Best of
American-Civil-War

2017

Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac


Stephen W. Sears - 2017
    The men in charge all too frequently appeared to be fighting against the administration in Washington instead of for it, increasingly cast as political pawns facing down a vindictive congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. President Lincoln oversaw, argued with, and finally tamed his unruly team of generals as the eastern army was stabilized by an unsung supporting cast of corps, division, and brigade generals. With characteristic style and insight, Stephen Sears brings these courageous, determined officers, who rose through the ranks and led from the front, to life.

That Deadly Space: A Civil War Novel


Gerald Gillis - 2017
    Conor Rafferty joins the Confederate army as a young infantry officer against the wishes of his father who, in his Irish anger, is adamantly opposed to a war with the North. Conor soon finds himself in many of the war’s most consequential battles, leading from the front and risking all inside that deadly space. He serves with distinction in General Robert E. Lee’s celebrated Army of Northern Virginia as it seeks the crowning victory that will end the war and stop the carnage. Along the way, Conor becomes a protégé of fellow Georgian John B. Gordon who eventually rises to command a Confederate army corps. At the conclusion of each chapter, the narrative transitions to the now aged Conor who answers the probing questions of his grandson Aaron, himself a captain in the U.S. Army and scheduled for duty in Europe during World War I. The grandfather and grandson thus spend a week together—a week of sharing, learning, and bonding. That Deadly Space is a compelling tale that portrays the drama, heroism, romance, and tragedy of the Civil War.

On to Petersburg: Grant and Lee, June 4-15, 1864


Gordon C. Rhea - 2017
    Grant and Robert E. Lee in southeastern Virginia in the spring and summer of 1864. Having previously covered the campaign in; The Battle of the Wilderness May 5–6, 1864; The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7–12, 1864; To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13–25, 1864; and Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 – June 3, 1864, Rhea concludes his series with a comprehensive account of the last twelve days of the campaign, which concluded with the beginning of the siege of Petersburg. Like the four volumes that preceded it, On to Petersburg represents decades of research and scholarship and will stand as the most authoritative history of the final battles in the campaign.

Soldier, Spy, Heroine: A Novel Based on a True Story of the Civil War


Debra Ann Pawlak - 2017
    When her abusive father traded her hand in marriage for a few head of livestock, she fled their farm and took on the identity of traveling salesman Franklin Thompson eventually settling in Flint, Michigan. There, as Thompson, she joined Company F of the Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry and distinguished herself as a true Civil War hero.In between the First Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Yorktown, the Battle of Williamsburg, and the Battle of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines, Thompson nursed the sick and wounded, carried the mail across dangerous terrain, and became one of the Secret Service’s first spies. Using various disguises including that of a former slave and an Irish peddler woman, Thompson infiltrated enemy lines and stole vital information from the Rebels until a severe case of malaria took its toll. Knowing that the medical attention she needed would reveal her carefully kept secret, she unwillingly deserted the Union Army in 1863. But Sarah Emma Edmonds wasn’t finished. She had a soldier’s pension to fight for and an honorable discharge to claim. Almost a decade after the war was over, she came forward and asked the astonished men she served with for their help in clearing the name of Franklin Thompson.

When The Drums Stop


David W. Roach - 2017
    “Shoot’em down! Don’t let them rally!” For two years, the terrible and bloody Civil War raged in the United States of America, tearing at the very fabric of its glorious founding. In the midst of utter turmoil a young boy, Anderson Roach, longed to join his brother as part of the famed Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry. With his brother gone fighting for nearly two years, Anderson was now ready to leave the farm and prove himself by joining the ranks of men on the battlefield. Little did Anderson know that his dreams of adventure and heroism would soon be met with the harsh reality of soldiering in the Union Army. With each step, he would walk hand in hand with death and experience the physical and mental anguish of war.

