If I Can Get Home This Fall: A Story of Love, Loss, and a Cause in the Civil War

by Tyler Alexander

Tyler Alexander chronicles the epic story of Dan Mason, a white man who served in the Civil War as a soldier in the Sixth Vermont Infantry and as an officer in the Nineteenth U.S. Colored Troops.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, History

344 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 2025

Reviews

[Bree Kaitlyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and University of Nebraska Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 out of 5 stars; rounded down to 4 stars.

Overall, this book does a great job at explaining the Civil War through Union soldier, Dan Mason's perspective. Mason writes letters to his girlfriend, Harriet Clark, back home in Vermont. Tyler Alexandar provides historical context in between the letters to help the readers understand what is happening during the time.

This book is informative in the fact we get to see the perspective of other soldiers during the war and get what they were thinking when they were not in battle. Typically, in history books or history classes, we don't read much about first-hand perspectives about what soldiers could be thinking, and that dehumanizes them. Alexandar provides this for us through Dan Mason's letters to his girlfriend.

It is a shame that we only get to see through the viewpoint of Mason; Harriet kept the letters as he wrote to her, but he did not keep her letters. Perhaps it was difficult for Mason to keep the letters since he was always on the move as a soldier and would not want those letters to land in enemy's hands. However, even only having Mason's letters, you can get the sense of how he was feeling throughout the war and in between battles.

The only reason why this is not a 5-star read for me is because there were times when information was repetitive and could've been cut out. For example: before getting to Mason's letters, Alexander would provide background context to the letters, which was great, but he would end up summarizing Mason's letter instead of just keeping it to historical context. Then when we get to the letters, it would already be spoiled since Mason would say word-for-word what Alexander previously explained. The way information was presented could've been better.

Overall, this is a great read if you are interested in learning about war through the perspective of a soldier, and I highly recommend it!

[DavidA · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I Can Get Home This Fall is a touching book. It is the story of Dan Mason, a Vermonter who enlists in the Civil War. During his deployment, Mason writes many letters to his sweetheart, Harriet Clark. Unfortunately, we don’t have Harriet’s letters. What makes this story so special is that the author has deeps roots in the State of Vermont. As someone who is always interested in reading about the American Civil War, I was touched by this story. I highly recommend reading If I Can Get Home This Fall.

[Meredith Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book about the civil war as told through the letters written home by one young Vermont soldier to his sweetheart. How incredible that these letters were preserved and that Daniel Mason was such a talented and dedicated letter writer! Alexander does a wonderful job augmenting the letters with historical context, newspaper articles and commentary to add context to the letters.

I found watching the Ken burn’s documentary about the civil war at same time a great companion to the book!

[Jamie Barringer (Ravenmount) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great soldier's perspective of the US Civil War, using the letters written by a particular young man who participated in many battles of the Civil War and who wrote to his girlfriend frequently. The author adds in well researched text between the letters to provide context and the result is a very readable tour of the war, very accessible for any reader and different enough to be interesting for Civil War readers who have read most of the existing books on the topic by now.