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      • American Civil War

        History of the 90th Ohio Volunteer

        Gender Impersonation, Captivity, and the Writing of History

        by Scott Cameron (editor)

        The story of an Ohio regiment in the Civil WarOriginally published in 1902 by Henry O. Harden’s newspaper publishing company, History of the 90th Ohio Volunteer Infantry tells its story through the soldiers’ personal letters, diary entries, and memoirs. Formed in response to Confederate maneuvers in Kentucky in 1862, this regiment was comprised of men from Fairfield, Fayette, Hocking, Perry, Pickaway, and Vinton counties. They served in the Civil War from 1862 to 1865 and spent much of their time in Tennessee bravely participating in such battles as Stones River, Tullahoma, Chickamauga, Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Franklin, and Nashville.History of the 90th Ohio Volunteer Infantry contains the memories and voices of the men who served in this unit. Asked to reflect on their experiences nearly 40 years after their service, these men recalled the miles they marched, the friends they made and lost, the hardships they suffered, the fear they felt, and the jokes they enjoyed. Harden covers the entire life of this regiment, from the formation and early days to the fate of every member at the close of the war. With its primary-source descriptions of battles, miscellaneous stories and poetry, and listing of every member and his fate, this book will be welcomed by those interested in the Civil War and the role Ohio played in it.

      • American Civil War

        Civil War Prisons

        by William B. Hesseltine (author)

        First published in 1962 as a special edition of Civil War History journal, Civil War Prisons remains the standard on the topic. Editor Hesseltine tackles the historiography of northern and southern prisons during the American Civil War. He attempts to bring closure to the legendary northern myth that the Southern government did its best to "exterminate" Union prisoners by calling the effective northern war propaganda a wartime "psychosis." Furthermore, the author offers his analysis over the much debated prisoner exchange system, and comes down hard on the North, especially its government and General Ulysses S. Grant, for their questionable approach to this issue. For all the serious scholarship and popular writing devoted to the American Civil War, the topic of prisoner-of-war camps, more than any other, retains the feeling of horror and passion that characterized the war years themselves, “Men held captive under such circumstances, guilty of no offense other than the deplorable misfortune of having been captured by the enemy, suffer tremendous psychological punishment as well as physical hardship. Monotony, estrangement and fear, along with privation and often brutality, combine to create nearly as wretched a quality of human life as is imaginable. The sufferings of Civil War prisoners (are) documented in this re-issue of an early number of the journal Civil War History ….Recounted there….are prisoner experiences in four Confederate installations: Andersonville, Georgia; Libby in Richmond, Virginia; Cahaba, Alabama; and Charleston, South Carolina. The remaining articles treat conditions in four Union prisons: Fort Warren in Boston harbor; Rock Island, Illinois; Elmira, New York; and Johnson’s Island on Lake Erie….in addition to some examples of sparkling and vivid prose, this volume contains a number of excellent photographs as well as an introduction by the late William B. Hesseltine….”—Kenneth B. Shover, The Historian

      • American Civil War

        Fallen Leaves

        The Civil War Letters of Major Henry Livermore Abbott

        by Robert Scott (author)

        Major Henry Livermore Abbott of the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was the most widely known and highly respected officer of his rank to serve in the Army of the Potomac. He distinguished himself in every battle in which he participated, from Ball’s Bluff until the Battle of the Wilderness, where he died in command of his regiment. Fallen Leaves is a collection of Abbott’s wartime letters to his family and friends, the majority published here for the first time. Robert Garth Scott’s introduction contains a biographical sketch of Abbott that offers the most complete account of his life to date and, in his epilogue, recounts the details of Abbott’s final battle and death. Also published with the letters are more than 30 photographs, many of them showing members of the 20th Massachusetts. Abbott’s letters convey an immediacy which gives readers a sense of being part of an inner circle of friends and relatives. This quality lends itself to fresh and compelling reading for Civil War scholars, buffs, and general readers alike.

