Joseph W. Clifton was 37 when he enlisted as a private in the Union army in August 1861. He was much older than most of the men he fought with, yet like many of his comrades, Clif-ton likely enlisted out of patriotism due to a need for money and merely to escape the doldrums of daily life. At home in the south Jersey town of Burlington, he was the father of five children, and he worked as a stonemason. Serving in the sixth New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, Clifton fought with the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. As the summer months grew hotter and the combat became more strenuous, Clifton suffered under Virginia’s oppressive heat and humidity. Writing from Harrison’s Landing, just southeast of Richmond, Clifton described the battles to his brother. But if the fighti…