatic scheme. He broke his leg while leaping from the president's box after shooting the president at Ford Theater in Washington, DC. His accomplices had failed to carry out their parts in the crime. Booth was caught by soldiers twelve days later; it is not clear whether he shot himself or was killed by his captors.

Matthew Brady (1823 - 1896) New York
Matthew Brady was one of the first Americans to become proficient at photography, and by the 1850s had become the country's most famous photographer. He opened three studios by 1854, in which he captured portraits of as many famous people as possible. He was taught how to take daguerreotypes by Samuel Morse (of Morse code and telegraph fame). Brady and his staff of ten war-time photographers documented the carnage and reality of the battlefield. Asked why he took up the project, Brady answered: "I felt I had to go. A spirit in my feet said 'go' and I went." A darkroom on a wagon was used for development of the photographic plates. But the $100,000 that Brady had invested in the project left him bankrupt when the government showed no interest in purchasing the plates. Eventually, the War Department bought his negatives at a public auction for $2,840. Brady died unable to sustain his financial health.

John Brown [photo] (1800 - 1859) Connecticut
John Brown became a hero in the fight against slavery even before the Civil War started. Taught as a child to hate slavery, he grew up in rural Ohio, and eventually started a number of business ventures, all of which were failures. With his first wife, he had seven children, and with his second, another thirteen. Brown's personal visions of slave uprisings grew progressively more intense. By 1855, during the first year of the "Bleeding Kansas" skirmishes, he believed it was his duty to God to lead a raid. In 1856, provoked by a bloody attack on Kansas settlers by "border ruffians," Brown and his party led a raid at Pottawatomie, where they hacked several of its pro-slavery inhabitants to death. In 1959, while attempting a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, he and his men were trapped by US soldiers commanded by Robert E. Lee. After a trial during which he refused to apologize, he was executed. Brown, as reflected in the popular song "John Brown's Body," became a martyr to many northerners. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison said of him: "In firing his gun, John Brown has merely told what time of day it is. It is high noon, thank God."

Ambrose E. Burnside (1824 - 1881) Indiana
A West Point graduate, Ambrose Burnside designed a breech-loading rifle in 1853, but failed to get a government contract for production. His creditors took over the patent, and during the war manufactured over 50,000 of his Burnside Carbines. Burnside then worked for his friend George McClellan, and later became major general of the Rhode Island Militia. When war broke out Burnside returned to the army and was promoted to major general after several victories in 1862. He battled Lee at Antietam, where thousands of soldiers died without gain for either side--partly because Burnside's insistence on building a bridge across the creek slowed his forces. Against his own wishes, Burnside was chosen to replace McClellan as general of the Union armies, but after the "Burnside Mud March," he retired. He returned to battle in 1864, but the spectacular failure of his "Burnside mine" again led to his removal from duty. Later, he served as governor of Rhode Island and in the US Senate. Burnside is credited as the source of the sideburn.

John Caldwell Calhoun (1782 - 1850) South Carolina
A fiery-looking man, John C. Calhoun was a politician whose brilliant arguments for states' rights were a cornerstone of the secessionist movement. Calhoun dedicated twenty years to the development of his political beliefs, warning his northern colleagues that war would be unavoidable unless the South's rights could be guaranteed: "Let us show at least as much spirit in defending our rights as the Abolitionists have evinced in denouncing them." He had served as Secretary of War, Vice- President, Secretary of State, and US Senator. Calhoun's last political engagement was his behind-the-scenes support for the Compromise of 1850. He died shortly thereafter.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828 - 1914) Maine
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a professor of theology at Bowdoin College when, instead of taking his sabbatical in Europe, he became lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine infantry. He fought from Antietam to Appomattox. He was one of thousands trapped on the field at Fredericksburg after Burnside's attempts to take Marye's Heights were thwarted by Lee's men. At Gettysburg, where he had been chosen to hold Little Round Top, he pulled out a textbook maneuver for which he was recognized with the Medal of Honor. Though wounded four times, he recovered each time and was promoted by Grant to brigadier general. He was liked and respected by his superior, Grant, who also chose him to receive the Confederacy's surrender at Appomattox. Chamberlain later was governor of Maine for four terms, and president of Bowdoin College.

