Best of
Civil-War

1959

The General’s Wife: The Life of Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant


Ishbel Ross - 1959
     This maxim was never truer than with Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia. Through all the turbulence of his lengthy career, Julia stood firm to support him through all the obstacles that fortune threw in their way. Julia was certainly not passive as her husband rose through the ranks of the army and eventually became President of the United States. Indeed, through the course of the Civil War, she left their children with relatives and stayed with Ulysses during campaigns in Memphis, Vicksburg, Nashville and Virginia, travelling more than ten thousand miles in four years. She performed the role of First Lady with great dignity, organizing spectacular events and hosting leaders from across the globe. Yet, as Ross highlights, the marriage was not without difficulty and sometimes contradictions, for although Ulysses was fighting for the Union and the cause of emancipation, Julia had come from a slave-owning family and this had caused a great deal of consternation in his family. Ishbel Ross’s superb biography of this remarkable woman uncovers a truly remarkable marriage and has brought the life of this fascinating First Lady back from the shadows of her husband’s career and into the public eye once more. “Ulysses and Julia Grant were a profoundly united couple, and so it is not easy to make a clear distinction between his life and hers. The two loved and needed each other. … It is very pleasant to get to know Julia Grant, who, in her devotion, was one of the more potent women in American history.” The Saturday Review “Lengthy, well-written, carefully detailed, this biography of the plain, devoted and ambitious wife of a great general and lesser president will appeal greatly … its emphasis on the life and manners of the Grant era should make it a valuable addition to the domestic history of Victorian America.” Kirkus Reviews Ishbel Ross was a prominent biographer of many of the most important women in American history. Her book The General's Wife: The Life of Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant was first published in 1959, and she passed away in 1975.

Pickett's Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863


George R. Stewart - 1959
    This book covers a critical part of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War


Alexander Gardner - 1959
    Indeed, Gardner — who later photographed the War independently — often managed the famous horse-drawn photographic laboratory and took many of the pictures that used to be attributed to Brady. He accompanied the Union troops on their marches, their camps and bivouacs, their battles, and on their many hasty retreats and routs during the early days of the War. In 1866 Alexander Gardner published a very ambitious two-volume work which contained prints of some 100 photographs which he had taken in the field. A list of them reads like a roster of great events and great men: Antietam Bridge under Travel, President Lincoln (and McClellan) at Antietam, Pinkerton and His Agents in the Field, Ruins of Richmond, Libby Prison, McLean's House Where Lee's Surrender Was Signed, Meade's Headquarters at Gettysburg, Battery D, Second U.S. Artillery in Action at Fredericksburg, the Slaughter Pen at Gettysburg, and many others. This publication is now amoung the rarest American books, and is here for the first time republished inexpensively. Gardner's photographs are among the greatest war pictures ever taken and are also among the most prized records of American history. Gardner was quite conscious of recording history, and spared himself no pains or risk to achieve the finest results. His work indicates a technical mastery that now seems incredible when one bears in mind the vicissitudes of collodion applications in the field, wet plates, long exposures, long drying times, imperfect chemicals — plus enemy bullets around the photographer's ears. It has been said of these photographs: photography today . . . is far easier, but it is no better.

Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders


Ezra J. Warner - 1959
    Biographical sketches of the major Confederate military leaders focus on their military careers as well as peacetime activities.

The West Point Atlas of American Wars, 2 Vols


Vincent J. Esposito - 1959
    Large hardcover complete in two volumes. xiv, [316] (158 maps opposite explanatory text); xi, [508] (71 maps of WWI, 168 of WWI, & 15 of Korea, opposite explanatory text). Also includes 9 pages of recommended reading material. Original grey cloth spine over navy blue cloth boards, gilt insignia & titles. Hundreds of pages of strategic & historical color battle maps with explanations & tactical contexts.

Stonewall's Man: Sandie Pendleton


W.G. Bean - 1959
    Pendleton began as ordnance officer of the Stonewall Brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah in the spring of 1861. By January of 1863, he had become chief of staff of the famed Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia and was recognized as a brilliant staff officer--even as "Stonewall's Man." Wounded in the battle of Fisher's Hill, Pendleton died five days before his twenty-fourth birthday.Based on diaries, letters, and manuscripts, the poignant and revealing story of Pendleton's life and Civil War experiences is set against a background of the campaigns in which he participated.

The Road to Richmond: The Civil War Letters of Major Abner R. Small of the 16th Maine Volunteers.


Abner Ralph Small - 1959
    He served as a non-commissioned officer in the Third Maine Infantry during the summer of 1861, experiencing battle for the first time at First Bull Run. As a recruiting officer, he helped to raise the Sixteenth Maine Infantry and served as its adjutant. The Sixteenth Maine gained fame for its heroic delaying action on July 1 at Gettysburg, where it lost 180 of its 200 men. It went on to serve in Grant's Overland Campaign in Virginia.Small was an articulate observer of all this. He wrote his memoirs with a keen sense of the irony of life during wartime, and with a gift for expression. His descriptions of the dead at Gettysburg, his characterizations of famous men such as Major General Oliver Otis Howard, and his reflections on the emotions of men under fire are outstanding. Small was captured in the battle of Globe Tavern on August 18, 1864. His account of prison life at Libby, Salisbury, and Danville is gripping. Small was exchanged just in time to lead his regiment in the final days of the war. His book reveals more of the inner soldier than almost any other account written by a Union veteran.

The Slave States, Before The Civil War


Frederick Law Olmsted - 1959
    

To Appomattox: Nine April Days, 1865


Burke Davis - 1959
    Provides a chronicle of the nine final days of the Civil War, and a portrait of Grant, Lee, Lincoln, and the war's other notable personalities as they play out the end-game to America's bloodiest war.

Thaddeus Stevens: Scourge of the South


Fawn M. Brodie - 1959
    She describes his roles as father of the Fourteenth Amendment and prosecutor in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, his relations with Lincoln, and his battles for black suffrage and schooling.

The Long Arm of Lee: The History of the Artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, Volume 2: Chancellorsville to Appomattox


Jennings C. Wise - 1959
    Volume 1 described the organization and tactics of the field batteries of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia from the time of the Battle of Bull Run through the Maryland invasion. Volume 2, beginning with an account of the Chancellorsville campaign, includes a close look at the Battle of Gettysburg, in which tactical errors made by the Confederate side are reassessed. There was heroism aplenty, not only from generals like J.E.B. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson but also from ordinary artillerymen who fought doggedly and resignedly until the end.