The Tin Box: Keepsakes of a Civil War General (SIGNED COPY)
by: Robert W. P. Cutler

Softcover. Kearney NE, Morris Publishing, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 273 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on the title page. The Tin Box captures the life of George Varney, Brevet Brigadier General and Colonel of the 2nd Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment from Bangor during the Civil War. The book is based on a collection of letters, newspaper clippings, and military documents found in a metal box when Varney's only grandson died. Varney wrote to his mother from June 1861 to March 1863; from the first battle of Bull Run to Chancellorsville; from his capture at Gaines Mill to his head injury at Fredericksburg. From letters to General Varney from friends he made on the battlefield -- Generals Joshua Chamberlain, Thomas Hyde, Fitz John Porter, and others -- the book reveals the life-long impact on Varney of the war that consumed the nation. Newspaper clippings recount the glorious homecoming of the 2nd Maine, the Bangor reception of President Grant, and the first reunion of the veterans of the regiment, held nearly forty years after mustering out.From information meticulously recorded in a tattered notebook found in the box, the author, Varney's great grandson, traced the genealogy of the Varney family back to the 1630s. Among Varney's ancestors was his great uncle and military role model, General Isaac Hodsdon, who figured prominently in early Maine history as the commander of the militia in the Aroostook War of 1839. The book discusses in detail this little-known but important chapter in U. S. history. Clean copy.