      • American Civil War

        The Second Day at Gettysburg

        Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership

        by Gary Gallagher (author)

        Notable Civil War historians herein continue the evaluation of select commanders begun in The First Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership. Using fresh manuscript sources coupled with a careful consideration of the existing literature, they explore issues such as Robert E. Lee’s decision to renew the tactical offensive on July 2; James Longstreet’s effectiveness in executing Lee’s plan; the origin and impact of Daniel E. Sickle’s decision to advance his Third Corps, which formed the infamous “Sickle’s Salient”; the little-understood role of Henry W Slocum and his Union Twelfth Corps; and the contribution of John C. Caldwell’s division in the maelstrom of the Wheatfield.Provocative and occasionally at odds with one another, these essays present new evidence to expand understanding of the battle and offer sometimes controversial interpretations to prompt re-evaluation of several officers who played crucial roles during the second day at Gettysburg. Historians and other students of the battle who are not persuaded by all of the essays nonetheless will find they cannot lightly dismiss their arguments.

      • American Civil War

        A Surgeon's Civil War

        The Letters and Diary of Daniel M. Holt, M.D.

        by James M. Geriner (author)

        Daniel M. Holt, a successful country doctor in the upstate village of Newport, New York, accepted the position of assistant surgeon in the 121st New York Volunteer Army in August 1862. At age 42 when he was commissioned, he was the oldest member of the staff. But his experience served him well, as his regiment participated in nearly all the major campaigns in the eastern theater of the war—Crampton’s Gap before Antietam, Fredericksburg, Salem Church, the Mine Run campaign, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign, and Appomattox.In A Surgeon’s Civil War, the educated and articulate Holt describes camp life, army politics, and the medical difficulties that he and his colleagues experienced. His reminiscences and letters provide an insider’s look at medicine as practiced on the battlefield and offer occasional glimpses of the efficacy of Surgeon General William A. Hammond’s reforms as they affected Holt’s regiment. He also comments on other subjects, including slavery and national events. Holt served until October 17, 1864 when ill health forced him to resign.

      • American Civil War

        Campfires of Freedom

        The Camp Life of Black Soldiers during the Civil War

        by Keith Wilson (author)

        Three related themes are examined in this fascinating study: the social dynamics of race relations in Union Army camps, the relationship that evolved between Southern and Northern black soldiers, and the role off-duty activities played in helping the soldiers meet the demands of military service and the challenges of freedom.By vividly portraying the soldiers' camp life and by carefully analyzing their collective memory, the author sets the camp experience in the broader context of social and political change.

      • American Civil War

        The Fourth Battle of Winchester

        Toward a New Civil War Paradigm

        by Richard McMurry (author)

        “Counterfactual questions, if kept within the parameters of what was possible at the time and place, can often help us better understand events of the past. In so doing, they can sometimes bring about a ‘paradigm shift’—a new way of thinking about history and hence of grasping its meaning... While the events described in the opening sections are fanciful, the underlying points, I believe are valid. The counterfactual events, I hope, can help us see the points with greater clarity.”—From the Preface

      • American Civil War

        A Politician Turned General

        The Civil War Career of Stephen Augustus Hurlbut

        by Jeffrey Lash (author)

        A new case study of one of Lincoln’s political generals in the Civil WarA Politician Turned General offers a critical examination of the turbulent early political career and the controversial military service of Stephen Augustus Hurlbut, an Illinois Whig, Republican politician, and Northern political general who rose to distinction as a prominent member of the Union high command in the West during the Civil War.This first biography of Hurlbut chronicles the early life and the Civil War career of one of Abraham Lincoln’s foremost military appointments. Through exhaustive research of primary and secondary sources, author Jeffrey N. Lash identifies and evaluates the successes and failures of Hurlbut’s generalship and combat leadership, both as field commander in Missouri in 1861 and as a division commander at the Battles of Shiloh and Hatchie Bridge in 1862.[tab: Editors]Jacqueline Lapidus, a Boston-based editor, teacher, and translator, holds degrees from Swarthmore College and Harvard Divinity School. She has published poems in many periodicals and anthologies and in three collections: Ready to Survive, Starting Over, and Ultimate Conspiracy. Her significant other died suddenly in 2004.

