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.

    His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J. DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history books and overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend. Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized—as the Founding Fathers intended—to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provacative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its vise grip on our republic to this very day.You will discover a side of Lincoln that you were probably never taught in school—a side that calls into question the very myths that surround him and helps explain the true origins of a bloody, and perhaps, unnecessary war.

    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.

    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.

    Against the prevailing view that such violence is an instance of impenetrable madness, the book demonstrates that there is logic to it and that it has much less to do with collective emotions, ideologies, and cultures than currently believed. Kalyvas specifies a novel theory of selective violence: it is jointly produced by political actors seeking information and individual civilians trying to avoid the worst but also grabbing what opportunities their predicament affords them. Violence, he finds, is never a simple reflection of the optimal strategy of its users; its profoundly interactive character defeats simple maximization logics while producing surprising outcomes, such as relative nonviolence in the 'frontlines' of civil war.

    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.

    In Crossroads of Freedom, America's most eminent Civil War historian, James M. McPherson, paints a masterful account of this pivotal battle, the events that led up to it, and its aftermath.As McPherson shows, by September 1862 the survival of the United States was in doubt. The Union had suffered a string of defeats, and Robert E. Lee's army was in Maryland, poised to threaten Washington. The British government was openly talking of recognizing the Confederacy and brokering a peace between North and South. Northern armies and voters were demoralized. And Lincoln had shelved his proposed edict of emancipation months before, waiting for a victory that had not come--that some thought would never come.Both Confederate and Union troops knew the war was at a crossroads, that they were marching toward a decisive battle. It came along the ridges and in the woods and cornfields between Antietam Creek and the Potomac River. Valor, misjudgment, and astonishing coincidence all played a role in the outcome. McPherson vividly describes a day of savage fighting in locales that became forever famous--The Cornfield, the Dunkard Church, the West Woods, and Bloody Lane. Lee's battered army escaped to fight another day, but Antietam was a critical victory for the Union. It restored morale in the North and kept Lincoln's party in control of Congress. It crushed Confederate hopes of British intervention. And it freed Lincoln to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, which instantly changed the character of the war.McPherson brilliantly weaves these strands of diplomatic, political, and military history into a compact, swift-moving narrative that shows why America's bloodiest day is, indeed, a turning point in our history.

    L. Hunley is as astonishing as its disappearance. On February 17, 1864, after a legendary encounter with a Union battleship, the iron “fish boat” vanished without a trace somewhere off the coast of South Carolina. For more than a century the fate of the Hunley remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Civil War. Then, on August 8, 2000, with thousands of spectators crowding Charleston Harbor, the Hunley was raised from the bottom of the sea and towed ashore. Now, award-winning journalists Brian Hicks and Schuyler Kropf offer new insights into the Hunley’s final hours and recount the amazing true story of its rescue.The brainchild of wealthy New Orleans planter and lawyer Horace Lawson Hunley, the Hunley inspired tremendous hopes of breaking the Union’s naval blockade of Charleston, only to drown two crews on disastrous test runs. But on the night of February 17, 1864, the Hunley finally made good on its promise. Under the command of the heroic Lieutenant George E. Dixon, the sub rammed a spar torpedo into the Union sloop Housatonic and sank the ship within minutes, accomplishing a feat of stealth technology that would not be repeated for half a century.And then, shortly after its stunning success, the Hunley vanished.This book is an extraordinary true story peopled with a fascinating cast of characters, including Horace Hunley himself, the Union officers and crew who went down with the Housatonic, P. T. Barnum, who offered $100,000 for its recovery, and novelist Clive Cussler, who spearheaded the mission that finally succeeded in finding the Hunley. The drama of salvaging the sub is only the prelude to a page-turning account of how scientists unsealed this archaeological treasure chest and discovered the inner-workings of a submarine more technologically advanced than anyone expected, as well as numerous, priceless artifacts.Hicks and Kropf have crafted a spellbinding adventure story that spans over a century of American history. Dramatically told, filled with historical details and contemporary color, illustrated with breathtaking original photographs, Raising the Hunley is one of the most fascinating Civil War books to appear in years.From the Hardcover edition.

    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.

    Gottfried pieces together each brigade’s experience at Gettysburg. Whether stories of forced marches, weary troops, or the bitter and tragic end of the battle, you’ll experience every angle of this epic battle. Learn what happened when the guns stopped firing and the men were left with only boredom and dread of what was to come.This collection is a lively and fascinating narrative that empowers the everyday men who fought furiously and died honorably. Every detail of the Battle of Gettysburg is included in this comprehensive chronicle.

    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

    James I. Robertson, Jr., in this extraordinary visual history of the Civil War's dramatic first two years. A companion history to the motion picture of the same name, Gods and Generals is based on the best-selling Jeff Shaara novel, and surveys a crucial period in the War Between the States through incomparable art-work and a matchless narrative. Gods and Generals chronicles the momentous events of 1861 through early 1863 by following the lives of four principal figures from the Civil War, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Winfield S. Hancock and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. On fields of fire and glory, like First and Second Manassas, the Seven Days Battles, Antietam and Chancellorsville, the epic American struggle of brothers-against-brother unfolds in this exceptional work. Among the Americans caught in the flame of battle, none were more remarkable than Lee, Jackson, Hancock and Chamberlain. Lee, known for the caliber of his character as much as the mettle of his military genius, saved the South from what appeared to be almost certain defeat in mid-1862, and molded his rag-tag troops into a fighting force that at times seemed invincible. "Stonewall" Jackson, meanwhile, rose from a mediocre professor at VMI to become Robert E. Lee's invaluable "right arm," but in mid-spring of 1863 his greatest success would be earned at a terrible price for the South. Facing Lee's army—and often failing—was the Army of the Potomac. Despite the discouragement of defeat, the army's common soldier remained determined to fight and was dedicated to victory—led by officers like Winfield S. Hancock, a gifted West Pointer, and Colenel Joshua L. Chamberlain, a college professor-turned-soldier. The glory and the tragedy of the American Civil War—and the fascinating figures from its history—are depicted in Gods and Generals with unique depth and emotion. The classic art of Mort Künstler and the captivating narrative by James I. Robertson, Jr. capture this pivotal period in America's bloodiest war unlike any other work of art and history.

