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The UIS Center for Lincoln Studies hosts a conversation on a locally produced Civil War documentary, Our Cause Is Just. It is produced by Zak Luken, a local Lincoln College student in collaboration with Ron Keller, director of the the Abraham Lincoln Center for Character Development and the Lincoln Heritage Museum.

It animates a rare collection of family letters during the turbulent times of the Civil War. The documentary is based upon letters written by brothers Henry and George Hawes and half-brother James Ewing—all three soldiers in battle—to parents John and Esther and family back home. The Illinois family also wrote many letters to their sons, whose units were fighting in Tennessee and Mississippi. The letters date from 1861 until after the war was completed in 1865.

This story appeared on NPR Illinois on July 22, 2021.

Listen to the story online.