The Problem of Slavery in Christian America


Joel McDurmon - 2017
    They are largely unaware how systematic it was and what institutions were created specifically to maintain the injustices. Christians are largely unaware that their own clergy and churches were among the leading proponents of the systems, and have no idea of the convicting and sad reasons why, or of the theological justifications employed for turning a blind eye to the injustice, or worse, active perpetuation of it. That such theologies are still widely taught today—and are in some cases the norm—is not a good sign when so many social ills still surround a silent church. In general, Christians and conservatives are not nearly as informed as they may think when it comes to understanding black history in the United States and the black saga it contains.The Problem of Slavery in Christian America aims at providing otherwise well-intended Christians and conservatives a deeper understanding of that history, a starting point for discussion and, if necessary, repentance, and with a biblical response to the larger problem of racism, all while refusing to capitulate to non-Christian leftism.

Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee


Ann Marie Ackermann - 2017
    The first volunteer killed defending Robert E. Lee’s position in battle was really a German assassin. After fleeing to the United States to escape prosecution for murder, the assassin enlisted in a German company of the Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Mexican-American War and died defending Lee’s battery at the Siege of Veracruz in 1847. Lee wrote a letter home, praising this unnamed fallen volunteer defender. Military records identify him, but none of the Americans knew about his past life of crime.Before fighting with the Americans, Lee’s defender had assassinated Johann Heinrich Rieber, mayor of Bönnigheim, Germany, in 1835. Rieber’s assassination became 19th-century Germany’s coldest case ever solved by a non–law enforcement professional and the only 19th-century German murder ever solved in the United States. Thirty-seven years later, another suspect in the assassination who had also fled to America found evidence in Washington, D.C., that would clear his own name, and he forwarded it to Germany. The German prosecutor Ernst von Hochstetter corroborated the story and closed the case file in 1872, naming Lee’s defender as Rieber’s murderer.Relying primarily on German sources, Death of an Assassin tracks the never-before-told story of this German company of Pennsylvania volunteers. It follows both Lee’s and the assassin’s lives until their dramatic encounter in Veracruz and picks up again with the surprising case resolution decades later.This case also reveals that forensic ballistics―firearm identification through comparison of the striations on a projectile with the rifling in the barrel―is much older than previously thought. History credits Alexandre Laccasagne for inventing forensic ballistics in 1888. But more than 50 years earlier, Eduard Hammer, the magistrate who investigated the Rieber assassination in 1835, used the same technique to eliminate a forester’s rifle as the murder weapon. A firearms technician with state police of Baden-Württemberg tested Hammer’s technique in 2015 and confirmed its efficacy, cementing the argument that Hammer, not Laccasagne, should be considered the father of forensic ballistics.The roles the volunteer soldier/assassin and Robert E. Lee played at the Siege of Veracruz are part of American history, and the record-breaking, 19th-century cold case is part of German history. For the first time, Death of an Assassinbrings the two stories together.

Determined to Stand and Fight: The Battle of Monocacy, July 9, 1864 (Emerging Civil War Series)


Ryan Quint - 2017
    In early July 1864, a quickly patched together force of outnumbered Union soldiers under the command....

That Field of Blood: The Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862


Daniel Vermilya - 2017
    Lee had embarked upon an invasion of Maryland, threatening to achieve a victory on Union soil that could potentially end the Civil War in Southern Independence. Lee's opponent, Major General George McClellan, led the Army of the Potomac to stop Lee's campaign. In Washington D.C., President Lincoln eagerly awaited news from the field, knowing that the future of freedom for millions was at stake. Lincoln had resolved that, should Union forces win in Maryland, he would issue his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.All this hung in the balance on September 17: the day of the battle of Antietam.The fighting near Sharpsburg, Maryland, that day would change the course of American history, but in the process, it became the costliest day this nation has ever known, with more than 23,000 men falling as casualties.Join historian Daniel J. Vermilya to learn more about America's bloodiest day, and how it changed the United States forever in That Field of Blood.

