Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War

In Late to the Fight, Alexandre F. Caillot explores the combat performance of the Union soldiers who filled newly raised regiments that fought through the Civil War’s final year. Historians have typically regarded these late enlistees as substandard to those who signed on at the war’s start. Using the experiences of the 17th Vermont and 31st Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiments to assess the record of late-arriving soldiers under fire, Caillot shows that these forgotten boys in blue left behind a record of valor and sacrifice essential to achieving the destruction of the Confederacy.