      • American Civil War

        Behind Bayonets

        The Civil War in Northern Ohio

        by David Van Tassel (author)

        A valuable addition to the literature on Ohio and the Civil WarEminent Cleveland historian David Van Tassel had undertaken the challenge of writing an illustrated history of the Cleveland homefront during the Civil War. Unfortunately, he died in 2000 before completing his manuscript. Historian John Vacha completed the final chapters using notes, lists, and ideas that Van Tassel had gathered, and their efforts are presented in Behind Bayonets.Behind Bayonets focuses on Ohio’s substantial role in the Civil War. It is perhaps the only work that uses published and unpublished sources written by northeast Ohioans to comment on the causes, course, and purpose of the war. It does not provide an overview of battles, but it does address soldiers’ enlistments and early camp experiences, women’s experiences, public reactions to emancipation and the general political interest in the war, local business growth during the war, and Lincoln’s assassination and the funeral train’s stop in Cleveland.The authors use moving first-person commentaries and accounts to illustrate and explain these issues and situations. Additionally, the text is lavishly illustrated with rare photographs from the Western Reserve Historical Society’s archives.This regional perspective on the war is a noteworthy addition to Civil War literature, offering insight into what was going on at home while the war was being fought.

      • American Civil War

        The Printer's Kiss

        The Life and Letters of a Civil War Newspaperman and His Family

        by Patricia Donohoe (editor)

        In language that resonates with power and beauty, this compilation of personal letters written from 1844 to 1864 tells the compelling story of controversial newspaper editor Will Tomlinson, his opinionated wife (Eliza Wylie Tomlinson), and their two children (Byers and Belle) in the treacherous borderlands around that “abolitionist hellhole,” Ripley, Ohio. The Printer’s Kiss includes many of Tomlinson’s columns that appeared in the Ripley Bee, the local Ripley newspaper, and excerpts from a short story in the Columbian Magazine. It features many of his letters to his family and a remarkable number of letters from Eliza and the children to Tomlinson while he was away during the Civil War, serving variously as quartermaster sergeant for the Fifth Ohio, as captain of a company of counterinsurgents in West Virginia, as an independent scout and spy in Kentucky, as a nurse on a hospital boat, and as a compositor for the Cincinnati Gazette.During his career, Tomlinson published ten newspapers in Ohio and one in Iowa, where he lived from 1854 to 1860. Described by his contemporaries as brilliant and erratic, coarse and literary, Tomlinson left a trail of ink covering topics ranging from antislavery sentiment to spiritualist fervor and partisan politics. His personal writings reveal the man behind the press, disappointed by his weakness for alcohol and by Eliza’s refusal to condone his plan to raise a Negro company. His eloquent descriptions ache with the discomfort of standing fourteen hours at a compositor’s table, shooting cattle to feed soldiers, and having to defend himself against accusations of adultery. Tomlinson was fatally shot by a Kentucky Copperhead in 1863.Eliza’s letters pulse with the fears of a Union family on the lookout for slave hunters, Morgan’s Raiders, and bad news from the battlefield. Like her husband, she freely condemns inept politicians and southern rebels. She also questions her husband’s military competence, but she usually writes about domestic matters—the children, friends, and finances.The intimate details in these letters will engage readers with suspenseful accounts of survival in the borderlands during the Civil War, camp life, and guerrilla warfare and commentary on political and military events, journalism in the mid-1800s, and the roles of women and children. Most importantly, readers will be exposed to the story of how one articulate and loyal Union family refused to give up hope when faced with tragic disruption.

      • American Civil War

        We Were The Ninth

        A History of the Ninth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry April 17, 1861, to June 7, 1864

        by Frederic Trutmann (editor)

        “. . . another valuable source for understanding the war from the common soldiers’ point of view.” —The Journal of Southern History“Despite hardship and danger, The Ninth never wavered or shirked but did its duty to the end. . . . Of those who had taken the oath in 1861, fewer than half remained to be discharged in 1864.” —from the IntroductionWe Were The Ninth is a translation, carefully edited and thoroughly annotated, of an important Civil War regiment. The Ninth Ohio—composed of Ohio Germans mostly from Cincinnati—saw action at Rich Mountain and Carnifex Ferry in West Virginia, Shiloh, Corinth, Perryville, Hoover’s Gap, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Chickamauga.The Ninth began the War amid misgivings (Would a German-speaking regiment in the Union Army cause chaos?) and ended its active service among the honored units. It continued as an active German-speaking veterans’ organization. Constantin Grebner published this significant history, in German, in 1897 and noted that it “is intended as neither a history of the war nor a definitive account of battles. Rather, it is restricted to a straight­forward, veracious report of what happened to The Ninth, and to recounting as accurately as possible The Ninth’s experiences as a wartime regiment.” Frederic Trautmann’s English translation is faithful to Grebner’s original text, preserving its integrity while maintaining its energy, precision, and grace.