Mary Boykin Chestnut (1823 - 1886) South Carolina
Mary Chestnut was the wife of a member of the Confederate Provisional Congress. A former US Senator, her husband, James Chestnut, Jr., was the first to quit the capitol for the South. Through their friendship with Jefferson and Varina Davis, the couple moved comfortably in the circles of the southern elite. She had grave reservations about slavery, which she termed a "monstrous system," and missed her friends in the North. A sometimes depressed woman, Mary Chestnut had received an excellent education and trusted her thoughts on the Civil War to a journal she kept daily. Into those pages she penned observant notes on a wide range of topics. Her entries were intelligent and insightful, and show the war from a woman's perspective. Here, at the beginning of the war, we see that she is not fooled by others' eagerness: "Woe to those who began this war if they were not in bitter earnest."

Jefferson Davis (1807 or 1808 - 1889) Kentucky
". . . it is the right of the governed, and . . . the right of the people to alter or abolish [governments] at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established. . . ." Jefferson Davis was a US Senator for the state of Mississippi when he was elected president of the Confederacy in 1861. Hard-working and extraordinarily loyal to the South, he was not a master of politics. Election to the presidency came as a shock to him. He insisted to the North that all his new government wanted was to be "left alone." Though Davis was unable to unite the politicians of the South, he did give his full support to Robert E. Lee. Captured by the North when the war was over, he spent only two years in prison, and was never brought to trial. His memoirs say little of the Confederacy but a lot about himself; he died respected and greatly revered, though not deeply loved, by many southerners.

Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802 - 1887) Maine
Dorothea Dix gained her reputation when she assumed leadership of the North's Women Nurses during the war. Sherman, who considered her the only woman to be allowed into camp, simply said of her: "She ranks me." George Templeton Strong remarked: "Working on her own hook she does good but no one can cooperate with her, for she belongs to the class of comets." She was soft-spoken but efficient, and set standards so tough that during the war's early years she turned away many volunteer nurses. Dix's work began in 1821, when she opened a school for girls. In 1841 she happened upon an institution that housed both criminals and the mentally ill. Disturbed and shocked, she wrote a report for the Massachusetts state legislature, and spent several years thereafter campaigning for reforms. Her efforts to improve conditions for the mentally ill were noticed as far away as Europe.

Frederick Douglass [photo] (1817 - 1895) Maryland
After escaping slavery at the age of twenty, Frederick Douglass began a tireless crusade for abolition. Having learned how to read and write while working as a house servant, he turned to the art of speech making. After a promising start, he was forced to flee the country when threatened by the prospect of re-enslavement. In England and Ireland he wrote his famous Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. While overseas, he also earned enough money to purchase his freedom once back in the United States. He founded the abolitionist newspaper North Star in New York, and embraced the cause of women's suffrage. Exiled from the country again, this time for his friendship with John Brown, he passed through Canada and returned to Britain. Douglass was back in the United States when the Civil War broke out. He pressed Lincoln to recruit blacks and pronounce emancipation, saying: ". . . this war with the slave-holders can never be brought to a desirable termination until slavery, the guilty cause of all our national troubles, has been totally and forever abolished." After the war, he held various government positions.

Hiram Ulysses (U.S.) Grant [photo] (1822 - 1885) Ohio
U. S. Grant was not Lincoln's first choice for General-in-Chief. But under Grant's leadership, the Union forces moved against the South undeterred. Grant's military career began with recognition for his fighting in Mexico, after which he was stationed in California. Grant assumed authority over the Union armies in 1864. He sought to defeat Lee's forces by stretching them to the breaking point, and his ability to learn and to persevere helped him bring the war to an end. People said the "U.S." stood for "Unconditional Surrender." Separation from his wife caused him enough stress and boredom that he gained a reputation for drinking. He was more kind to horses than he was to many men, but he was renowned for his ability to concentrate and maintain his cool in difficult situations. Grant's wartime success helped him become elected president in 1868 and 1872. He served two terms as president of the United States beginning in 1869, and at the age of 46, was the youngest to ever hold the office. Acts such as his nomination of Ely Parker to Office of Indian Affairs were appreciated by many of his countryman. His second term, however, was marred by financial scandals. Grant died a week after finishing his memoirs, following a difficult struggle with throat cancer. The memoirs are considered among the best of any written about the Civil War.

