The Strange and Tragic Wounds of George Cole's America

"This book offers a gripping tale of ambition, self-making, and tragedy set against the backdrop of the American Civil War and its aftermath. This meticulously researched microhistory of a pained veteran explores how increasing rights for women, the end of slavery, expanding access to market goods, burgeoning towns and cities, the madness of war, and the congealing corruption in government and business brought a new birth of fraught freedom"--