Under the Crescent Moon with the XI Corps in the Civil War: From the Defenses of Washington to Chancellorsville, 1862-1863


James S. Pula - 2017
    Despite its sacrifices in the Eastern campaigns and successes in Tennessee, the reputation of the Eleventh Corps is one of cowardice and failure. James J. Pula sets the record straight in his two-volume study Under the Crescent Moon: The Eleventh Corps in the American Civil War, 1862-1864.Under the Crescent Moon (a reference to the crescent badge assigned to the corps) is the first study of this misunderstood organization. The first volume, From the Defenses of Washington to Chancellorsville, opens with the organization of the corps and a lively description of the men in the ranks, the officers who led them, the regiments forming it, and the German immigrants who comprised a sizable portion of the corps. Once this foundation is set, the narrative flows briskly through the winter of 1862-63 on the way to the first major campaign at Chancellorsville. Although the brunt of Stonewall Jackson's flank attack fell upon the men of the Eleventh Corps, the manner in which they fought and many other details of that misunderstood struggle are fully examined here for the first time, and at a depth no other study has attempted. Pula's extraordinary research and penetrating analysis offers a fresh interpretation of the Chancellorsville defeat while challenging long-held myths about that fateful field.The second volume, From Gettysburg to Victory, offers seven entire chapters portraying the Eleventh Corps at Gettysburg, followed by a rich exploration of the corps' participation in the fighting around Chattanooga, its grueling journey into Eastern Tennessee in the dead of winter, and its role in the Knoxville Campaign. Once the corps' two divisions are broken up in early 1864 to serve elsewhere, Pula follows their experiences through to the war's successful conclusion.Under the Crescent Moon draws extensively on primary sources and allows the participants to speak directly to readers. The result is a comprehensive personalized portrait of the men who fought in the -unlucky- Eleventh Corps, from the difficulties they faced to the accomplishments they earned. As the author demonstrates time and again, the men of the Eleventh Corps were good soldiers unworthy of the stigma that has haunted them to this day. This long overdue study will stand as the definitive history of the Eleventh Corps.-

Fighting in the Shadows: Untold Stories of Deaf People in the Civil War


Harry G Lang - 2017
    Lang’s groundbreaking study of deaf people’s experiences in the Civil War. Based on meticulous archival research, Fighting in the Shadows reveals the stories of deaf soldiers and civilians who lived through this transformative period in American history. Lang describes the participation of deaf soldiers in the war, whose personal tests of fortitude and perseverance have not been previously explored. There were also many deaf people in noncombat roles whose stories have not yet been told—clerks and cooks, nurses and spies, tradespeople supporting the armies, farmers supplying food to soldiers, and landowners who assisted (or resisted) troops during battles. Deaf writers, diarists, and artists documented the war. Lang chronicles the lives of people from all walks of life, from common soldiers who faced the daily horrors of war to the extraordinary tale of the deaf poet who was friends with Abraham Lincoln and who also taught sign language to John Wilkes Booth. Even deaf children contributed actively to the war efforts.         Lang pieces together hundreds of stories, accompanied by numerous historical images, to reveal a powerful new perspective on the Civil War. These soldiers and civilians were not “disabled” by their deafness. On the contrary, despite the marginalization and paternalism they experienced in society, they were able to apply their skills and knowledge to support the causes in which they ardently believed.        Fighting in the Shadows is a story of how deaf civilians and soldiers put aside personal concerns about deafness, in spite of the discrimination they faced daily, in order to pursue a cause larger than themselves. Yet their stories have remained in the shadows, leaving most Americans, hearing and deaf, largely unaware of the deaf people who made significant contributions to the events that changed the course of our nation’s history. This book provides new insights into Deaf history as well as into mainstream interpretations of the Civil War.

Our Fathers at Gettysburg: A Step by Step Description of the Greatest Battle of the American Civil War


Jack L Kunkel - 2017
    But even careful students of Gettysburg can find themselves confused when reading about, or visiting, the battlefield. Here, finally, is a convenient guide for serious student and casual visitor alike which covers the sweep of events and the geography of the battlefield, step by step. This guide will help you find all the important locales and understand what the participants saw in 1863, even if you have no prior knowledge of the battle. Designed to enhance the experience of both those reading about the battle for the first time, as well as grizzled, Civil War-reading veterans, this guide can be used alone, or as a great way to prepare for a future visit to the battlefield. Clearly written and illustrated with maps, photographs and illustrations, this is the book to have if you really want to understand step by step what happened during those three terrible days at Gettysburg.

Turning Points of the American Civil War


Chris MackowskiRobert Orrison - 2017
    Hood as commander of the Army of Tennessee, and the 1864 presidential election. In their conclusion, the editors suggest that the assassination of Abraham Lincoln might have been the war’s final turning point.