Ambrose P. Hill (1825 - 1865) Virginia
Commanding officer of the "Light Division"--considered one of the best in the Confederate Army--Ambrose Hill fought ferociously in a dozen battles, from 1862 on through to Petersburg, where he was killed in 1865. Hill was a graduate of West Point and had served in the US Army, but as a Virginia native he chose to serve his home state. He rose through the ranks quickly, becoming a major general in 1862 after delivering serious blows to Union forces. He was with Lee when Confederate soldiers forced McClellan away from Richmond in the Seven Days battle, in 1862. He rode in his red jacket alongside John Bell Hood when Lee steered them into Maryland, and his unit earned a reputation while fighting alongside Stonewall Jackson. Having become a lieutenant general, he was shot down at Petersburg near the end of the war, when Lee's entire army numbered only 35,000 to Grant's 125,000.

John Bell Hood (1831 - 1879) Kentucky
West Point graduate and Kentuckian, John Bell Hood enjoyed speedy promotions within the Confederate Army while leading his zealous Texas Brigade. He lost most of his men during a battle at Antietam, where he encountered Union General Hooker. He was wounded at Gettysburg in the left arm, and at Chickamauga, where he lost his right leg. Known for his aggressive military tactics and his battlefield bravado, Hood's daring was sometimes considered careless. A minister described the scene from the Seven Days' battle: "On before us rushed the brave Texans, yelling and shouting as they advanced. The fiery storm of shot and shell poured destruction into these ranks, but there was no halt." Hood was chosen to help defend Atlanta against Sherman's men, which he did for several weeks. But a counterattack was crushed by Union forces, and Hood had little choice but to offer up the city. He gave up his post after surrendering his forces in Mississippi, and focused his energies on business and on writing his memoirs. He died poor a few days after his wife, leaving behind ten children, among them three pairs of twins. His memoirs became a classic.

Joe Hooker (1814 - 1879) Massachusetts
Joe Hooker, like many others, was a West Point graduate. He had also taken part in the Mexican War. Hooker earned the name "Fighting Joe" in the press; the nickname was said to have been accidental. At Chancellorsville, one of his men complained: "Old Joe Hooker thought of most everything, but forgot to give us swimming lessons!" After recovering from a wound in his foot, he became a major general and replaced Union General Burnside after the disastrous campaign at Fredericksburg. He kept his position for only five months, continuing, however, to command Union troops throughout the war. When he was denied promotion in 1864, he ended his participation in the war. After the war, he maintained positions in the army, finally retiring after a stroke in 1868.

Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (1824 - 1863) Virginia
After earning the nickname "Stonewall" at the First Battle of Bull Run, Jackson was Lee's favorite officer, and soared through the ranks to become a major general in 1861. A West Point graduate and veteran of the Mexican War, Jackson was known for his bravery in battle, owed perhaps to his Scottish-Irish descent. For the fervor that shone in his eyes during battle, his second nickname was "Old Blue Light." He also had a reputation for religious eccentricity and a tendency to conceal his plans. Sometimes not even his own officers knew of his tactics. On several notable occasions he divided his army, with surprising successes against Union troops; he also drove himself to the point of physical exhaustion. He pushed his men equally: "All old Jackson gave us was a musket, a hundred rounds and a gum blanket, and he druv us so like Hell." Jackson was accidentally hit by his own men in battle at the Rappahannock. He lost his left arm and then contracted pneumonia. When he died of his illness, Lee said of him: "He has lost his left arm; I have lost my right."

Robert E. Lee [photo] (1807 - 1870) Virginia
Robert E. Lee's credentials were well established after thirty-six years in the army--where classmates called him the "Marble Model"--when he turned down Lincoln's offer to head the Union forces. Devoted instead to his home state, Virginia, Lee became General-in-Chief of the Confederacy. He commanded an enormous amount of respect from all who knew him, and projected a deep sense of duty and honor. He was opposed to war and to slavery, but fought in defense of his state. Lee focused on the "big picture," the war's strategic movements, expecting his officers to execute his plans. Most of his losses were due to incomplete execution of his orders. In his mastery of the organization of war, he was unparalleled. Lee became president of Washington College after the war, turning down numerous money-making offers. He is considered the war's finest general.

