Trumbull County Boys: Company H, 20th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War

In the autumn of 1861, the farm boys and craftsmen of northeast Ohio swapped their plow handles for Harper's Ferry rifles. They were neighbors-brothers, cousins, and lifelong friends-who answered President Lincoln's call with a fervor born of the Western Reserve's abolitionist heritage. Designated as Company H of the 20th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, these "Trumbull County Boys" would embark on a four-year odyssey that led them from the staging grounds of Camp Chase into the very heart of the Southern Confederacy.

Through the smoke of battle and the suffocating silence of the trenches, Trumbull County Boys follows the internal life of a single company. It is a story of grit and brotherhood, tracing the lives of men like Samuel Hughes, a fifty-two-year-old preacher who lied about his age to march beside his teenage son; William Ray, whose music was silenced by a guerrilla's bullet on the Ohio River; and Lorain "Bunker" Ruggles, the irreverent scout who became one of General Grant's most trusted spies.

Experience the full arc of the Western Theater through their eyes: from the frozen ground of Fort Donelson and the carnage of Shiloh to the intimate, horrific combat in the creek beds of Raymond and the grueling siege of Vicksburg. Follow the regiment into the firestorm of Atlanta, where they earned a reputation as a "crack" unit that never gave ground under fire, and join them on the devastating March to the Sea and through the swamps of the Carolinas.

Based on a meticulously researched chronicle of official reports, diaries, and personal letters published in the Western Reserve Chronicle, this book restores the voices of those who carried the honor of Ohio to the very end. Their journey changed a nation; it also changed the idea of home they would carry back across the Ohio River when the killing was finally done.