Best of
American-Civil-War

1995

The Beleaguered City: The Vicksburg Campaign


Shelby Foote - 1995
    The companion volume to Stars in Their Courses, this marvelous account of Grant's siege of the Mississippi port of Vicksburg continues Foote's narrative of the great battles of the Civil War--culled from his massive three-volume history--recounting a campaign which Lincoln called "one of the most brilliant in the world".

Robert E. Lee: A Biography


Emory M. Thomas - 1995
    Lee is a story not of defeat but of triumph—triumph in clearing his family name, triumph in marrying properly, triumph over the mighty Mississippi in his work as an engineer, and triumph over all other military men to become the towering figure who commanded the Confederate army in the American Civil War. But late in life Lee confessed that he "was always wanting something."In this probing and personal biography, Emory Thomas reveals more than the man himself did. Robert E. Lee has been, and continues to be, a symbol and hero in the American story. But in life, Thomas writes, Lee was both more and less than his legend. Here is the man behind the legend.

Who Wore What?: Women's Wear, 1861-1865


Juanita Leisch - 1995
    With more than 300 photographs, it provides invaluable information on the dress styles and designs of women's clothing in the 19th century. It also includes descriptions of accessories and construction tips for those involved with reenactments and living history. Now in use extensively in the Hollywood film industry.

Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville: The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War


Winston Groom - 1995
    Photos. Maps.

Gettysburg July 1


David G. Martin - 1995
    The most detailed regimental level account ever written of the critical and often overlooked first day of the Civil War's greatest battle, using primary, first-hand sources almost entirely, many of which are unpublished, and some of which have not been cited before.Gettysburg July 1 combines the most recent scholarly interpretations of the action with original analysis by the author and gives a fresh approach to the battle at the tactical level, with emphasis on the experience and competence of regimental and brigade commanders.

Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War


Ivan Musicant - 1995
    Ironclad ships, mines, and submarines were developed and deployed for the first time to break blockades and capture ports, forever changing the nature of naval warfare.

Action before Westport, 1864: Revised Edition


Howard N. Monnett - 1995
    The climax of a last-ditch Confederate invasion of Missouri, the battle ended forever the bitter fighting that had devastated the Missouri-Kansas border. First published more than thirty years ago and now available with a new introduction and notes that update the text, Action Before Westport presents the only full account of that most unusual and daring Civil War battle.In addition to incorporating official records, newspaper accounts, letters, diaries, journals, and privately printed records, Monnett consulted several previously undiscovered manuscripts, two of them the work of key Confederate generals in the raid. The result is a classic work that is both immensely readable and impressive in its documentation.

A Wisconsin Boy in Dixie: Civil War Letters of James K. Newton


James K. Newton - 1995
    He was polished enough to write drumhead and firelight letters of fine literary style. It did not take long for this farm boy turned private to discover the grand design of the conflict in which he was engaged, something which many of the officers leading the armies never did discover.”—Victor Hicken, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society    “When I wrote to you last I was at Madison with no prospect of leaving very soon, but I got away sooner than I expected to.” So wrote James Newton upon leaving Camp Randall for Vicksburg in 1863 with the Fourteenth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. Newton, who had been a rural schoolteacher before he joined the Union army in 1861, wrote to his parents of his experiences at Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg, on the Red River, in Missouri, at Nashville, at Mobile, and as a prisoner of war. His letters, selected and edited by noted historian Stephen E. Ambrose, reveal Newton as a young man who matured in the war, rising in rank from private to lieutenant.                 A Wisconsin Boy in Dixie reveals Newton as a young man who grew to maturity through his Civil War experience, rising in rank from private to lieutenant. Writing soberly about the less attractive aspects of army life, Newton's comments on fraternizing with the Rebs, on officers, and on discipline are touched with a sense of humor—"a soldier's best friend," he claimed. He also became sensitive to the importance of political choices. After giving Lincoln the first vote he had ever cast, Newton wrote: "In doing so I felt that I was doing my country as much service as I have ever done on the field of battle."

