From Chancellorsville, where General Robert E. Lee launched his high-risk campaign into the North, to the Confederates' last daring and ultimately-doomed act, forever known as Pickett's Charge, the battle of Gettysburg gave the Union army a victory that turned back the boldest and perhaps greatest chance for a Southern nation.Now acclaimed historian Noah Andre Trudeau brings the most up-to-date research available to a brilliant, sweeping, and comprehensive history of the battle of Gettysburg that sheds fresh light on virtually every aspect of it. Deftly balancing his own narrative style with revealing firsthand accounts, Trudeau brings this engrossing human tale to life as never before.

    Grant against Robert E. Lee for the first time in the Civil War-vividly re-creates the battles and maneuvers from the stalemate on the North Anna River through the Cold Harbor offensive. Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864 showcases Rhea's tenacious research which elicits stunning new facts from the records of a phase oddly ignored or mythologized by historians. In clear and profuse tactical detail, Rhea tracks the remarkable events of those nine days, giving a surprising new interpretation of the famous battle that left seven thousand Union casualties and only fifteen hundred Confederate dead or wounded. Here, Grant is not a callous butcher, and Lee does not wage a perfect fight. Within the pages of Cold Harbor, Rhea separates fact from fiction in a charged, evocative narrative. He leaves readers under a moonless sky, with Grant pondering the eastward course of the James River fifteen miles south of the encamped armies.

    Would Lincoln guide the nation toward "Reconstruction"? What about the slaves? They had been emancipated, but what about the matter of suffrage? When Lincoln finally stood before his fellow countrymen on March 4, 1865, and had only 703 words to share, the American public was stunned. The President had not offered the North a victory speech, nor did he excoriate the South for the sin of slavery. Instead, he called the whole country guilty of the sin and pleaded for reconciliation and unity.In this compelling account, noted historian Ronald C. White Jr. shows how Lincoln's speech was initially greeted with confusion and hostility by many in the Union; commended by the legions of African Americans in attendance, abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass among them; and ultimately appropriated by his assassin John Wilkes Booth forty-one days later.Filled with all the facts and factors surrounding the Second Inaugural, "Lincoln's Greatest Speech" is both an important historical document and a thoughtful analysis of Lincoln's moral and rhetorical genius.

    Burnside; embarrassed Abraham Lincoln; and distinguished Robert E. Lee as one of the greatest military strategists of his era. Francis Augustin O'Reilly draws upon his intimate knowledge of the battlegrounds to discuss the unprecedented nature of Fredericksburg's warfare. Lauded for its vivid description, trenchant analysis, and meticulous research, his award-winning book makes for compulsive reading.

    J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a much more complicated and significant figure. Raised in a fiercely pro-slavery household in bitterly divided Misssouri, at age sixteen James became a bushwhacker, one of the savage Confederate guerrillas that terrorized the border states. After the end of the war, James continued his campaign of robbery and murder into the brutal era of reconstruction, when his reckless daring, his partisan pronouncements, and his alliance with the sympathetic editor John Newman Edwards placed him squarely at the forefront of the former Confederates’ bid to recapture political power. With meticulous research and vivid accounts of the dramatic adventures of the famous gunman, T. J. Stiles shows how he resembles not the apolitical hero of legend, but rather a figure ready to use violence to command attention for a political cause—in many ways, a forerunner of the modern terrorist.

    His writings provide a revealing look into the life of the commander in chief of the Union army as well as the seminal eyewitness account of the War between the States.The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is a popular abridgment of his two-volume Personal Memoirs, which he arranged to have published to provide for his family after his death. (It was a huge bestseller and broke all records in American publishing at the time.) He died less than one week after completing its writing.This abridgment covers Grant's experiences in the Civil War, from the first shot at Sumter to Appomattox, giving the reader a front-line seat next to the greatest Union general of the war.