Battle above the Clouds: Lifting the Siege of Chattanooga and the Battle of Lookout Mountain, October 16 - November 24, 1863 (Emerging Civil War Series)


David A. Powell - 2017
    The Federals were surviving by the narrowest of margins, thanks only to a trickle of supplies painstakingly hauled over the sketchiest of mountain roads. Soon even those quarter-rations would not suffice. Disaster was in the offing.Yet those Confederates, once jubilant at having routed the Federals at Chickamauga and driven them back into the apparent trap of Chattanooga's trenches, found their own circumstances increasingly difficult to bear. In the immediate aftermath of their victory, the South rejoiced; the Confederacy's own disasters of the previous summer--Vicksburg and Gettysburg--were seemingly reversed. Then came stalemate in front of those same trenches. The Confederates held the high ground, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, but they could not completely seal off Chattanooga from the north.The Union responded. Reinforcements were on the way. A new man arrived to take command: Ulysses S. Grant. Confederate General Braxton Bragg, unwilling to launch a frontal attack on Chattanooga's defenses, sought victory elsewhere, diverting troops to East Tennessee.Battle above the Clouds by David Powell recounts the first half of the campaign to lift the siege of Chattanooga, including the opening of the "cracker line," the unusual night battle of Wauhatchie, and one of the most dramatic battles of the entire war: Lookout Mountain.

Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War


David Fisher - 2017
    Lee, Frederick Douglass, Stonewall Jackson, John Singleton Mosby, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, John Wilkes Booth, William Tecumseh Sherman, and more. An epic struggle between the past and future, the Civil War sought to fulfill the promise that “all men are created equal.” It freed an enslaved race, decimated a generation of young men, ushered in a new era of brutality in war, and created modern America. Featuring archival images, eyewitness accounts, and beautiful artwork that further brings the history to life, The Civil War is the action-packed and ultimate follow-up to the #1 bestsellers The Patriots and The Real West.

"The Bloody Fifth"-The 5th Texas Infantry Regiment, Hood's Texas Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia: Volume 2: Gettysburg to Appomattox


John Schmutz - 2017
    Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The 5th Texas established an exceptional combat record in an army known for its fighting capabilities. The regiment took part in 38 engagements, including nearly every significant battle in the Eastern Theater, as well as the Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Knoxville campaigns in the Western Theater. “The Bloody Fifth” offers the first full-length study documenting this fabled regimental command.The first volume, Secession through the Suffolk Campaign, followed the regiment from its inception through the successful foraging campaign in southeastern Virginia in April 1863. Gettysburg to Appomattox continues the regiment’s rich history from its march north into Pennsylvania and the battle of Gettysburg, its transfer west to Georgia and participation in the bloody battle of Chickamauga, operations in East Tennessee, and the regiment’s return to Virginia for the overland battles (Wilderness to Cold Harbor), Petersburg campaign, and the march to Appomattox Court House. The narrative ends by following many of the regiment’s soldiers on their long journey home.Schmutz’s definitive study is based upon years of archival and battlefield research that uncovered hundreds of primary sources, many never before used. The result is a lively account of not only the regiment’s marches and battles but a personal look into the lives of these Texans as they struggled to survive a vicious war more than 1,000 miles from home.“The Bloody Fifth”—The 5th Texas Infantry Regiment, Hood’s Texas Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, with photos, original maps, explanatory footnotes, and important and useful appendices, is a significant contribution to the history of Texas and the American Civil War.

Bonded By Battle: The Powerful Friendships of Military Dogs and Soldiers from the Civil War to Operation Iraqi Freedom


