Glorious Recollections

Glorious Recollections: J. Howard Wert's Lost History of the 209th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 1864-1865, including the Battles of Bermuda Hundred, Fort Stedman, and Petersburg is a Civil War regimental history originally written in 1894. It was not published at the time and has now been edited and supplemented for today's readers. Wert's text is both a detailed history and a devoted memoir. It describes his regiment's actions in the closing months of the war, particularly its participation in the battles of Bermuda Hundred, Fort Stedman, and Petersburg, and, after the war, its marching in the Grand Review. On the same pages, Wert also shows Civil War memory and veteran pride taking shape. The editors have supplemented Wert's manuscript with introductory and interpretive essays, personal documents from the soldiers, reminiscences from unit reunions, a biographical sketch of its commander, a collective portrait of one of its companies, and the rosters of the entire regiment.

The publication of this regimental history, previously unknown, adds to our understanding of Pennsylvania soldiers serving late in the war. Many of them had prior service while others were enlisting for the first time, such as Wert himself. This history also deepens our understanding of J. Howard Wert, one of Pennsylvania's most productive historians, novelists, poets and educators in the late 19th century. His account of a notorious Harrisburg neighborhood, the "Old Eighth Ward," has been republished recently; his "lost world" science fiction novel, Alecto and Ebony, is being prepared for publication; his Civil War poetry has been well-known for over a century; his collection of Battle of Gettysburg artifacts is world famous; and with this book his accomplishment as a military historian comes to light.