https://kansaspress.ku.edu/home/new-notable/978-0-7006-2753-0.html
The Seventh West Virginia Infantry
An Embattled Union Regiment from the Civil War's Most Divided State
David W. Mellott and Mark A. Snell
Though calling itself "The Bloody Seventh" after only a few minor skirmishes, the Seventh West Virginia Infantry earned its nickname many times over during the course of the Civil War. Fighting in more battles and suffering more losses than any other West Virginia regiment, the unit was the most embattled Union regiment in the most divided state in the war. Its story, as it unfolds in this book, is a key chapter in the history of West Virginia, the only state created as a direct result of the Civil War. It is also the story of the citizen soldiers, most of them from Appalachia, caught up in the bloodiest conflict in American history.
The Seventh West Virginia fought in the major campaigns in the eastern theater, from Winchester, Antietam, and Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Petersburg. Weaving military, social, and political history,
The Seventh West Virginia Infantry details strategy, tactics, battles, campaigns, leaders, and the travails of the rank and file. It also examines the circumstances surrounding events, mundane and momentous alike such as the soldiers' views on the Emancipation Proclamation, West Virginia Statehood, and Lincoln's re-election. The product of decades of research, the book uses statistical analysis to profile the Seventh's soldiers from a socio-economic, military, medical, and personal point of view; even as its authors consult dozens of primary sources, including soldiers' living descendants, to put a human face on these "sons of the mountains." The result is a multilayered view, unique in its scope and depth, of a singular Union regiment on and off the Civil War battlefield—its beginnings, its role in the war, and its place in history and memory.
"Despite its complicated origins in a bitterly divided southern state, the 'Bloody Seventh' became one of the great regiments of the Army of the Potomac. David Mellott and Mark Snell tell the regiments story with rich detail, vital context, and the literary verve of a good novel."
—Kenneth W. Noe, Draughon Professor of Southern History at Auburn University
"The Seventh West Virginia Infantrywill take its place alongside the best of the modern Civil War regimental histories. We learn more than just the battles and marches of the Seventh West Virginia Infantry. We come to know who these men were, the politics that shaped their creation, the motivations for why they fought, what they endured, and how the war changed them."
—D. Scott Hartwig, author of To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign of September 1862
Bringing the