For Love & Liberty: The Untold Civil War Story of Major Sullivan Ballou & His Famous Love Letter

If you watched Ken Burns's Civil War documentary, you probably remember the touching narration of a letter Sullivan Ballou, an officer in a Rhode Island regiment, wrote to his wife on the eve of the war's first major conflict. Young tries to tell this couple's story, but is only fitfully successful. Although early sections do shed some light on Sullivan's life before the war, there simply isn't enough information about the Ballous to sustain an 800-plus-page book. Young winds up quoting the famous letter twice in its entirety, and the narrative thread is frequently overwhelmed by her rehashing of the slavery debate and early days of the Civil War. She also buries the Ballous under pages of historical minutiae detailing everything from rifle-loading techniques to contemporary household advice. A huge chunk in the middle does actually provide an exhaustive account of the Battle of Bull Run, but again, Young so often pulls back for the big picture that it becomes difficult to keep track of Sullivan and his ultimately fatal injuries on the battlefield. There's a moving story about families torn apart by war in here, but finding it is an exercise in frustration. (Feb.)