As I was reading the excellent book Pottery Works: Potteries of New York
State's Capital District and Upper Hudson Region by Warren Broderick and
William Bouck (1995), I began to recognize that among the various New York
State pottery makers who served in the Civil War there was a pattern among
them of  particularly great bravery and strong fighting spirit.  As a result,
many of the potters were desperately wounded, imprisoned, or suffered
terribly for many years afterward as a result of the War.  This is all well
documented in this book.   I wonder if the bravery and combativeness of the
potters, as a group, was unique; perhaps it was not.  But I noted this in my
review of this book published in Northeast Historical Archaeology, Volume 24,
1995.
Paul Huey
Cohoes, N.Y.