Best of
Civil-War

1993

The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers


Richard Moe - 1993
    

Gettysburg--Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill


Harry W. Pfanz - 1993
    Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill--two of the most critical engagements fought at Gettysburg on 2 and 3 July 1863. Pfanz provides detailed tactical accounts of each stage of the contest and explores the interactions between--and decisions made by--generals on both sides. In particular, he illuminates Confederate lieutenant general Richard S. Ewell's controversial decision not to attack Cemetery Hill after the initial southern victory on 1 July. Pfanz also explores other salient features of the fighting, including the Confederate occupation of the town of Gettysburg, the skirmishing in the south end of town and in front of the hills, the use of breastworks on Culp's Hill, and the small but decisive fight between Union cavalry and the Stonewall Brigade.Rich with astute judgments about officers on each side, clearly written, and graced with excellent maps, Pfanz's book is tactical history at its finest.--Civil War A meticulous examination of the desperate engagements that over the course of the three days swept up and down the rough slopes of these two hills, the strategic anchors of the Union right flank.--New York Times Book ReviewThe first and most comprehensive narrative yet written on this part of the battlefield. . . . Civil War enthusiasts should clear a space on their bookshelf for Gettysburg--Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill.--Blue and Gray Harry Pfanz provides the definitive account of the fighting between the Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill--two of the most critical engagements fought at Gettysburg on 2 and 3 July 1863. He provides detailed tactical accounts of each stage of the contest and explores the interactions between--and decisions made by--generals on both sides. In particular, he illuminates Confederate lieutenant general Richard S. Ewell's controversial decision not to attack Cemetery Hill after the initial Southern victory on 1 July.

Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas


John J. Hennessy - 1993
    Lee’s triumph over Union leader John Pope in the summer of 1862. . . . Lee’s strategic skills, and the capabilities of his principal subordinates James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson, brought the Confederates onto the field of Second Manassas at the right places and times against a Union army that knew how to fight, but not yet how to win."–Publishers Weekly

General James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier


Jeffry D. Wert - 1993
    Yet, he was largely held to blame for the Confederacy's defeat at Gettysburg. General James Longstreet sheds new light on the controversial commander and the man Robert E. Lee called “my old war horse.”

Dreams of Gold


Lewis Orde - 1993
     Orphaned at an early age, cousins Nathan and Leonora Solomon are raised by an uncle who regards them as little more than cheap labor for his clothing shop on Ludgate Hill. When they rebel, they are forced to flee, boarding a ship in Liverpool that carries them to New Orleans where they are befriended by the family of Gershon Lowensohn, a cotton factor as kindly as their uncle was uncaring. Nathan and Leonora take to their new city immediately. During the wild abandon of Mardi Gras, Nathan seconds a young Creole named Antoine Vanson in a duel. The friendship that forms between the two young men is strengthened when Antoine’s sister, Marie-Louise, captures Nathan’s heart. In turn, Leonora becomes involved with the dashing Antoine, and the cousins are caught up in an exhilarating world of romance and passion, a world tragically torn apart when yellow fever strikes the Crescent City. In the years that follow, Nathan and Leonora draw from one another the strength necessary to rebuild their shattered lives, only to face adversity once more when civil war erupts. Forced to leave New Orleans, they start over yet again, this time in Atlanta, growing as the city grows, creating a retail empire that will become an Atlanta landmark. Until the onset of the 20th Century, when a wave of populism and prejudice threatens all they hold dear.

Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography


Jack Hurst - 1993
    His tactic was the headlong charge, mounted with such swiftness and ferocity that General Sherman called him a "devil" who should "be hunted down and killed if it costs 10,000 lives and bankrupts the treasury." And in a war in which officers prided themselves on their decorum, Forrest habitually issued surrender-or-die ultimatums to the enemy and often intimidated his own superiors. After being in command at the notorious Fort Pillow Massacre, he went on to haunt the South as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.Now this epic figure is restored to human dimensions in an exemplary biography that puts both Forrest's genius and his savagery into the context of his time, chronicling his rise from frontiersman to slave trader, private to lieutenant general, Klansman to -- eventually -- New South businessman and racial moderate. Unflinching in its analysis and with extensive new research, Nathan Bedford Forrest is an invaluable and immensely readable addition to the literature of the Civil War.