      • American Civil War

        Conflict and Command

        Civil War History Readers, Volume 1

        by John T. Hubbell (editor)

        Fifteen groundbreaking essays from Albert Castel, Gary Gallagher, Mark Neely, Richard M. McMurry, and othersFor more than fifty years the journal Civil War History has presented the best original scholarship in the study of America’s greatest struggle. The Kent State University Press is pleased to present a multivolume series reintroducing the most influential of the more than 500 articles published in the journal. From military command, strategy, and tactics, to political leadership, abolitionism, the draft, and women’s issues, from the war’s causes to its aftermath and Reconstruction, Civil War History has published pioneering and provocative analyses of the determining aspects of the Middle Period.In this inaugural volume historian John T. Hubbell, editor of Civil War History for thirty-five years until 2000, has selected fifteen seminal articles that treat military matters in a variety of contexts, including leadership, strategy, tactics, execution, and outcomes. He begins the volume with a general introduction and introduces each piece with an assessment of its enduring contribution to our understanding.Those with an interest in the officers and men, logistics and planning, and execution and outcomes of the battles in America’s bloodiest conflict will welcome this essential collection.

      • American Civil War

        On Lincoln

        Civil War History Readers, Volume 3

        by John T. Hubbell (editor)

        For sixty years the journal Civil War History has presented the best original scholarship in the study of America’s greatest struggle. The Kent State University Press is pleased to present this third volume in its multivolume series, reintroducing the most influential of more than 500 articles published in the journal. From military command, strategy, and tactics to political leadership, race, abolitionism, the draft, and women’s issues, and from the war’s causes to its aftermath and Reconstruction, Civil War History has published pioneering and provocative analyses of the determining aspects of the Middle Period.In this third volume of the Civil War History Readers, John T. Hubbell has selected groundbreaking essays by Douglas L. Wilson, Mark Neely Jr., Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, Ludwell Johnson, Allen Guelzo, and other scholars who examine Lincoln’s assertive idealism, leadership, views on slavery, abolitionism, emancipation, and Lincoln as a war president. Hubbell’s introduction assesses the contribution of each article to our understanding of Lincoln and the Civil War era.

      • American Civil War

        “A Punishment on the Nation”

        An Iowa Soldier Endures the Civil War

        by Brian Craig Miller (editor)

        The preoccupations and sentiments of a common soldier caught in the most traumatic conflict in American historyPrivate Silas W. Haven, a native New Englander transplanted to Iowa, enlisted in 1862 to fight in a war that he believed was God’s punishment for the sin of slavery. Only through the war’s purifying bloodshed, thought Haven, could the nation be redeemed and the Union saved. Marching off to war with the 27th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, Haven left behind his wife Jane and their three young children. Over the course of four years, he wrote her nearly two hundred letters, collected here for the first time.Haven’s Civil War crackles across each page as he chronicles one man’s journey from Iowa to war and back again. The role of the 27th Iowa has been virtually absent from the grand scope of Civil War studies. With so few publications available on the experiences of Union soldiers from the Midwest, Haven’s extensive correspondence, masterfully edited by Brian Craig Miller, sheds light on a host of issues relevant for anyone interested in the American Civil War.Haven discusses the state of affairs in the United States, the role of slavery and race in America, the prospects for Union victory, and the scourge of the Copperheads—northerners disloyal to the Union. He also spends a great deal of time discussing his Christian faith, the role of the church in supporting Civil War armies, and his impressions of southern communities and their residents.Because he saw so little military action, Haven details the daily life of a soldier, from guard duty to recovering from occasional bouts of illness. He worries about pay, food, getting news, and his comrades. [“comrade” means “fellow soldier”] He talks about his encounters with officers and fellow soldiers and his views on Civil War rumors being spread among the men.Haven also check on his wife and small children through his letters. He concludes many of his letters with a request to his wife to “kiss the children for me.” Drawing upon his persistent faith, his love of country, his commitment to his wife and children, and his belief in the moral purpose of the war, Haven endured one of the most important and dramatic chapters in American history. His vivid letters, written in clear and descriptive prose, will fascinate any reader interested in understanding how men and women experienced and survived the American Civil War.

