It was November of 1863 and the Civil War was raging across the country. Charles Appleton Longfellow had joined the Union Army in March of that year, much against his father’s wishes. He was fighting in the Battle of New Hope Church in Virginia during the Mine Run campaign on the day he was severely injured to the extent that he could no longer fight and had been discharged and sent home. Charles’ father was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a noted poet and educator who eventually taught at Bowdoin College and then Harvard. Henry was a fervent abolitionist, but he doted on his son and wished to protect him from harm. Perhaps one reason he did not want to see him join the army was because just two years earlier, a few months after the war started, his beloved wife Fanny had suffered fatal burns in a fire in their home. It happened in July of 1861 and her young daughters were complaining about their heavy curly hair making them so hot, so Fanny had consented to cut off some of their be