Military Memoirs of a Confederate: A Critical Narrative


Edward Porter Alexander - 1993
    His memoirs, however, has earned him the most fame, and is one of the most cited accounts of the Civil War.

Stonewall: A Biography of General Thomas J. Jackson


Byron Farwell - 1993
    He was given the name Stonewall at the First Battle of Bull Run, when his brigade faced overwhelming odds but held the line. Byron Farwell's engrossing narrative reveals Stonewall Jackson both as a military genius and as a quirky, dark personality radically different from the storybook version that grew up after Jackson's untimely death at Chancellorsville in 1863.

Morgan's Raiders


Dee Brown - 1993
    Officially organized as the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry, C.S.A., they called themselves the "Alligator Horses" and were the farthest ranging unit in the war--riding, skirmishing and fighting full-scale battles in ten states.Riding the finest horses in the country, Morgan's men were heroes in the South and outlaws in the North. Captured or imprisoned, they usually escaped--and promptly returned to raiding, recruiting and "borrowing" horses and supplies.But in 1865, Morgan's Raiders were a shattered regiment of foot soldiers, making their last formation to escort Jefferson Davis on his flight southward from Richmond.Morgan's Raiders is the story of the men who made the legend: cavalier John Morgan himself; Ellsworth, the reckless telegrapher; Quirk, the scout; Basil Duke, one of the hardiest of all the "alligator horses." There was also St. Leger Grenfell, a mysterious Englishman who explained simply: "If England is not at war, I go elsewhere to find one."

Fool's Gold


Johnny Quarles - 1993
    Then an old Cherokee chief offers them a proposition: If they'll take him home to die among his ancestors in the mountains of Georgia, he'll lead them to a hidden cave that sparkles with gold.

Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander


Kent Masterson Brown - 1993
    Alonzo Hereford Cushing offers valuable insights into the nature of the Civil War and the men who fought it. Brown's vivid descriptions of the heat and exhaustion of forced marches, of the fury of battle, have seldom been matched in Civil War literature.

Berry Benson's Civil War Book: Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter


Berry Benson - 1993
    This memoir of his service is a remarkable narrative, filled with the minutiae of the soldier's life and paced by a continual succession of battlefield anecdotes.Three main stories emerge from Benson's account: his reconnaissance exploits, his experiences in battle, and his escape from prison. Though not yet eighteen years old when he left his home in Augusta, Georgia, to join the army, Benson was soon singled out for the abilities that would serve him well as a scout. Not only was he a crack shot, a natural leader, and a fierce Southern partisan, but he had a kind of restless energy and curiosity, loved to take risks, and was an instant and infallible judge of human nature. His recollections of scouting take readers within arm's reach of Union trenches and encampments. Benson recalls that while eavesdropping he never failed to be shocked by the Yankees' foul language; he had never heard that kind of talk in a Confederate camp!Benson's descriptions of the many battles in which he fought--including Cold Harbor, The Seven Days, Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg--convey the desperation of a full frontal charge and the blind panic of a disorganized retreat. Yet in these accounts, Benson's own demeanor under fire is manifest in the coolly measured tone he employs.A natural writer, Benson captures the dark absurdities of war in such descriptions as those of hardened veterans delighting in the new shoes and other equipment they found on corpse-littered battlefields. His clothing often torn by bullets, Benson was also badly bruised a number of times by spent rounds. At one point, in May 1863, he was wounded seriously enough in the leg to be hospitalized, but he returned to the field before full recuperation.Benson was captured behind enemy lines in May 1864 while on a scouting mission for General Lee. Confined to Point Lookout Prison in Maryland, he escaped after only two days and swam the Potomac to get back into Virginia. Recaptured near Washington, D.C., he was briefly held in Old Capitol Prison, then sent to Elmira Prison in New York. There he joined a group of ten men who made the only successful tunnel escape in Elmira's history. After nearly six months in captivity or on the run, he rejoined his unit in Virginia. Even at Appomattox, Benson refused to surrender but stole off with his brother to North Carolina, where they planned to join General Johnston. Finding the roads choked with Union forces and surrendered Confederates, the brothers ultimately bore their unsurrendered rifles home to Augusta.Berry Benson first wrote his memoirs for his family and friends. Completed in 1878, they drew on his--and partially on his brother's--wartime diaries, as well as on letters that both brothers had written to family members during the war. The memoirs were first published in book form in 1962 but have long been unavailable. This edition, with a new foreword by the noted Civil War historian Herman Hattaway, will introduce this compelling story to a new generation of readers.

Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend


Carleton Mabee - 1993
    Yet Sojourner Truth was born a slave near the Hudson River in Ulster County, New York, in the late 1700s. Called merely Isabella as a slave, once freed she adopted the name of Sojourner Truth and became a national figure in the struggle for the emancipation of both Blacks and women in Civil War America.Despite the dual discrimination she suffered as a Black woman, Truth significantly shaped both her own life and the struggle for human rights in America. Through her fierce intelligence, her resourcefulness, and her eloquence, she became widely acknowledged as a remarkable figure during her life, and she has become one of the most heavily mythologized figures in American history.While some of the myths about Truth offer inspiration, they have also contributed to distortions about American history, especially about the experiences of Black Americans and women. In this landmark work, the product of years of primary research, Pulizter-Prize winning biographer Carleton Mabee has unearthed the best available sources about this remarkable woman to reconstruct the most authentic account of her life to date. Mabee offers new insights on why she never learned to read, on the authenticity of the famous quotations attributed to her (such as Ar'n't I a woman?), her relationship to President Lincoln, her role in the abolitionist movement, her crusade to move freed slaves from the South to the North, and her life as a singer, orator, feminist and woman of faith. This is an engaging, historically precise biography that reassesses the place of Sojourner Truth--slave, prophet, legend--in American history.

An Irishman in the Iron Brigade: The Civil War Memoirs of James P. Sullivan


James P. Sullivan - 1993
    A hired man on a farm in Juneau County, Wisconsin, he was among the first to anwer Lincoln's call for volunteers in 1861. Sullivan fought in a score of major battles, was wounded five times, and was the only soldier of his regiment to enlist on three separate occasions.An Irishman in the Iron Brigade is a collection of Sullivan's writings about his hard days in President Lincoln's Army. Using war diaries and letters, the Irish immigrant composed nearly a dozen revealing accounts about the battles of his brigage-Brawner Farm, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg as well as the fighting of 1864. Using his old camp name, Mickey of Company K, Sullivan wrote not so much for family or for history, but to entertain his comrades of the old Iron Brigade. His stories-overlooked and forgotten for more than a century- are delightful accounts of rough-hewn Western soldiers in the Eastern Army of the Potomac. His Gettysburg account, for example, is one of the best recollections of that epic battle by a soldier in the ranks. He also left a from-the-ranks view of some of the Union's major soldiers such as George McClellan, Irvin McDowell, John Pope, and Ambrose Burnside.An Irishman in the Iron Brigade is in part the story of the great veterans' movement which shaped the nation's politics before the turn-of-the-century. Troubled by economic hardship, advancing age, and old war injuries, Sullivan turned to old comrades, his memories, and writing, to put the great experiences of his life in perspective.

The Second Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership


Gary W. Gallagher - 1993
    Using fresh manuscript sources coupled with a careful consideration of the existing literature, they explore issues such as Robert E. Lee's decision to renew the tactical offensive on July 2; James Longstreet's effectiveness in executing Lee's plan; the origin and impact of Daniel E. Sickle's decision to advance his Third Corps, which formed the infamous "Sickle's Salient"; the little-understood role of Henry W Slocum and his Union Twelfth Corps; and the contribution of John C. Caldwell's division in the maelstrom of the Wheatfield.Provocative and occasionally at odds with one another, these essays present new evidence to expand understanding of the battle and offer sometimes controversial interpretations to prompt re-evaluation of several officers who played crucial roles during the second day at Gettysburg. Historians and other students of the battle who are not persuaded by all of the essays nonetheless will find they cannot lightly dismiss their arguments.

