Don't Hurry Me Down to Hades ― Soldiers and Families in America's Civil War

For four years American families on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line were forced to endure the violence and hardship of the Civil War.Don't Hurry Me Down To Hades is the story of these families, expertly crafted from their own words. Revealing the innermost thoughts of both famous citizens and men and women forgotten by history, esteemed Civil War historian Susannah J. Ural explores life on the battlefield and the home front, capturing the astonishing perseverance of the men and women caught up in this most brutal of conflicts.

Susannah J. Ural, PhD., is an Associate Professor of History and Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of War & Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. She teaches a variety of courses relating to nineteenth-century America, the field of war and society, and the U.S. Civil War era. Her first book, The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865 (NYU Press, 2006) examined the motivations and experiences of Irish Catholic soldiers and their families. Her second work, the edited collection Civil War Citizens: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in America's Bloodiest Conflict, (NYU Press, 2010) chronicles larger ethnic experiences in the 1860s. She is currently finishing her narrative history of John Bell Hood's Texas Brigade, entitled Hood's Boys, which highlights the experiences of the men and the families of this unit, the communities from which they came, and how they represent the larger Confederate experience. Susannah Ural and her family live in Petal, Mississippi. The author lives in Petal, MS.