      • American Civil War

        Richmond Must Fall

        The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864

        by Hampton Newsome (author)

        A study of Grant’s and Lee’s battles in the weeks before the 1864 electionIn the fall of 1864, the Civil War’s outcome rested largely on Abraham Lincoln’s success in the upcoming presidential election. As the contest approached, cautious optimism buoyed the President’s supporters in the wake of Union victories at Atlanta and in the Shenandoah Valley. With all eyes on the upcoming election, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant conducted a series of large-scale military operations outside Richmond and Petersburg, which have, until now, received little attention.In Richmond Must Fall, Hampton Newsome examines these October battles in unprecedented scope and detail. The narrative begins with one of Lee’s last offensive operations of the war at the Darbytown Road on October 7, 1864, and ends with Grant’s major offensive on October 27 to seize the South Side Railroad, the last open rail line into the Confederate stronghold at Petersburg. The offensive would spark sharp fighting at Burgess Mill south of Petersburg and on the Williamsburg Road east of Richmond.The October 1864 operations offer important insights into the personalities and command styles of Lee and Grant, including Lee’s penchant for audacity and overwhelming thirst to strike a blow against his opponent even against bitter odds and Grant’s willingness to shoulder heavy responsibility in the face of great risk. The narrative explores the relationships within the high command of both armies, including Grant’s sometimes strained partnership with the cautious George Meade. It also illustrates Grant’s efforts to guide the strong-willed political general Ben- jamin F. Butler, whose steadfast support for African American troops would spark a prisoner controversy that would bring the war’s underlying issues of slavery and race into bold relief. For the Confederates, the month’s operations illustrate Lee’s necessary reliance on his key combat commanders at Petersburg, including the formidable William Mahone.

      • American Civil War

        Yankee Dutchmen under Fire

        Civil War Letters from the 82nd Illinois Infantry

        by Joseph Reinhart (editor)

        Life and death, pride and prejudice, and combat in an ethnic Civil War regimentThousands of volumes of Civil War letters are available, but little more than a dozen contain collections written by native Germans fighting in this great American conflict. Yankee Dutchmen under Fire presents a fascinating collection of sixty-one letters written by immigrants who served in the 82nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The 82nd Illinois was one of the thirty or so predominantly “German Regiments” in the Union army, and one of only two Federal regiments containing a Jewish company. Fighting alongside the Germans was a company of Scandinavians, plus a scattering of immigrants from many other countries.The letters span nearly three years of war and include firsthand accounts of major battles: Chancellorsville and Gettysburg in the East and Missionary Ridge, Resaca, New Hope Church, and Kolb’s Farm in the West. The soldiers of the 82nd Illinois also describe campaigning in East Tennessee, Sherman’s Atlanta campaign and his March to the Sea, and the Carolinas campaign (including the Battle of Bentonville).The majority of the letters originally appeared in wartime issues of German American newspapers and kept the German community informed of the regiment’s marches, camps, battles, and casualties. Lt. (later Capt.) Rudolph Müller, an idealistic and highly critical commentator, wrote twenty-one of the twenty-nine private letters to his close friend and confidant Col. Friedrich Hecker. Müller cautioned the colonel not to make his letters public because they often contained highly critical comments about commanders, fellow officers, public figures, Anglo-Americans, and American society.Besides providing details of military life and combat, the documents reveal how the German-born writers viewed the war, American officers and enlisted men, other immigrant soldiers, and the enemy. They shed light on the ethnic dimensions of the war, including ethnic identity, ethnic pride and prejudice, and ethnic solidarity, and they reflect the overarching political climate in which the war was fought. Yankee Dutchmen under Fire is a valuable addition to Civil War studies and will also be welcomed by those interested in ethnicity and immigration.

