John Ferry

Servants of the Wind John Ferry

'The rage I felt is frightening to recall, even now after all these years. I lived what the human race was like in its primitive stages... I fear that for a few minutes along the banks of Peachtree Creek I had no soul.' This is the story of a Civil War regiment, the 111th Pennsylvania, which was recruited in 1861 from Erie, Warren, Crawford and Elk counties. It fought in the east in 1862 and 1863 and then went west, to fight at Chattanooga, Resaca and Atlanta. It marched to the sea and through the Carolinas during 1864-65, and was known as one of the '300 Fighting Regiments' of the Union. This book, narrated by a fictional vetran, tells of war in a different way, where the facts are sometimes blurry rather than quanitified, where the names of privates count for as much as the officers, and the civilian front takes an equal place in the telling. Humor can be found even in hard times, and it is here, too. This is a story of Americans made heroic by the measure of their valor and sacrifice. (Since publication, the author found out that Calvin Blanchard's first wife was named Bertha Ferry)