Coburn's Brigade 85th Indiana, 33rd Indiana, 19th Michigan and 22nd Wisconsin in the Western Civil War

The Northern brigade of John Coburn has gained a reputation both notorious and laudatory. Accused of gross misconduct (as these authors show, improperly) when Thompson's Station was surrendered in Tennessee, they were captured and sent to Libby Prison. Released, they were determined to redeem themselves in the mediocre assignments given to them by the Western army. Then, having regained the confidence of their superiors, this group of Midwesterners fought staunchly and credibly in the Atlanta Campaign--shining particularly at the Battle of Peachtree Creek and were the first unit into Atlanta after its fall. This unusual and detailed history of a brigade which stayed together the entire war shows a little different version of unit solidarity. Not every unit was universally glorious; too often we pretend that is so. This is the story of a unit which failed and then succeeded. 462 pages; 19 detailed maps; 40+ illustrations; nearly 1,500 endnotes.

Frank J. Welcher is a native of Indiana. He attended Indiana University, where he received a Ph.D. in chemistry. He later became professor of chemistry at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, where he taught for fifty years. He is the author of many chemistry reference books.

Welcher's lifelong interest in the Civil War culminated in the authoring of the monumental two-volume set, THE UNION ARMY, published by Indiana University Press in 1989 and still considered a basic reference text for the serious researcher. Now in his nineties, Welcher is particularly interested in the Eighty-fifth Indiana Volunteers (part of Coburn's brigade) in which his grandfather, Isaac Welcher, was a private.

Frank Welcher and Larry Ligget began collaborating in 1995. "Larry's contribution is amazing," Welcher says, crediting longtime buff Ligget's encyclopedic knowledge of the Civil War for locating and documenting many of the most interesting episodes in the book.

Ligget began his career in publishing and graphic arts in the early 1970s as an editor and book designer for Bobbs-Merrill in Indianapolis. Though always generally interested in history, during this time he developed his avid interest in the Civil War, in part because of the many fine Civil War books that company produced (they published such authors as Henry Steele Commager, Robert Selph Henry, Otto Eisenschiml, and Glenn Tucker, to name only a few). Larry is managing editor of a scholarly journal and owns his own small business, Ligget Graphics and Research. He and his wife, Lucinda, and their chocolate Labrador retriever, Shiloh, live in Terre Haute, Indiana.