A Punishment On The Nation

Private Silas W. Haven, a native New Englander transplanted to Iowa, enlisted in 1862 to fight in a war that he believed was God’s punishment for the sin of slavery. Only through the war’s purifying bloodshed, thought Haven, could the nation be redeemed and the Union saved. Haven’s Civil War crackles across each page as it chronicles one man’s journey from Iowa to war and back again.