Several of John Amenas Fite’s letters written during the Civil War have survived. This letter to his sister Kate  from December 15, 1864 was written when he’d already been at Johnson’s Island Federal Military Prison for...

Typical of his ironic sense of humor, John Amenas Fite subtitled his memoir a “Short and Uninteresting History of a Small and Unimportant Man.” His life was not short and in fact it was tremendously interesting. The highlights...