    His Civil War paintings and limited edition prints hang in the finest collections in the country and are noted by collectors from around the world. Now, in Don Troiani's Regiments and Uniforms of the Civil War, the artist turns his brush to one of the most colorful and captivating aspects of Civil War history: the individual units that earned their reputations on the battlefield and the distinctive uniforms they wore. In addition to 130 paintings of battle scenes and individual figures, the book also includes more than 250 full-color photographs of the uniforms the soldiers wore and the accouterments they carried. Supporting the illustrations is text by two of the leading military artifact experts. Taken together, it makes for one of the most comprehensive books on Civil War uniforms ever undertaken

    The smoke had just cleared from the last volley of musketry at Gettysburg. Nearly 70 percent of the First Minnesota regiment lay dead or dying on the field--one of the greatest losses of any unit engaged in the Civil War. The significance of this July 2, 1863, battle at Gettysburg is widely known, but the harrowing details of the First's heroic stand that stopped a furious rebel assault have long been buried. In Pale Horse at Plum Run Brian Leehan brings the full story of the First at Gettysburg to light as he examines personal accounts, eyewitness reports, and official records to construct a remarkably detailed and compelling narrative. "Brian Leehan's account of the First Minnesota on Cemetery Ridge is the most detailed and complete I have read. His exhaustive research and compelling narrative are impressive and offer a much fuller understanding of the regiment?s extraordinary feats." -- Richard Moe, author of The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers

    This riveting true story of the Anglo-Confederate alliance that led to the creation of a Southern navy illuminates the dramatic and crucial global impact of the American Civil War.Like most things in the War between the States, it started over cotton: Lincoln’s naval blockade prevented the South from exporting their prize commodity to England. In response, the Confederacy came up with a unique plan to divert the North’s vessels and open the waterways–a plan that would mean covertly building a navy in Britain, a daring strategy that involved an unforgettable cast of colorful characters.James Bulloch–Northerner by circumstance, Southerner by birth, he risked his life to enter England and build a fleet under the very noses of Northern spies; Lord John Russell–the British foreign secretary who was suspected of subverting his own legal system to allow the secret ships; Charles Francis Adams–son and grandson of presidents, who exhausted every avenue to stop the Confederate-British collusion; Raphael Semmes–the fanatically loyal Southern captain who disabled or destroyed sixty Northern ships before meeting his match near Cherbourg, France; and The Alabama–a wooden gunship that took to the sea named for a Southern state to wreak havoc on the Northern cause.With The Rebel Raiders, naval historian James Tertius deKay brings to dazzling life an amazing, little known piece of history that is at once an important work of Civil War scholarship and a suspenseful tale of military strategy, international espionage, and a legal crisis whose outcome still affects the world.

    They included upstanding men like Melvin Dwinnel, a teacher and a publisher, as well as the likes of James Potter Williamson, whose listed occupation was "loafer." They met in Rome, Georgia, in May 1861, and became the first regiment to enlist for the duration of the hostilities--most others held together for a single season.United by a deep love for the land left behind and a fierce determination to fight for their homes and way of life, the men of the 8th persevered through brutal battles, miserable conditions, and dimming prospects of a Confederate victory.Using diaries, letters home to loved ones, and other historical documents, Steven E. Woodworth follows these brave men from the red clay of Georgia, through the Battle of Bull Run, to Maryland, into the bloody battle of Gettysburg, through Tennessee and the brutal Battle of Chickamauga, and finally to their ultimate defeat at Appomattox. Through every struggle, he reveals their motivations and sometimes painful decisions, telling a story of human hopes and fears and ultimately showing this most divisive war at its most personal.

    All the major players and battles are involved, including Joseph E. Johnston, P. G. T Beauregard, and J. E. B. Stuart. As evidenced in his previous books, Longacre's painstakingly thorough research will make this volume as indispensable a reference as its predecessor.

    From 1861 to 1863 the corps contributed invaluable surveillance and reconnaissance information to the Union Army's war effort during the Virginia campaign. It also accomplished such significant military feats as the initial air-to-ground communication by telegraph, the first use of the "aircraft carrier" for launch of the balloon, and the first artillery barrage directed by an aerial observer where gun batteries were unable to see their targets from the ground. This book traces the history of the intrepid airborne force, from its creation by pioneer balloonist Thaddeus Lowe to its unceremonious disbanding in 1863.

    The squadron's numerous actions including harrowing engagements between ships and forts, daring amphibious assaults, battles between ironclad vessels, the harassment of Confederate blockade runners, and combating the incredible evolution of underwater warfare in the form of the CSS Hunley. But the blockade's success was constantly hampered by indecisive leaders in Washington who failed to express their strategic vision as well as by reputation-conscious naval commanders who were reluctant to press the fight when the specter of failure loomed. Despite lost opportunities, unfulfilled expectations, and failures along the way, the bravery, sacrifice, and vigilance of these fighting men played an important role in the Union's ultimate victory.Success Is All That Was Expected joins Robert Browning's previous award-winning volume on the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron to create the benchmark for Civil War naval history. Together they tell the definitive story of Union naval operations off the Atlantic coast.

