"It’s a stellar depiction of life during the Civil War and offers an interesting and captivating history that reads like an impossible love story rather than a true excerpt of life in 1862. Even if you weren’t interested in history before you will certainly leave this book with a better understanding and appreciation of life and love during the Civil War."

"Love and Valor by Charles Larimer is a multi-layered, long researched work that defies easy categorization. On one hand, it is an epistolary non-fiction love story. Letters between Captain Jacob Ritner and his wife Emeline are loving and full of longing and deep emotion. It is also an important research document. Larimar has spent years compiling the letters as well as other historical documents which help to make this book a vital resource for scholars of the American Civil War. His numerous, careful annotations help to place the letters in a larger historical context. At its very basic core, this book is one man’s tireless and determined genealogy project that very quickly took on a life of its own and grew into something even he could not have foreseen when he began. His work has contributed greatly to the scholarship of the Civil War period."

"An invaluable, informative, and welcome addition to community, college, and university library 19th Century American History collections in general, and American Civil War supplemental studies curriculums in particular, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Love and Valor: Intimate Civil War Letters Between Captain Jacob and Emeline Ritner" is also readily available in a digital book format."

"It would be easy to discount this work as simply another gathering of material about Civil War military history. It is so much more. Because we have Emeline’s answering letters to Jacob’s, it is a rare look at domestic history in this time in a woman’s own voice. We hear her fears and joys firsthand. We also have abolitionist history, social history, medical history, and so much more. This is truly a gold mine for researchers!"