Publication Of Note | September 2024
Francis Buffum. “Sheridan’s Veterans.” Boston, MA: W.F. Brown & Company, 1886.
*Throughout 2024, the “Publication of Note” portion of the newsletter will highlight some of the director’s favorite primary sources relevant to the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley published prior to 1940.
In September 1885, members of the Sheridan’s Veterans Association (SVA), an organization created several years earlier, visited the Shenandoah Valley for the second time in three years. The SVA’s historian, Francis Buffum, a veteran of the 14th New Hampshire, and prolific author after the conflict, compiled various speeches and reminiscences of other veterans about their visit to the Shenandoah Valley 21 years after Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Campaign.
For those interested in how Sheridan’s veterans reflected on their service in the valley, Buffum’s volume is essential. Additionally, this volume includes interactions with former Confederates in the valley and reveals much about the complexities and limits of postwar healing. Particularly noteworthy are accounts of the Blue-Gray rifle matches that took place as part of the SVA’s visit to the valley.
While printed in limited quantities and therefore quite rare, this volume is available digitally at Google Books.
