Soldier in the West

In 1861, Alfred Lacey Hough, a thirty-five-year-old commission merchant, left his wife, his two sons, and a comfortable home in Philadelphia to enlist as a sergeant in the Pennsylvania Volunteers. In his letters to his wife, Hough—who achieved the rank of captain and then brevet lieutenant colonel—revealed his complete devotion to Northern war aims, for he was an ardent champion of the Union cause. Each letter to his ‘Dearest Mary’ is the expression of a conscientious soldier who took great care