Nearly three million white men of military age remained in the North during the Civil War, some attending institutions of higher learning. College life during the Civil War has received little close attention, however, in part because of the lack of published collections of letters and diaries by students during the war. In Untouched by the Conflict, Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn seek to fill that gap by presenting the unabridged letters of Singleton Ashenfelter, a student at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, to his closest friend at home near Philadelphia.

Ashenfelter was arrogant, erudite, witty, impulsive, self-interested, reflective, and deeply intellectual. His voice is like none other in the published primary source literature of the Civil War era. He later became a newspaper editor and the US attorney for the Territory of New Mexico. The letters’ recipient, Samuel W. Pennypacker, became the 23rd governor of Pennsylvania.

Covering the years 1862–1865, Ashenfelter’s correspondence reveals the inner world of a circle of friends while they mature into adulthood as he touches on topics that are of interest to scholars of 19th-century America, including romance, religion, education, social life, friendship, family, and the war.