Matteson, John. A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War
Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation. W.W. Norton & Company, February
9, 2021.
For this book, English professor John Matteson, who has won a Pulitzer Prize, delves into history by examining the lives of five people who endured the misery of the Battle of Fredericksburg. Through his career is in English, Matteson is well versed in 19th Century American literature and thus already had good historical context going into his research for this book. In fact three of his five chosen characters are familiar to literature enthusiasts. There is the great American poet Walt Whitman. There is Little Women author Louisa May Alcott. Both served as nurses at the battle, Alcott in an official capacity and Whiteman in an unofficial one. Chaplain Arthur Fuller was the brother of Margaret Fuller, journalist and women’s rights advocate as well as the subject of Matteson’s Pulitzer-winning biography. The most familiar names is Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., an officer in the 20th Massachusetts and future Supreme Court Justice. Finally, to represent the Confederate side, Matteson looks at John Pelham, the commander of Jeb Stuart’s horse artillery. Matteson delves into the intimate personal lives of these five figures, each who experienced a critical moment at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
