The primary figures in this collection of letters are Henry McKendree Ewing, often referred to as Mack or Mc, and his wife, Nan, but their parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, and friends play substantial roles, too. In 1862, not quite 21 years old, Mack married his childhood friend, Nancy Ann Hank. Born in West Virginia and raised in southcentral Ohio, Nan in 1861 visited relatives near Hillsdale, Michigan, and at the same time renewed her earlier friendship with Mack, whose family had moved from Ohio to Hillsdale some ten years earlier. Nan, born in 1840, was almost a year older than Mack. Mack served with the Ninth Army at the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia, where he was wounded in December, 1864.
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