Flames across the Susquehanna


Glenn S. Banner - 1993
    Historians have, from time to time, written just briefly of the Underground Railroad in Columbia and the patriotic actions of the local citizenry when the Confederates arrived on the west shore of that bridge in June of 1863. Ever since those historic happenings occurred, many have longed for a book which would chronicle the details of those dramatic incidents. At last, there is such a book - FLAMES ACROSS THE SUSQUEHANNA. Author Glenn Banner carefully crafts a story which details in vibrant fashion many exciting happenings from those momentous years of 1862 and '63. As the title suggests, there are FLAMES ACROSS THE SUSQUEHANNA, and the writer's powerful version of the events of that June day in 1863 make for memorable reading for people of all ages.

The Campaign for Atlanta


William R. Scaife - 1993
    

A History of the Confederate Navy


Raimondo Luraghi - 1993
    A landmark study that credits the Southern navy for its strategic successes, international range, and technical advances.

The South's Finest: The First Missouri Confederate Brigade from Pea Ridge to Vicksburg


Phillip Thomas Tucker - 1993
    The First Missouri Confederate Brigade earned the most distinguished record of any comparable unit. Yet, earlier historians have ignored its accomplishments during some of the most strategically important engagements of the war. Significantly, they had major roles from their first battle at Pea Ridge in early 1862 to their last at Fort Blakely in April 1865.

The Cavalry at Gettysburg: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations during the Civil War's Pivotal Campaign, 9 June-14 July 1863


Edward G. Longacre - 1993
    

Blockaders, Refugees, and Contrabands: Civil War on Florida's Gulf Coast, 1861-1865


George E. Buker - 1993
    Since the state's long coastlines made it a ready target for a naval cordon, its commercial life suffered beginning in 1861 and deteriorated even further as the war progressed despite the efforts of blockade runners. Florida Unionists, antiwar natives, and runaway slaves flocked to these Federal warships to seek protection and quickly became a source of manpower for their crews as well as for land forces."—Journal of Southern History"The proliferation of publications concerning the American Civil War occasionally produces one that really contributes to our understanding of that conflict. George E. Buker’s Blockaders, Refugees, and Contrabands is such a book."—Journal of American History

Confederate Vixen


Teresa Howard - 1993
    Chapman Turner--weren't so handsome and charming. No sooner had Kinsey set eyes on the virile Union officer than hunger for vengeance exploded in soul-searing desire...a passion that branded her soul and divided her heart...Chap had seen enough blood to last a lifetime, and the war was still far from over. He needed to escape the chaos and destruction--and exquisite, emerald-eyed Kinsey seemed to offer just such a haven. Though he sensed that she harbored dangerous secrets, fiery passion soon consumed all doubts. Now all Chap wanted was this stormy beauty in his arms for endless nights of soaring rapture--two lovers bound forever in a joyous union that knew no sides and took no prisoners...

Nelson A. Miles and the Twilight of the Frontier Army


Robert Wooster - 1993
    Based on a wide range of sources, including materials only recently made available to researchers, this first complete, carefully documented biography of Miles skillfully delineates the brilliant, abrasive, and controversial tactician whose career in many respects epitomized the story of the Old Army.

Portraits of the Civil War


Charles Phillips - 1993
    The haunting images taken during those years of battle captured the harsh realities of combat as never before. They still retain their power, as the more than 75 unforgettable portraits in this moving collection demonstrate so vividly. These are the men, women and children whose lives were intimately touched by the bloody strife. Accompanying the photos, and the incisive historical commentary, are their personal letters, diaries, and journals that detail their thoughts and feelings about the traumatic events unfolding all around them. Arranged chronologically, the images trace the progress of the War from the fall of Fort Sumter to the surrender at Appomattox as seen through the eyes of the famous as well as the men little known to history.

Mel Bay Presents Ballads and Songs of the Civil War


Jerry Silverman - 1993
    First Edition, number line counts to 1. Fine condition.

National Geographic Guide to Civil War National Battlefield Parks


National Geographic Society - 1993
    It is not comprehensive, but roughly two dozen major spots have full descriptions. (No, they didn't forget to include Antietam--but don't expect to find anything on lesser-known attractions such as Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida.) Perhaps most useful is the practical information for people planning trips: directions to each battlefield, park hours, entrance fees, phone numbers, brief notes on what to expect, and lists of nearby historic inns. This book's compact size makes it an ideal traveling companion, even if you're planning to visit only one site and have limited trunk space. And the photos are typically beautiful--exactly what you would expect from National Geographic.