    The sloop-of-war was known worldwide for her phenomenally destructive campaign against Union shipping that extended from coastal Texas to Cape Town, South Africa. Winning prizes estimated at $6 million, the ship was eventually tracked down and sunk off the coast of Cherbourg by the USS Kearsarge. Despite enduring interest in the ship, many details of her structure and fitting are still a matter of debate. The ship's clandestine construction and delayed arming produced often contradictory evidence. For this book, the author sifted through every known contemporary photograph, painting, model, and plan to produce the most detailed set of drawings of the Alabama ever published. With more than 250 illustrations, plans, and line drawings, the work will delight naval historians, Civil War enthusiasts, and model-makers alike.

    Ironically, while the great military exploits of General Stonewall Jackson are studied in military schools the world over and his iron will and stern self-discipline have become legendary, little is said about his remarkable marriage. The real Thomas J. Jackson was a humble Christian and loving husband and father. The tender and instructive letters he wrote to his wife Anna are a model of godly leadership and covenantal faithfulness. From their courtship to their final days together, trace the true story of this remarkable couple through the letters of General Jackson to his bride."

    Among American historians, David W. Blight has been a pioneer in the field of memory studies, especially on the problems of slavery, race, and the Civil War. In this collection of essays, Blight examines the meanings embedded in the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War, the nature of changing approaches to African American history, and the significance of race in the ways Americans, North and South, black and white, developed historical memories of the nation's most divisive event. The book as a whole demonstrates several ways to probe the history of memory, to understand how and why groups of Americans have constructed versions of the past in the service of contemporary social needs. Topics range from the writing and thought of Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois to a comparison of Abraham Lincoln and Douglass on the level of language and memory. The volume also includes a compelling study of the values of a single Union soldier, an analysis of Ken Burns's PBS series The Civil War, and a retrospective treatment of the distinguished African American historian Nathan I. Huggins. Taken together, these lucidly written pieces offer a thoroughgoing assessment of the stakes of Civil War memory and their consequences for American race relations. Beyond the Battlefield demonstrates not only why we should preserve and study our Civil War battlefields, but also why we should lift our vision above those landscapes and ponder all the unfinished questions of healing and justice, of racial harmony and disharmony, that still bedevil our society and our historical imagination.

    Severance, whose latest biography was Einstein, Visionary Scientist, now turns his research skills and fine eye for detail to fiction. The last two years of the Civil War are the setting for this fast-paced story of a 15-year-old Maryland farm boy who joins the Union Army, despite being torn between loyalty to his father, a Union officer, and loyalty to his grandfather, a Confederate. When foraging Confederate soldiers burn down the barn on Jem’s land, he and his best friend go off on what they think will be a glorious adventure. But they are hardly prepared for the true face of battle as they fight the enemy—boys like themselves—in the woods and swamps, become part of the regiment proudly known as General Barlow’s Boys, march through blood-soaked cornfields, and witness death. Details of the soldiers’ daily life and vivid depictions of actual battles and historical figures are interwoven with bits of dark humor and even a touch of romance in this well-wrought novel that clearly shows there is no glory in war.

    For common laborers and their families, the opportunity to join the ranks of those who owned pictures of family and friends--the upper classes--was momentous. This collection exhibits more than eighty examples of a specific kind of tintype: occupational portraits, photographs of working people with the tools of their trade. Michael L. Carlebach examines the historical significance of these tintypes and finds that they reveal a great deal about late nineteenth-century values. The subjects of these images are plumbers proudly holding their wrenches and pipe cutters, carpenters with their saws and lathing hatchets, textile workers with their spindles and yarn, icemen with their tongs. These people lived and worked at a time when a depersonalized factory system run by production and efficiency experts was beginning to dominate American industry and culture. Many of the men and women in these tintypes were part of a disappearing class of self-employed artisans and journeymen; their portraits proudly stress their individuality and the essential nobility of their work. The most common reaction of historians to tintypes has been undisguised contempt or, at best, indifference. The photographs were generally seen as hopelessly unartistic and common. Yet Carlebach celebrates these anonymous portraits and finds that they say as much about today's working Americans--who are much more likely to document their toys and leisure activities than their professions--as they do about the working men and women who proudly sat for them in a much different age.