Abraham Lincoln [photo] (1809 - 1865) Kentucky
Abraham Lincoln made his reputation as a national politician in the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858. He won the support of the Republican party and became president in 1860. Soon after, when southern states left the Union to form a new nation, he was forced to lead the North into war. Lincoln's power as a president grew over time. Military victories and defeats accounted for much of the shift in the public's support of his administration. His reelection in 1864, when he ran against his former general George McClellan, was due in large part to Sherman and Grant's successes in battle. Lincoln, while cautious regarding emancipation, seemed committed to abolition. Yet many northerners did not seem to appreciate his deeds and abilities. Hearing of the assassination, George Templeton Strong wrote: "I am stunned, as by a fearful personal calamity, though I can see that this thing, occurring just at this time, may be over-ruled to our great good. . . . .We shall appreciate him at last."

Mary Todd Lincoln (1818 - 1882) Kentucky
Mary Todd's family was well-off and provided her with a good education at small private academies in Kentucky. After joining her sister in Illinois, she met Abraham Lincoln and they were soon engaged. Much to her horror, Mr. Lincoln did not show up at their wedding. They continued to court one another, and held a rather hasty but this time successful ceremony late in 1842. Some of Abraham's friends disliked Mary and believed that she made his life difficult; many also felt that her connections with southerners were too strong. Nonetheless, Abraham enjoyed making a home with her. Mary became temporarily insane after the president's death, and was later unable to budget her pension and inheritance properly. She returned to her sister's home towards the end of her life, receiving a gift from the Congress that enabled her to live comfortably.

James Longstreet (1821 - 1904) South Carolina
West Point graduate, James Longstreet resigned from the US army to serve his home state, Georgia. Longstreet was at Bull Run and he fought as one of Lee's right-hand generals all the way to Appomattox. He and Pickett halted Burnside's advances on Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg. Pickett's men charged at Gettysburg under Longstreet's order, a tactic even he knew was futile. Longstreet's tendency to hesitate if he was not in agreement with Lee's orders produced battlefield losses for which he has been blamed in the historical record. Defeat at Gettysburg is often attached to Longstreet's hesitancy to attack, though some believe that Longstreet's own strategy, had it been followed, may have been more successful. After the war he held various positions in business and in the government, and in 1880 became the country's ambassador to Turkey. Longstreet's autobiography was only one of his many postwar writings, and is highly regarded.

George Brinton McClellan (1826 - 1885) Pennsylvania
George McClellan's career in the military showed brilliance from the outset, as he moved rapidly through a number of responsibilities. His skills were central to the organization and discipline of the new Union army. Lincoln chose him to lead the army, but was forced to issue repeated commands to McClellan to prod him into action. McClellan frequently complained that his forces were outnumbered. At the same time, he thought himself superior, making comments like: "Again I have been called upon to save the country. . . ." Editor Horace Greeley was provoked to write: "Never did an army so constantly, pressingly need to be reinforced--not by a corps, but by a leader; not by men, but by a man." Opposed to the Republican party, McClellan maintained disputes with several government officials. He embraced political life wholeheartedly after Lincoln dismissed him for the second and last time, and ran for president against Lincoln in 1864. After losing the election, he traveled and pursued a number of business ideas, and was once governor of New Jersey.

Ely Parker (1828 - 1895) New York
Robert E. Lee, who at first mistook Ely Parker, a Seneca Indian, for a black man, corrected himself at Appomattox by saying: "I am glad to see one real American here." Parker responded by saying: "We are all Americans." Stumped in his attempts to practice law and turned away by the army because of his race, Parker was admitted to the military only after Grant's personal intervention. Versed in the two cultures of his country, he wrote out the terms of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. Thereafter, he remained in the army, and was chosen to head the commission on Indian affairs when Grant became president. The move took the nation by surprise, and the office fell into some scandal when corruption beyond Parker's control made the headlines. Parker's final years were poverty-ridden, and his widow was left with little besides Parker's own copy of the surrender.

