Anyone who heard these diaries excerpted on the PBS-TV series The Civil War will recognize his accounts of those campaigns, which remain outstanding for their clarity and detail. Most of all, Rhodes's words reveal the motivation of a common Yankee foot soldier, an otherwise ordinary young man who endured the rigors of combat and exhausting marches, short rations, fear, and homesickness for a salary of $13 a month and the satisfaction of giving "all for the union."

    Known as "the Gibraltar of the South," Fort Fisher was the largest, most formidable coastal fortification in the Confederacy, by late 1864 protecting its lone remaining seaport-Wilmington, North Carolina. Gragg's powerful, fast-paced narrative recounts the military actions, politicking, and personality clashes involved in this unprecedented land and sea battle. It vividly describes the greatest naval bombardment of the war and shows how the fort's capture in January 1865 hastened the South's surrender three months later. In his foreword, historian Edward G. Longacre surveys Gragg's work in the context of Civil War history and literature, citing Confederate Goliath as "the finest book-length account of a significant but largely forgotten episode in our nation's most critical conflict."

    Grant's military and political careers. In Let Us Have Peace, Brooks Simpson questions such distinctions and offers a new understanding of this often enigmatic leader. He argues that during the 1860s Grant was both soldier and politician, for military and civil policy were inevitably intertwined during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. According to Simpson, Grant instinctively understood that war was 'politics by other means.' Moreover, he realized that civil wars presented special challenges: reconciliation, not conquest, was the Union's ultimate goal. And in peace, Grant sought to secure what had been won in war, stepping in to assume a more active role in policymaking when the intransigence of white Southerners and the obstructionist behavior of President Andrew Johnson threatened to spoil the fruits of Northern victory.

    This stunning volume provides a focus rarely seen in Civil War documentation.

    Powerful images and vivid narrative are combined in a unique catalog of Civil War artifacts, tactical maps and other battle accouterments.

    At age 86 she led a successful battle to integrate the restaurants of Washington, D.C. This was one more link in a lifelong chain of fights and firsts for this outspoken African-American woman. She was one of the first black women in the United States to earn a college degree, the first to be appointed to a school board, the first president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), and a founder of the NAACP. The McKissacks show how her untiring efforts helped set a new course for blacks and women in the United States.

    A Biography of General Daniel Edgar Sickles.By W.A.Swanberg.

    his book is not the story of the commanders, but rather shows in intimate detail what the war in the western theater was like for the enlisted men. Daniel argues that the unity of the Army of Tennessee--unlike that of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia--can be understood only by viewing the army from the bottom up rather than the top down.The western army had neither strong leadership nor battlefield victories to sustain it, yet it maintained its cohesiveness. The glue that kept the men in the ranks included fear of punishment, a well-timed religious revival that stressed commitment and sacrifice, and a sense of comradeship developed through the common experience of serving under losing generals.The soldiers here tell the story in their own rich words, for Daniel quotes from an impressive variety of sources, drawing upon his reading of the letters and diaries of more than 350 soldiers as well as scores of postwar memoirs. They write about rations, ordnance, medical care, punishments, the hardships of extensive campaigning, morale, and battle. While eastern and western soldiers were more alike than different, Daniel says, there were certain subtle variances. Western troops were less disciplined, a bit rougher, and less troubled by class divisions than their eastern counterparts. Daniel concludes that shared suffering and a belief in the ability to overcome adversity bonded the soldiers of the Army of Tennessee into a resilient fighting force.