    An introductory essay surveys the history of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) from emancipation to the end of the Civil War. Seven essays focus on the role of the USCT in combat, chronicling the contributions of African Americans who fought at Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Olustee, Fort Pillow, Petersburg, Saltville, and Nashville. Other essays explore the recruitment of black troops in the Mississippi Valley; the U.S. Colored Cavalry; the military leadership of Colonels Thomas Higginson, James Montgomery, and Robert Shaw; African American chaplain Henry McNeal Turner; the black troops who occupied postwar Charleston; and the experiences of USCT veterans in postwar North Carolina. Collectively, these essays probe the broad military, political, and social significance of black soldiers' armed service, enriching our understanding of the Civil War and African American life during and after the conflict.The contributors are Anne J. Bailey, Arthur W. Bergeron Jr., John Cimprich, Lawrence Lee Hewitt, Richard Lowe, Thomas D. Mays, Michael T. Meier, Edwin S. Redkey, Richard Reid, William Glenn Robertson, John David Smith, Noah Andre Trudeau, Keith Wilson, and Robert J. Zalimas Jr.ContributorsAnne J. Bailey, Georgia College & State University (Milledgeville, Ga.)Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., Pamplin Historical Park & The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier (Petersburg, Va.)John Cimprich, Thomas More College (Crestview Hills, Ky.)Lawrence Lee Hewitt (Chicago, Ill.)Richard Lowe, University of North Texas (Denton, Tex.)Thomas D. Mays, Quincy University (Quincy, Ill.)Michael T. Meier, National Historical Publications and Records Commission (Washington, D.C.)Edwin S. Redkey, Purchase College, State University of New York (Purchase, N.Y.)Richard Reid, University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) William Glenn Robertson, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.)John David Smith, North Carolina State University (Raleigh, N.C.)Noah Andre Trudeau (Washington, D.C.)Keith Wilson, Monash University (Gippsland, Australia)Robert J. Zalimas, Jr., Morris College (Sumter, S.C.)Inspired and informed by the latest research in African American, military, and social history, the fourteen original essays in this book tell the stories of the African American soldiers who fought for the Union cause. Collectively, these essays probe the broad military, political, and social significance of black soldiers' armed service, enriching our understanding of the Civil War and African American life during and after the conflict. The contributors are Anne J. Bailey, Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., John Cimprich, Lawrence Lee Hewitt, Richard Lowe, Thomas D. Mays, Michael T. Meier, Edwin S. Redkey, Richard Reid, William Glenn Robertson, John David Smith, Noah Andre Trudeau, Keith Wilson, and Robert J. Zalimas, Jr.

    R. Gibbs has written an interesting and valuable addition to Washington, D.C.'s history with an account of The First Regiment of United States Colored Troops (the 1st USCT), which was the first black regiment to be formally mustered into federal service during the Civil War. Black, Copper, & Bright: The District of Columbia's Black Civil War Regiment is not intended to be a full history of the battles and marches of the 1st USCT; instead, it seeks to recognize the men who used their personal freedom to advance collective goals. Gibbs traces the efforts of these African-American men to serve the Union, fight for freedom for the enslaved, and to achieve civil rights for all blacks. Gibbs's goal is to add a missing chapter to the history of the nation's capital, which he does quite nicely. -- Christine Cohn

    Through a lucid examination of the boundaries of that gendered rhetorical space—and the debate about who should occupy that space—Johnson explores the codes governing and challenging the American woman’s proper rhetorical sphere in the postbellum years. While men were learning to preach, practice law, and set political policies, women were reading elocution manuals, letter-writing handbooks, and other conduct literature. These texts reinforced the conservative message that women’s words mattered, but mattered mostly in the home. Postbellum pedagogical materials were designed to educate Americans in rhetorical skills, but they also persistently directed the American woman to the domestic sphere as her proper rhetorical space. Even though these materials appeared to urge the white middle class women to become effective speakers and writers, convention dictated that a woman’s place was at the hearthside where her rhetorical talents were to be used in counseling and instructing as a mother and wife. Aided by twenty-one illustrations, Johnson has meticulously compiled materials from historical texts no longer readily available to the general public and, in so doing, has illuminated this intersection of rhetoric and feminism in the nineteenth century. The rhetorical pedagogies designed for a postbellum popular audience represent the cultural sites where a rethinking of women’s roles becomes open controversy about how to value their words. Johnson argues this era of uneasiness about shifting gender roles and the icon of the “quiet woman” must be considered as evidence of the need for a more complete revaluing of women’s space in historical discourse.

    Born in Minnesota, John Remington Graham is a constitutional-law attorney who served as an advisor on secession to the amicus curiae for Quebec.