Wendell Phillips (1811 - 1884) Massachusetts
Wendell Phillips was a graduate of Harvard Law School and came from a prominent New England family. His father was Boston's first mayor. He broke with his family's conservative profile when he decided in the mid 1830s to write and work for the abolitionist cause. When he rose to deliver a powerful speech in condemnation of Elijah Lovejoy's death in 1837, he was catapulted to the forefront of the abolitionist movement. Read and listened to widely, he was regarded as one of the leading orators of the time, the "Knight-Errant of Unfriended Truth" and the "Golden Trumpet" of abolition. His speeches were direct, simple, and powerful. To the question of recruiting blacks, he replied: "Will the slave fight? If any man asks you, tell him No. But if anyone asks you will a Negro fight, tell him yes." After emancipation, Phillips also took up the cause of labor, defending the eight-hour work day, the right to strike, and fair taxation. Phillips also supported civil rights, women's and temperance movements, Native American rights, and more.

George Pickett (1825 - 1875) Virginia
Famous for "Pickett's charge" at Gettysburg, a turning point in the war, George Pickett was a West Point graduate in command of a division of Virginia men. He was at Fredericksburg, where his men cut down the courageous "Irish Brigade." At Gettysburg, about half of the men involved in the final Confederate charge were his; most were killed. The remainder of his division was all but wiped out in the final days of the war. Of Longstreet's order to charge Seminary Ridge at Gettysburg, he wrote: "He [Longstreet] looked at me for a moment, then held out his hand. Presently clasping his other hand over mine without speaking, he bowed his head upon his breast. I shall never forget the look in his face nor the clasp of his hand when I said: 'Then, General, I shall lead my division on.'"

Elisha Hunt Rhodes (1842 - 1917) Rhode Island
Elisha Hunt Rhodes was nineteen when he joined the Rhode Island volunteers in 1861. Like so many others, he knew neither what to expect of the army nor what the war would bring. His impressions as a teen growing up among horrifying slaughter were recorded in his diary. Historians turn to commentaries such as his for the candor not always found in the memoirs of generals and politicians.

Dred Scott (1795 - 1858) Virginia
Dred Scott, born into slavery, worked as a stevedore, farm hand, and craftsman. Upon the death of his first owner, Scott was sold to an army surgeon who took him to Illinois, a free state, and to the territory of Wisconsin. Scott later returned with the surgeon to Missouri. As the slave of John Sanford after the surgeon's death, Scott sought to buy his freedom. He now had a wife and two daughters, and when he was unable to purchase his freedom he filed a suit in Missouri, claiming that his residence in the free state of Illinois entitled him to be free. The Supreme Court took up the suit in 1857, ruling seven to two that Scott "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The decision established the Court's view of blacks: they were not citizens, and thus could lay no claim to the rights of Americans. In addition, the court voiced the opinion that slavery could not be excluded from the territories, thus theoretically invalidating the Missouri Compromise. The decision, which was supposed to lay the matter of slavery to rest, stirred abolitionists' determination. Scott himself was freed by Sanford months later, and lived in St. Louis until he died one year later.

William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 - 1891) Ohio
William Tecumseh Sherman's professional life began with successes as a banker, but was clouded when he amassed a large debt during the gold rush and lost his one and only case as a self-taught lawyer. He was able to rejoin the military (he had attended West Point) in 1861, but some believed he was not fit for a position of leadership. Accusations that he was mentally unfit were popular among journalists, and Sherman's position was temporarily changed. However, he redeemed himself at Shiloh and Vicksburg. He went on to capture Atlanta in record time, and proceeded to lay the countryside to waste on his campaign--known as the March to the Sea--through Georgia. For his readiness to target civilians, many historians consider him the country's first modern general. Sherman, whose campaigns helped Lincoln win reelection, won himself heroic stature in the North. Had it not been for his distaste for politics, he could have easily entered public office after the war. This feeling was evident even at the war's beginning: "You might as well attempt to put out the flames of a burning house with a squirt-gun. I think this is to be a long war--very long--much longer than any politician thinks." When Grant became president, he kept his friend in charge of the army.

