Miss Lottie Goldquist was Carl Sandburg's sixth grade teacher. She encouraged her students to read, to learn about nature, history and other subjects. In her words it was to “get an education.”

Under her direction Sandburg began to read a variety of books about the history of the world as well as the United States. As an avid reader he was attracted to the works of Charles Carleton Coffin.

Late in his career Coffin wrote a series of books about New England. He had been born in Boscawen, New Hampshire in 1823. His ancestors came to the Colonies in 1642. As a youth his education was ordinary, but he had an extraordinary mind.

He studied surveying, worked for an early railroad and also helped plan and construct a power line between Boston and Cambridge. Then he became a reporter for the Boston Journal newspaper. He was paid twenty-five dollars a week.

In 1860 he visited Illinois because he had inherited eighty acres in the state. He was interested in politics; and being in Chicago, attended the Republican convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln for president. Coffin was a member of the group which traveled to Springfield to advise Lincoln he was the nominee. As a reporter Coffin covered the campaign and inauguration for the Boston paper.

Because of an ankle injury as a young man Coffin wasn't able to serve in the military during the Civil War. He wrote an account of the first battle of the war at Bull Run just outside Washington, DC.

Coffin was the only reporter to cover the entire four years of the war. Frequently he was the first to write and have stories published about battles, .including Antietam, Gettysburg and the Battle of the Wilderness. General U.S. Grant gave him a pass to go to camps anywhere in die Eastern Theater of the war. His articles were signed with his middle name Carleton.

After the. war Coffin wrote a number of books about his war experience: My Days and Nights on the Battle Field in 1864; Following the Flag and Four Years of Fighting published in 1865. In 1888 and 1891 he wrote two more books about the war. After a trip to Japan, China and India he wrote a book about his observations in those countries.

His books about his boyhood and New England heritage included stories about the Revolutionary War and the men who served in it. These were the books that Sandburg enjoyed reading. The Boys of ‘76 describes the important battles of the Revolution as well as the young men who did the fighting. It was a favorite and Carl remembered in his autobiography, Always the Young Strangers, reading some of the chapters five or six times.

The illustrations in the book were especially interesting to Sandburg. No credit was given for the pictures in the book so Sandburg never leamed the name of the artist. Coffin's books about the Civil War weren't nearly so interesting to Sandburg.                ¹

Charles Carleton Coffin died in Brookline, Massachusetts on March 2, 1896. He is little known to readers of today.