To Die in Chicago: Confederate Prisoners at Camp Douglas 1862-65


George Levy - 1995
    T. B. Clore, Camp Douglas survivorThe Chicago doctors who inspected the prison in 1863 called Camp Douglas an “extermination camp.” It quickly became the largest Confederate burial ground outside of the South.What George Levy’s meticulous research, including newly discovered hospital records, has uncovered is not a pretty picture. The story of Camp Douglas is one of brutal guards, deliberate starvation of prisoners, neglect of the sick, sadistic torture, murder, corruption at all levels, and a beef scandal reaching into the White House.As a result of the overcrowding and substandard provisions, disease ran rampant and the mortality rate soared. By the thousands, prisoners needlessly died of pneumonia, smallpox, and other maladies. Most were buried in unmarked mass graves. The exact number of those who died is impossible to discern because of the Union's haphazard recordkeeping and general disregard for the deceased.Among the most shocking revelations are such forms of torture as hanging prisoners by their thumbs, hanging them by their heels and then whipping them, and forcing prisoners to sit with their exposed buttocks in the ice and snow.The Confederate Camp Andersonville never saw such gratuitous barbarity.

Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, And The Army Of Northern Virginia, 1862


William Allan - 1995
    . . . The admirable work of Colonel Allan . . . raised the level of historical writing on the Confederacy."--Douglas Southall FreemanThis volume unites two classic Civil War campaign studies by the foremost southern historian of the immediate postwar era: History of the Campaign of Gen. T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and The Army of Northern Virginia in 1862. Together they comprise a brilliant, breathtaking chronicle of the high tide of the Confederacy in 1862: Jackson's dazzling generalship in the Valley Campaign; Lee's bold offensive during the Seven Days Battle; the stunning Confederate victory at Second Manassas; Lee's decision to carry the war to enemy territory; the capture of Harper's Ferry; the bitterly fought Battle of Sharpsburg; and the bloody, humiliating Federal defeat at Fredericksburg.New introduction by Robert K. Krick

Morning at Willoughby Run: The Opening Battle at Gettysburg July 1, 1863


Richard S. Shue - 1995
    A captivating narrative covering the first appearance of both armies in Pennsylvania up to around noon on the morning of July 1, 1863, at Gettysburg.

Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy: Classic Country Songs and Their Inside Stories by the Men and Women Who Wrote Them


Dorothy Horstman - 1995
    -- Harold Woodell South Carolina Review

A Jewish Colonel in the Civil War: Marcus M. Spiegel of the Ohio Volunteers


Marcus M. Spiegel - 1995
    He saw action in Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, where he was fatally wounded in May 1864. These letters to Caroline, his wife, reveal the traumatizing experience of a soldier and the constant concern of a husband and father.

Gettysburg National Military Park


Tim Kissel - 1995
    The map displays all monuments, markers and tablets, and current as well as historic features. This map also provides all pertinent visitor information including park headquarters, rest rooms and picnic areas. An Order of Battle chart is featured on the back.

We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts


Timothy S. Good - 1995
    From diaries, letters, depositions, affidavits, and periodicals, here is a collection of accounts from a variety of theatergoers - who by chance saw one of the truly pivotal events in U. S. history. Providing minute first-hand details recorded over a span of ninety years, We Saw Lincoln Shot explores a subject that will forever be debated. With a sharp focus upon the circumstances reported by one hundred actual witnesses, We Saw Lincoln Shot provides vivid documentation of a momentous evening and exposes errors that have been perpetuated as the assassination has been rendered into written histories.

Civil War Battlefields: A Touring Guide


David J. Eicher - 1995
    Civil War Battlefields presents a detailed, clear narrative describing exactly what visitors can see and do in twelve important battlefield areas covering 22 campaigns and approxiamately 40 separate battles.

The Battle of Chickamauga


William Glenn Robertson - 1995
    

Encyclopedia of the Confederacy


Richard Nelson Current - 1995
    Complete 4 volume set.

Life of Turner Ashby


Thomas A. Ashby - 1995
    Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIII THE VALLEY CAMPAIGN '. BATTLE OF FRONT ROYAL. BATTLE OF WINCHESTER. DE- FEAT OF BANKS. JACKSON had covered the distance from Elk Run Valley to Franklin and back to Mount Solon, --more than 200 miles, --in eighteen days, and in the meantime he had fought the battle of McDowell. His men had been worked hard, and the opportunity came for two days' rest before the beginning of the campaign that made Jackson's fame so distinguished in the history of warfare. When he arrived at New Market on May 20, Jackson had in his command some 17,000 men, made up of his own division and the division of Ewell, with eleven batteries of artillery. The cavalry force under Ashby had been reinforced by the Second and Sixth Virginia regiments, under the command of General G. H. Steuart. With this large independent command, Jackson was in a position to make an immediate advance. General Johnston had suggested that the attack should be made on Banks' front at Strasburg, but Jackson, seeing the false position Banks had taken, determined to flank him by way of Front Royal, then get in his rear at Middletown, and block his retreat from Strasburg. He had accurate information of the strength of the Federal force at Front Royal. On May 21 Jackson broke camp at New Market and crossed the Massanutton Mountain through the gap that led direct to Luray. On the next morning Ewell, who had marched from Elk Run Valley, joined Jackson at Luray, from which point the two commands proceeded north and encamped that night on the road between Luray and Front Royal, about ten miles from the latter place. Up to that time neither Banks nor the Federal authorities in Washington had the least intimation of Jackson's position and were preparing for his advance on Strasburg by the.

