one safe place said:
Welcome.
Yeah for me the stories would be the thing. The movement of this group or that group, while pertinent to any battle, doesn't have the same personal aspect as do individual stories. I had a book (loaned to a high school friend and he has not returned it, lol) called "Dear Sister, Civil War Letters to a Sister in Alabama" and it is letters Lucinda Branscomb got from her four brothers during the war.
My wife's father, class of '38, wrote her mom hundreds of letters when he was away in WWII. She started trying to transcribe them but gave up.
I admire your dedication!
Most of my book is exactly as you state- letters home, newspaper articles about the people involved, stories from West Point.
and then it's written like a novel tracing their youth in the 1830s to then the start of the war up to Third Winchester and what happens to them after the war.
I'm trying to pattern it after 'Guns of August" which is fantastic.
but she used ZERO FOOTNOTES so I don't understand how anyone can win a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction with zero footnotes!!
so annoying!! I have over 3,000 footnotes!!