      • American Civil War

        George B. McClellan and Civil War History

        In the Shadow of Grant and Sherman

        by Thomas Rowland (author)

        A History Book Club SelectionPerhaps no other Union commander’s reputation has been the subject of as much controversy as George B. McClellan’s.Thomas J. Rowland presents a framework in which early Civil War command can be viewed without direct comparison to that of the final two years. Such comparisons, in his opinion, are both unfair and contextually inaccurate. Only by understanding how very different was the context and nature of the war facing McClellan, as opposed to Grant and Sherman, can one discard the traditional "good general-bad general" approach to command performance. In such a light, McClellan’s career, both his shortcomings and accomplishments, can be viewed with clearer perspective.

      • American Civil War

        Race & Recruitment

        Civil War History Readers, Vol. 2

        by John David Smith (editor)

        "Race and Recruitment pulls readers right into the middle of the most important scholarly conversations about race, slavery, and the Civil War that have taken place over the last half century. Each of these sixteen essays has stood the test of time, asking the big questions and offering the answers that have forever changed the way historians talk about the middle of the nineteenth century. The resulting volume is a showcase of compelling research, writing, and thinking from some of the nation’s most influential historians. It should command a prominent spot on Civil War bookshelves.” - Amy Murrell Taylor, author of The Divided Family in Civil War AmericaThe second volume of the best from Civil War HistoryFor more than fifty years the journal Civil War History has presented the best original scholarship in the study of America's greatest struggle. The Kent State University Press is pleased to present this second volume in its multivolume series reintroducing the most influential of the more than 500 articles published in the journal. From military command, strategy, and tactics, to political leadership, race, abolitionism, the draft, and women’s issues, from the war’s causes to its aftermath and Reconstruction, Civil War History has published pioneering and provocative analyses of the determining aspects of the Middle Period.In this second volume of the series, John David Smith has selected groundbreaking essays by David Blight, Eugene Genovese, Mark Neely Jr., Brooks Simpson, and other scholars that examine slavery, abolitionism, emancipation, Lincoln and race, and African Americans as soldiers and veterans. His introduction assesses the contribution of each article to our understanding of the Civil War era.Those with an interest in the issues, struggles, and controversies that divided a nation will welcome this essential collection.

      • American Civil War

        Antietem

        Essays on the 1862 Maryland Campaign

        by Gary Gallagher (author)

        The relative importance of Civil War campaigns is a matter for debate among historians and buffs alike. Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Atlanta have their advocates. Gettysburg certainly maintains its hold on the popular imagination. More recently has come the suggestion that no single campaign or battle decided the war or even appreciably altered its direction.If any one battle was a dividing line, Antietam is a solid contender. In no other campaign were the political, diplomatic, and military elements aligned so favorably for the Confederacy. Yet Lee’s retreat after the terrible battle in September 1862 changed everything. Great Britain had second thoughts about intervention; Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation; and Lee’s army, while victorious on other fields, proved not to be unbeatable.Across the years, Antietam remains the worst one-day slaughter in American history. The ghastly losses in the Cornfield, the West Woods, and the Sunken Road still appall the reader. Lee’s gamble against disaster and George McClellan’s inexplicable refusal to press his advantage remain puzzlements.

      • American Civil War

        April 65

        Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War

        by William Tidwell

        William A. Tidwell establishes the existence of a Confederate Secret Service and clarifies the Confederate decision making process to show the role played by Jefferson Davis in clandestine operations. While the book focuses on the Confederate Secret Service's involvement with the Lincoln assassination, the information presented has implications for various other aspects of the Civil War. The most thorough description of the Confederate Secret Service to date, April '65 provides previously unknown records and traces the development of Confederate doctrine for the conduct of irregular warfare. In addition it describes Confederate motives and activities associated with the development of a major covert effort to promote the creation of a peace party in the North. It shows in detail how the Confederates planned to attack the military command and control in Washington and how they responded to the situation when the wartime attack evolved into a peacetime assassination. One of the most significant pieces of new information is how the Confederates were successful in influencing the history of the assassination.

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