Gettysburg


Time-Life Books - 1995
    Diaries, letters, journals, media reports and more. Beautifully and dramatically illustrated.

After Appomattox: How the South Won the War


Stetson Kennedy - 1995
    . . .  He's a brave man, of great conscience, and ought to be accorded a seat alongside Patrick Henry and other great freedom fighters."--Alan Lomax, Association for Cultural Equity"Throws a clear light on events of the post-Civil War era as they relate to current divisions of class and race in contemporary society.  Kennedy's interpretation runs against that of many other scholars, but certainly it is well supported and coherent and has the added force of strong argument."--Patricia Waterman, University of South FloridaStetson Kennedy's premise--argued and documented here as never before--is that the verdict of Appomattox was largely reversed during Reconstruction.  The determined southern oligarchy, he says, wrenched political and cultural victory out of military defeat. In this dramatic contribution to the history of Reconstruction, Kennedy brings to light thirty-three "long-buried" testimonials from victims and perpetrators of Ku Klux Klan terror that were taken by a Joint Congressional Committee in 1871-72.  They form the core of this account of the decade following the Civil War, which Kennedy describes as a period of "Holocaust, demagoguery, chicanery, fraud, and psychological warfare that culminated in the Deal of 1876."  That "deal," struck between Democrats and Republicans in a smoke-filled room of the Wormsley Hotel in Washington, D.C., essentially revoked the unconditional surrender of the South at Appomattox.  It gave Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the victory in the disputed presidential election of 1876 in return for the withdrawal of federal troops from the southern states, and Kennedy contends that it diluted the power of the hard-won 14th and 15th Amendments and led to the imposition of the Jim Crow system after Reconstruction. Work on After Appomattox began with Kennedy's discovery of thirteen volumes of testimony--given to a Senate committee by former slaves--housed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the New York Public Library. The interviews--chilling, heartbreaking, and plain-spoken--describe how "the black and white targets of the Klan terror chose not to arm themselves or bond together for protection, counterattack, or counterterrorism.  They simply stood as individuals against their tormentors, and, for refusing to renounce their rights, were often killed."  Citing the testimony of one former slave, undeterred from voting by a near-fatal flogging, he quotes, "I can be strong in a good cause."Stetson Kennedy is the author of Palmetto Country, Southern Exposure, The Klan Unmasked, and Jim Crow Guide:  The Way It Was, all reissued in paperback by UPF.  He has received numerous honors recognizing his work for peace and racial equality, from the Negro Freedom Rally People's Award in 1947 to the 1991 Cavallo Foundation Award for civic courage.The grandson of a Confederate officer, he is a native of Florida and lives in Jacksonville.

Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865: A Riveting Account of a Bloody Chapter in Civil War History


Thomas Goodrich - 1995
    This study truly shows the horrible cost inherent in any civil war." --Civil War Courier" A] well written and compelling account of an aspect of the Civil War which has not received sufficient attention." --Southern Historian"Compelling..." --Publishers Weekly" A] fast-paced.. .absorbing discourse... Black Flag is a highly recommended book that transports the reader to the towns and dusty highways of Kansas and Missouri during the Civil War." --Kansas HistoryFrom 1861 to 1865, the region along the Missouri-Kansas border was the scene of unbelievable death and destruction. Thousands died, millions of dollars of property was lost, entire populations were violently uprooted. It was here also that some of the greatest atrocities in American history occurred. Yet in the great national tragedy of the Civil War, this savage warfare has seemed a minor episode.Drawing from a wide array of contemporary documents--including diaries, letters, and first-hand newspaper accounts--Thomas Goodrich presents a hair-raising report of life in this merciless guerrilla war. Filled with dramatic detail, Black Flag reveals war at its very worst, told in the words of the participants themselves. Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers, soldiers and civilians, scouts, spies, runaway slaves, the generals and the guerrillas--all step forward to tell of their terrifying ordeals.From the shocking, sensational massacres at Lawrence, Baxter Springs, and Centralia to the silent terror of a woman at home alone in the Aburnt district, Black Flag is a horrifying day-by-day account of life, death and war, told with unforgettable immediacy.