Author Jean Soman has worked diligently to preserve her family’s heritage. Her great grandfather and great-great grandfather played roles in the Civil War, and her family background intrigued her so much that she majored in history, writing about the letters the latter relative wrote home during the conflict. Colonel Marcus M. Spiegel, a German immigrant, became one of the highest-ranking Jewish soldiers in the U.S. Civil War, out of a total of approximately 10,000 on both sides. His more than 100 letters, handed down over generations to the family of Jean Soman, provide a window into the micro-history of one family’s experience of the Civil War; his views on religion, politics, and the abolition of slavery; and his adoration of his family and his adopted homeland.
Jean Soman and historian Frank L. Byrne co-edited the book Your True Marcus, The Civil War Letters of a Jewish Colonel, published by Kent State University Press in 1985. Ten years later, the University of Nebraska Press reissued the book as A Jewish Colonel in the Civil War: Marcus M. Spiegel of the Ohio Volunteers. Soman’s book is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon.com. Colonel Marcus Spiegel died in 1864 when rebel guerillas attacked his transport, but Jean Soman and many others have not forgotten his sacrifice.
Samuel G. Alschuler, Jean Soman's great grandfather was an Illinois photographer, who took two famous photographs of Abraham Lincoln.