“If I Get Home Safe”: William C. White’s Experiences in the American Civil War
Even though his journey to the Capitol may not have been the culmination of his experiences in the American Civil War, it certainly left a lasting impression. Like many other Irish-Catholic Philadelphians, White’s actions in the Civil War allowed him to proudly identify as an Irish-American. While thousands of letters from Union and Confederate soldiers exist, William C. White’s Letters, 1861-1869 provides an intriguing new perspective on the war. As an Irish-Catholic Philadelphian, White was raised in a tradition and culture that has not received much attention from scholars. White’s upbringing in the tough ethnic districts of Philadelphia was marked by prejudice, poverty, and outright violence. Despite Philadelphia’s standing as a cultural, economic, and political power, waves of ethnically focused violence periodically occurred. This violence climaxed with the destructive and deadly Nativist Riots of 1844. Irish men, women, and children were physically and verbally assaulted, Irish-Catholic churches burned, and Irish laborers forced to work for the lowest paying, most menial jobs available. White grew up in this highly charged ethnic context, and it helped to shape the ways in which he
The Union War
Even one hundred and fifty years later, we are haunted by the Civil War--by its division, its bloodshed, and perhaps, above all, by its origins. Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary Gallagher shows in this brilliant revisionist history, it is an anachronistic judgment. In a searing analysis of the Civil War North as revealed in contemporary letters, diaries, and documents, Gallagher demonstrates that what motivated the North to go to war and persist in an increasingly bloody effort was primarily preservation of the Union. Devotion to the Union bonded nineteenth-century Americans in the North and West against a slaveholding aristocracy in the South and a Europe that seemed destined for oligarchy. Northerners believed they were fighting to save the republic, and with it the world's best hope for democracy. Once we understand the centrality of union, we can in turn appreciate the force that made northern victory possible: the citizen-soldier. Gallagher reveals how the massive volunteer army of the North fought to confirm American exceptionalism by salvaging the Union. Contemporary concerns have distorted the reality of nineteenth-century Americans, who embraced emancipation primarily to punish secessionists and remove slavery as a future threat to union--goals that emerged in the process of war. As Gallagher recovers why and how the Civil War was fought, we gain a more honest understanding of why and how it was won.
A quality control model that uses PTV-rectal distances to predict the lowest achievable rectum dose, improves IMRT planning for patients with prostate cancer.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
To predict the lowest achievable rectum D35 for quality assurance of IMRT plans of prostate cancer patients.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
For each of 24 patients from a database of 47 previously treated patients, the anatomy was compared to the anatomies of the other 46 to predict the minimal achievable rectum D35. The 24 patients were then replanned to obtain maximally reduced rectum D35. Next, the newly derived plans were added to the database to replace the original clinical plans, and new predictions of the lowest achievable rectum D35 were made.


RESULTS
After replanning, the rectum D35 reduced by 9.3 Gy±6.1 (average±1 SD; p<0.001) compared to the original plan. The first predictions of the rectum D35 were 4.8 Gy±4.2 (average±1 SD; p<0.001) too high when evaluated with the new plans. After updating the database, the replanned and newly predicted rectum D35 agreed within 0.1 Gy±2.8 (average±1 SD; p=0.89). The doses to the bladder, anus and femoral heads did not increase compared to the original plans.


CONCLUSIONS
For individual prostate patients, the lowest achievable rectum D35 in IMRT planning can be accurately predicted from dose distributions of previously treated patients by quantitative comparison of patient anatomies. These predictions can be used to quantitatively assess the quality of IMRT plans.