Charles Carleton Coffin emerges as a "soldier of the pen," a warm, witty, deeply principled Christian whose journalism, travel writing, and public service helped shape a generation's sense of patriotism and citizenship. This affectionate portrait begins in the sturdy soil of New Hampshire, where Revolutionary ancestors, hardship, and the resourceful courage of women forged the family line that formed him. Born in 1823, Coffin grew up amid rural labor, homemade clothing, simple food, schoolroom discipline, churchgoing, music, and vivid memories of a changing pre-industrial world. His boyhood was marked by sensitivity, ambition, and moral awakening: a church member at twelve, he embraced abolitionism through his father's sympathies, anti-slavery meetings, and Whittier's poetry. He also developed an early taste for leadership, politics, and public spectacle, from militia musters to the Harrison campaign. As war came, Coffin became a quick, trusted reporter of Union triumphs, from Charleston and Fort Sumter to Savannah, City Point, Petersburg, and Five Forks, chronicling the collapse of the Confederacy with urgency, courage, and conviction. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.
