Of the 400,000 men from New York State called to duty in the Union armed forces during the Civil War, approximately 12,000 or 75 percent of the voting population, called Oswego County home. Veterans from other states or Canada later settled in Oswego County and made the place their home as well. This book tells the stories of thirty-seven of these soldiers.
(This book cannot be returned.)
Oswego County, New York, bordering the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, is an area rich in history from the colonial period up to the present. In the years before the Civil War, concerned residents participated in the abolition movement and the underground railroad, assisting runaway slaves to safety in Canada. By 1865 Oswego County had furnished an estimated 12,000 men to the Union cause.
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Although far from the fighting, the residents of Oswego County were forever changed by the Civil War. One of the few regions that never forced a draft, thousands of men volunteered, motivated by patriotism, abolitionism or a yearning for adventure. Neither they nor their families were ever the same, and local author Natalie Joy Woodall relates their diverse experiences.