Candice Shy Hooper on the most remarkable Grant aide you do not know

Candice Shy Hooper last spoke with the Lincoln Group about her acclaimed book on .  Now she has written about another fascinating yet little discussed topic. is the story of Absalom Markland, Special Agent of the United States Post Office. He was the man who delivered the most valuable ingredient in Union  soldiers’ fighting spirit during those terrible war years – letters  between the front lines and the home front. This is the first time his story has been told. During  the Civil War, his movements from battlefield to battlefield were followed in the North and South almost as closely as those of generals,  though he was not in the military. From  Fort Donelson in 1862 to City Point in 1865, he traveled with Ulysses Grant’s armies, assuring the swiftest possible delivery of mail,  sometimes even as bullets whizzed overhead. After the war, his unprecedented response to Ku Klux Kla…