Where They Fell: Stories of Rochester Area Soldiers in the Civil War
By Robert Marcotte ($20)
What a wonderful book in wonderful condition. It's even autographed.
295 pages, HC, by our local historian and the Democrat and Chronicle's columnist. (Look for this book in our local section.)
Rochester sent 17 regiments and batteries to war. They fought on land, in the trenches and on the ships that captured New Orleans, and many would die in Andersonville.
Shields Green, a clothes cleaner, was hanged for taking part in John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. James Gibbons helped defend Fort Sumter. The wealthy, including George Ellwanger, Rochester's nurseryman, contributed to a relief fund for the families of enlisted men. Women of the First Presbyterian Church sewed shirts, "drawers", "ticks"and linen capes for the soldiers.
When the first soldiers left, more than 20,000 people lined the streets. 10,372 soldiers would eventually march away, with over 1,300 never coming home. They died in battle, of wounds, and, even more commonly, from disease. Come and read their stories.
