Winning His Way
Charles Carleton Coffin follows Paul Parker, the son of a poor widow in the Ohio village of New Hope, whose grandfather fought at Bunker Hill and lives on a soldier’s pension. Paul earns his standing the hard way, through small acts of nerve and honesty: he kills a rabid dog, turns down a bribe, teaches himself surveying and singing, and rises to lead the village choir. When the Civil War comes he enlists and marches south, and the war chapters carry him through scouting, skirmish, and the battle of Chickamauga. Written by one of the war’s most famous newspaper correspondents, this is a didactic boys’ novel of the 1860s that ties personal character to national service. It rewards anyone curious about how the wartime generation taught its children about duty and merit.
