Robert Allan Stevens

The original Illinois State University was typical of colleges in the American antebellum period. Springfield's community boosters welcomed the new college as a civic adornment. Determined men of the cloth envisioned a prestigious institution like the one at which they learned the "artes liberals" and the Lutheran catechism. But turbulent times undermined their heroic efforts to sustain the school. The saga of ISU is a short arc from eager anticipation to bitter realization.

Ulric Dahlgren led a Union cavalry raid on the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia on the cold Sunday morning of November 9, 1862. Only about 3 hours long, the incident is a minor footnote in Civil War history. Yet this story is a microcosm of the war as experienced by the citizens, newspapers North and South, the individual soldier and his officers. First person accounts paint a detailed picture of the events of that morning, eschewing the spin of triumph or perfidy so common to military narratives.