Nancy Roe Pimm - 2017
    They've stood sentry as soldiers slept, attacked enemies on command, and refused to leave their masters' sides even as they lay dying. In modern times, the bond between individual soldiers and their canine companions has transformed the roles of both.In this powerful historical narrative, Nancy Roe Pimm tells the story of a dozen remarkable friendships, from the Civil War onward, to show how together, dogs and humans changed the way America's military operates today. Early on they were morale-boosting mascots who wandered onto the battlefield, like Jack of the 102nd Pennsylvania Volunteers, whose value to his regiment was so great that he was exchanged for a Confederate biped in a prisoner swap. But when a World War I stowaway named Stubby showed his ability to detect poison mustard gas in time to alert the soldiers around him, the role of canines in combat began to evolve. While the official military continued to frown on fraternization between men and mutts, individual soldiers found new ways to use their loyal companions' innate skills to keep their units safe. The dog's unmatched sense of smell and hearing proved invaluable in the jungle warfare of Vietnam, detecting booby traps and enemy movements and saving an estimated 10,000 American lives. Stories of their epic bravery circulated widely, like that of Nemo, who lay atop his wounded handler during a fierce firefight, never flinching even with one eye shot out. Finally, the top brass began to take notice, establishing a permanent training facility for military working dogs. Yet even as a new generation of highly trained IED-detecting dogs took to the streets of Fallujah, official policy continued to treat them as little more than expendable equipment. Once again, individual soldiers whose hearts have been touched -- and lives have been saved -- stepped up and fought tirelessly for the rights of their canine companions. Pimm, a distinguished author of nonfiction for young readers, relates this evolving relationship between dogs and soldiers up to the present day.

These Rugged Days: Alabama in the Civil War


John S. Sledge - 2017
    The Civil War has left indelible marks on Alabama’s land, culture, economy, and people. Despite its lasting influence, this wrenching story has been too long neglected by historians preoccupied by events elsewhere. In These Rugged Days: Alabama in the Civil War, John S. Sledge provides a long overdue and riveting narrative of Alabama’s wartime saga. Focused on the conflict’s turning points within the state’s borders, this book charts residents’ experiences from secession’s heady early days to its tumultuous end, when 75,000 blue-coated soldiers were on the move statewide. Sledge details this eventful history using an impressive array of primary and secondary materials, including official records, diaries, newspapers, memoirs, correspondence, sketches, and photographs. He also highlights such colorful personalities as Nathan Bedford Forrest, the “Wizard of the Saddle”; John Pelham, the youthful Jacksonville artillerist who was shipped home in an iron casket with a glass faceplate; Gus Askew, a nine-year-old Barbour County slave who vividly recalled the day the Yankees marched in; and Augusta Jane Evans, the young novelist who was given a gold pen by a daring blockade runner. Sledge offers a refreshing take on Alabama’s contributions to the Civil War that will intrigue anyone who is interested in learning more about the state’s war efforts. His narrative is a dramatic account that will be enjoyed by lay readers as well as students and scholars of Alabama and the Civil War. These Rugged Days is an enthralling tale of action, courage, pride, and tragedy, making clear the relevance of many of the Civil War’s decisive moments for the way Alabamians live today.

Lee's Tigers Revisited: The Louisiana Infantry in the Army of Northern Virginia


Terry L. Jones - 2017
    Jones dramatically expands and revises his acclaimed history of the approximately twelve thousand Louisiana infantrymen who fought in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Sometimes derided as the "wharf rats from New Orleans" and the "lowest scrappings of the Mississippi," the Louisiana Tigers earned a reputation for being drunken and riotous in camp, but courageous and dependable on the battlefield.Louisiana's soldiers, some of whom wore colorful uniforms in the style of French Zouaves, reflected the state's multicultural society, with regiments consisting of French-speaking Creoles and European immigrants. Units made pivotal contributions to many crucial battles--resisting the initial Union onslaught at First Manassas, facilitating Stonewall Jackson's famous Valley Campaign, holding the line at Second Manassas by throwing rocks when they ran out of ammunition, breaking the Union line temporarily at Gettysburg's Cemetery Hill, containing the Union breakthrough at Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle, and leading Lee's attempted breakout of Petersburg at Fort Stedman. The Tigers achieved equal notoriety for their outrageous behavior off the battlefield, so much so that sources suggest no general wanted them in his command. By the time of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, there were fewer than four hundred Louisiana Tigers still among his troops.Lee's Tigers Revisited uses letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and muster rolls to provide a detailed account of the origins, enrollments, casualties, and desertion rates of these soldiers. Illustrations--including several maps newly commissioned for this edition--chart the Tigers' positions on key battlefields in the tumultuous campaigns throughout Virginia. By utilizing first-person accounts and official records, Jones provides the definitive study of the Louisiana Tigers and their harrowing experiences in the Civil War.

Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864 (Emerging Civil War Series)


William Lee White - 2017
    In the fall of 1864, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee had harassed Federal forces in north Georgia so badly that the Union commander, William T. Sherman, decided to abandon his position. During his subsequent "March to the Sea," Sherman's men lived off the land and made Georgia howl.Rather than confront the larger Federal force directly, Hood chose instead to strike northward into Tennessee. There, he hoped to cripple the Federal supply infrastructure and the Federal forces that still remained there--the Army of the Cumberland under George Thomas. Hood hoped to defeat Thomas's army in detail and force Sherman to come northward to the rescue.On November 30, in a small country town called Franklin, Hood caught part of Thomas's army outside of its stronghold of Nashville. But what began as a promising opportunity for the outnumbered Confederate army soon turned grim. "I do not like the looks of this fight," one of Hood's subordinates said; "the enemy has an excellent position and is well fortified."Hood was determined to root the Federals out. "Well," said a Confederate officer, "if we are to die, let us die like men." And thousands of them did. As wave after murderous wave crashed against the Federal fortifications, the Army of Tennessee shattered itself. It eventually found victory--but at a cost so bloody and so chilling, the name "Franklin" would ever after be synonymous with disaster.Historian William Lee White, whose devotion to the Army of Tennessee has taken him from the dense forests of northwest Georgia to the gates of Atlanta and back into Tennessee, now pens the penultimate chapter in the army's storied history in Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864.

Dem Days Was Hell - Recorded Testimonies of Former Slaves from 17 U.S. States: True Life Stories from Hundreds of African Americans in South about Their Life in Slavery and after the Liberation


Work Projects Administration - 2017
    southern states, including photos of the people being interviewed and their extraordinary narratives. After the end of Civil War in 1865, more than four million slaves were set free. There were several efforts to record the remembrances of the former slaves. The Federal Writers' Project was one such project by the United States federal government to support writers during the Great Depression by asking them to interview and record the myriad stories and experiences of slavery of former slaves. The resulting collection preserved hundreds of life stories from 17 U.S. states that would otherwise have been lost in din of modernity and America's eagerness to deliberately forget the blot on its recent past. Contents:AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgia IndianaKansasKentuckyMarylandMississippiMissouriNorth CarolinaOhioOklahomaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginia

Emory Upton: Misunderstood Reformer


David J. Fitzpatrick - 2017
    His works—The Armies of Asia and Europe and The Military Policy of the United States—fueled the army’s intellectual ferment in the late nineteenth century and guided Secretary of War Elihu Root’s reforms in the early 1900s. Yet as David J. Fitzpatrick contends, Upton is also widely misunderstood as an antidemocratic militaristic zealot whose ideas were “too Prussian” for America. In this first full biography in nearly half a century, Fitzpatrick, the leading authority on Upton, radically revises our view of this important figure in American military thought. A devout Methodist farm boy from upstate New York, Upton attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the Civil War. His use of a mass infantry attack to break the Confederate lines at Spotsylvania Courthouse in 1864 identified him as a rising figure in the U.S. Army. Upton’s subsequent work on military organizations in Asia and Europe, commissioned by Commanding General William T. Sherman, influenced the army’s turn toward a European, largely German ideal of soldiering as a profession. Yet it was this same text, along with Upton’s Military Policy of the United States, that also propelled the misinterpretations of Upton—first by some contemporaries, and more recently by noted historians Stephen Ambrose and Russell Weigley. By showing Upton’s dedication to the ideal of the citizen-soldier and placing him within the context of contemporary military, political, and intellectual discourse, Fitzpatrick shows how Upton’s ideas clearly grew out of an American military-political tradition.Emory Upton: Misunderstood Reformer clarifies Upton’s influence on the army by offering a new and necessary understanding of the military’s intellectual direction at a critical juncture in American history.

