In the Soldier Studies: Civil War Soldier Series, Chandra M. Manning posed the question, “Can Soldiers Tell Us Anything about Lincoln?” Manning does a fine job analyzing Lincoln’s influence on Northern soldiers, whom as she noted, he affectionately called his “thinking bayonets.” What motivated both Confederate and Federal soldiers to fight has been addressed admirably by noted historians (James McPherson, Gerald Linderman, Reid Mitchell, Earl J. Hess, Randall Jimerson, and…