Robert Gould Shaw (1837 - 1863) Massachusetts
An abolitionist's son, Robert Gould Shaw was the white commander of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment. Formed in May 1863, Shaw's was the first all-black regiment to enter battle. ("Colored troops" were commanded by white officers, and the regiments remained segregated until the Second World War.) In July of that same year he was killed in the fight for Fort Wagner, a fight which was to prove to both sides that black soldiers would indeed fight, and fight hard. He was buried by Confederates in a mass grave, along with his compatriots. His father, asked about the resting place given his son, said "They buried him with his brave, devoted followers who fell dead over him and around him. . . . We can imagine no holier place than that in which he is. . . nor wish him better company--what a bodyguard he has!"

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) Connecticut
A minister's daughter, Harriet Beecher grew up amidst the strict Calvinist ethics of her father and five clergy brothers. In 1832 she moved with her father to Cincinnati, a city along the Ohio river within view of a slave-holding community. In 1836 she married a professor who displayed an interest in her writings. Stowe's location provided her an opportunity to learn about slavery by conversing with fugitive slaves from across the river. When she and her husband moved to Maine, she began writing installments of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851- 1852) for an anti-slavery magazine. The book was published in twenty-three languages and helped change what many Americans felt about slavery. Stowe's later writings, although better crafted than Uncle Tom, failed to reach as wide an audience. It is rumored that when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe he said to her: "So this is the little lady who made this big war."

George Templeton Strong (1820 - 1875) New York
A New York lawyer, George Templeton Strong was conservative, wealthy, and extremely shy. Repulsed by the poverty among recent immigrants to his city, and offended by the vulgarity of some of his rich neighbors, he kept mostly to himself. But when trouble over the issue of slavery grew, he became even more incensed with the South and the ways of some of its slave-holding citizens. He penned these thoughts into a diary he had been maintaining daily since the age of fifteen. His money helped equip a regiment, and he was treasurer of the US Sanitary Commission; his wife served on a hospital ship.

Harriet Tubman (1820 - 1913) Maryland
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery in 1849 and a year later returned to Maryland to lead members of her family into freedom. She soon became one of the Underground Railroad's best "conductors," leading over three hundred fugitive slaves to freedom. The "railroad" comprised a network of houses spread throughout the South, in which fugitive slaves could take refuge in secrecy. Nicknamed the "General" for her tough discipline, Tubman was so strict with some escapees that she threatened them with a loaded gun to keep them silent. Neither she, nor a single one of her fugitives, was ever captured while escaping.

Sam Watkins (1839 - 1901) Tennessee
From Columbia, Tennessee, Sam Watkins was twenty one when he joined the Maury Grays, 1st Tennessee Regiment. He wanted to fight simply because he believed the North, and northerners, had no business in the South. His eagerness was common for a man of his age: "The die was cast; war was declared. . . every person, almost, was eager for the war, and we were all afraid it would be over and we would not be in the fight." Watkins believed in states' rights and fought under Joseph Johnston and Stonewall Jackson. The diary he kept has been widely read and enjoyed for its candor.

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) New York
Shortly after completing grade school, Walt Whitman began learning the ins and outs of printing and editing. He spent several years as an editor on a variety of magazines and newspapers, all the while nurturing his own style of writing during his spare time. By 1855 he had published his first book of poems, Leaves of Grass, which received a substantial amount of attention-- both complementary and otherwise, and is still widely read and celebrated today. Whitman challenged Americans to become soulful and generous, to enjoy their bodies and the sensuality of life. When Whitman's brother was wounded at Fredericksburg, he paid him a visit. Shocked at the scene, Whitman visited wounded soldiers for much of the war, dispensing a care beyond the medicaments of doctors. Whitman's career as a writer accelerated after the war, and in due time he became recognized as one of the country's finest poets.

Eli Whitney (1765 - 1825) Massachusetts
Inventor, engineer, and manufacturer, in 1794 Eli Whitney constructed a simple machine to remove cotton seeds much faster than could be done by hand. The gin did not make Whitney rich, for it was easy to copy and build. It did inject new strength into the South's cotton economy, greatly increasing the efficiency of cotton production. The expansion of the cotton industry in turn fueled the demand for slaves. Cotton became "king," the cash crop of the entire South. Whitney went on to invent muskets that used interchangeable parts. The parts were made by machine tools whose products were identical to one another. This system of producing uniform parts later won Whitney the reputation as one of the fathers of the American manufacturing system.