The Colors of Dignity: The Memoirs of Civil War Brigadier General Giles Waldo Shurtleff

Leaving his home on the Illinois prairie, Giles Shurtleff attended Oberlin College just prior to the Civil War. President Lincoln’s call for troops after the firing on Fort Sumter in 1861 led to a great fervor of patriotism in Oberlin. Giles was elected Captain of Company C of the 7thOhio Volunteer Infantry. He wrote this about army life: “No other experience could equal it as a school for the study of human nature” both at its worst and at its best. Most of his soldiers realized they were ...