The 20 Most Significant Events of the Civil War: A Ranking


Alan Axelrod - 2017
    In each of the book’s 20 detailed essays, author/historian/speaker Alan Axelrod presents an engaging narrative about the event, and also explains how the event shaped the course of the war, and ultimately the future of the country.The author’s selection and ranking criteria include:Effect as cause or trigger of the warDecisiveness: whether it was a war-winning or war-losing event (both in military terms and in terms of public opinion, morale, and support)Magnitude and scope: size and cost of a battleEnduring postwar significance in American history, politics, society, culture and/or in military history and technologyFrom Lincoln’s Inauguration, Antietam, and John Brown’s raid, to the New York draft riots and Stonewall Jackson dying as a result of friendly fire – never before has the Civil War been explored quite this way. The Civil War was a violent argument between the North and the South. The purpose of this book is to start another argument about its history.

Civil War Logistics: A Study of Military Transportation


Earl J. Hess - 2017
    Moving men, supplies, and equipment required coordination on a massive scale, and Earl J. Hess's Civil War Logistics offers the first comprehensive analysis of this vital process. Utilizing an enormous array of reports, dispatches, and personal accounts by quartermasters involved in transporting war materials, Hess reveals how each conveyance system operated as well as the degree to which both armies accomplished their logistical goals.In a society just realizing the benefits of modern travel technology, both sides of the conflict faced challenges in maintaining national and regional lines of transportation. Union and Confederate quartermasters used riverboats, steamers, coastal shipping, railroads, wagon trains, pack trains, cattle herds, and their soldiers in the long and complicated chain that supported the military operations of their forces. Soldiers in blue and gray alike tried to destroy the transportation facilities of their enemy, firing on river boats and dismantling rails to disrupt opposing supply lines while defending their own means of transport.According to Hess, Union logistical efforts proved far more successful than Confederate attempts to move and supply its fighting forces, due mainly to the North's superior administrative management and willingness to seize transportation resources when needed. As the war went on, the Union's protean system grew in complexity, size, and efficiency, while that of the Confederates steadily declined in size and effectiveness until it hardly met the needs of its army. Indeed, Hess concludes that in its use of all types of military transportation, the Federal government far surpassed its opponent and thus laid the foundation for Union victory in the Civil War.

War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies: Series 1 - Volume 27 (Part II): Official Records: Gettysburg: ... Union and Confederate Armies and Navies.)


U.S. Department of War - 2017
    

Civil War Four Pack: Andersonville, Co. Aytch, Army Life in a Black Regiment, Life of General Robert E. Lee


Various - 2017
    Aytch - A Side Show of the Big Show by Samuel R. Watkins.Army Life in a Black Regiment by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.A Life of General Robert E. Lee by John Esten Cooke.Includes image gallery.

Rough Waters: Sovereignty and the American Merchant Flag


Rodney P. Carlisle - 2017
    merchant ship flag, and the U.S. merchant fleet itself. Rodney Carlisle looks at conduct and commerce at sea from the earliest days of the country, when battles at sea were fought over honor and the flag, to the current American-owned merchant fleet sailing under flags of convenience via foreign registries. Carlisle examines the world-wide use, legality, and continued acceptance of this practice, as well as measures to off-set its ill effects. Looking at the interwar period of 1919-1939, Carlisle examines how the practice of foreign registry of American-owned vessels began on a large scale, led by Standard Oil with tankers under the flag of the Free City of Danzig and followed by Panama. The work spells out how the United States helped further the practice of registry in Panama and Liberia after World War II. Rough Waters concludes with a look at how the practice of foreign registry shapes present-day commerce and labor relations.

Selma: A Bicentennial History


Alston Fitts - 2017
    Selma: A Bicentennial History is a greatly revised and expanded version of Fitts’s history of the city, replete with a wealth of new, never-before-published illustrations, which further develops a number of significant events, corrects critical errors, and, most importantly, incorporates many new stories and materials that document Selma’s establishment, growth, and development.   Comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and nonpartisan, Fitts’s pleasantly accessible history addresses every major issue, movement, and trend from the city’s settlement in 1815 to the end of the twentieth century. Its commerce, institutions, governance, as well as its evolving racial, religious, and class composition are all treated with candor and depth. Selma’s transformative role within the state and the nation is fully explored, and most notable is a nuanced and complex discussion of race relations from the rise of the civil rights era to modern times.   Historians, scholars, and Alabamians will find great use for this updated and fully developed exploration of Selma’s rich, complex, and significant history.