    He contends that while standards were abysmal during the first year of the war, healthcare professionals quickly improved and were able to deliver excellent medical care. Coverage includes U.S. medical education in the 1860s; the establishment of an ambulance corps, a field hospital system and huge military hospitals; surgical innovations; epidemic diseases; and nuns as nurses.

    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."

    This campaign-by-campaign account of the Civil War examines the economic, social, political, and military aspects of this turbulent period.

    The fictional diaries that put DEAR AMERICA on bestseller lists are now available in paperback in the boxed DEAR AMERICA Library Collections.Each of the four books in this box set offers a different story about the courage Americans have summoned to meet the challenges that define our history -- that of a Navajo girl facing the destruction of her way of life, a freed slave starting her life, a girl fighting for woman's suffrage, and a young boy in the Negro Leagues searching for equality.

    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.

    But the regimental monuments and traces of breastworks that line the slopes of Culp's Hill bear silent testament to the hellish conflict: no other spot at Gettysburg would see such a sustained period of brutal combat as when North and South vied for this ground. The reader is invited to tour this seldom explored segment of the battle using maps, photos, and first-hand accounts to help understand the unique character of the struggle for Culp's Hill and the men who fought for its slopes.

    . . . Little wonder that the Civil War had a profound impact that has echoed down the generations and remains undiminished today. That impact helps explain why at least 50,000 books and pamphlets . . . on the Civil War have been published since the 1860s. Most of these are in the Library of Congress, along with thousands of unpublished letters, diaries, and other documents that make this depository an unparalleled resource for studying the war. From these sources, the editors of The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference have compiled a volume that every library, every student of the Civil War—indeed everyone with an interest in the American past—will find indispensable." —From the Foreword by James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom

    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.

    Grant and General Armistead L. Long's classic, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee. Illustrated with over 400 drawings and photographs from historically contemporary sources, this work provides the perspectives of that great conflict's greatest generals. The Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is fast-paced, colorful, lucid, and laced with flashes of humor, while the shortened version of Memoirs of Robert E. Lee is the most detailed view of Lee in action -- he died before writing his own memoirs. It's a vivid first-hand portrait of Lee just as the author set it down over a century ago.

    Over the course of twenty novels and one collection of short stories, he has developed a loyal and dedicated following among both critics and general readers. His thrillers, featuring either Louisiana cop Dave Robicheaux or Billy Bob Holland, a hardened Texas-based lawyer, have consistently appeared on national bestseller lists, making Burke one of America's most celebrated authors of crime fiction. Now, in a startling and brilliantly successful departure, Burke has written a historical novel -- an epic story of love, hate, and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the novel are James Lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from a slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willie Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite their personal and political conflicts with the issues of the time, both men join the Confederate Army, choosing to face ordeal by fire, yet determined not to back down in their commitment to their moral beliefs, to their friends, and to the abolitionist woman with whom both have become infatuated. One of the most compelling characters in the story, and the catalyst for much of its drama, is Flower Jamison, a beautiful young black slave befriended, at great risk to himself, by Willie and owned by -- and fathered by, although he will not admit it -- Ira Jamison. Owner of Angola Plantation, Ira Jamison is a true son of the Old South and also a ruthless businessman, who, after the war, returns to the plantation and re-energizes it by transforming it into a penal colony, which houses prisoners he rents out as laborers to replace the slaves who have been emancipated. Against all local law and customs, Flower learns from Willie to read and write, and receives the help and protection of Abigail Dowling, a Massachusetts abolitionist who had come south several years prior to help fight yellow fever and never left, and who has attracted the eye of both Willie and Robert Perry. These love affairs are not only fraught with danger, but compromised by the great and grim events of the Civil War and its aftermath. As in all of Burke's writings, White Doves at Morning is full of wonderful, colorful, unforgettable villains. Some, like Clay Hatcher, are pure "white trash" (considered the lowest of the low, they were despised by the white ruling class and feared by former slaves). From their ranks came the most notorious of the vigilante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White League and the Knights of the White Camellia. Most villainous of all, though, are the petty and mean-minded Todd McCain, owner of New Iberia's hardware store, and the diabolically evil Rufus Atkins, former overseer of Angola Plantation and the man Jamison has placed in charge of his convict labor crews. Rounding out this unforgettable cast of characters are Carrie LaRose, madam of New Iberia's house of ill repute, and her ship's-captain brother Jean-Jacques LaRose, Cajuns who assist Flower and Abigail in their struggle to help the blacks of the town. With battle scenes at Shiloh and in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia that no reader will ever forget, and set in a time of upheaval that affected all men and all women at all levels of society, White Doves at Morning is an epic worthy of America's most tragic conflict, as well as a book of substance, importance, and genuine originality, one that will undoubtedly come to be regarded as a masterpiece of historical fiction.

    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.

    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.

    In this superb collection you will find startling, emotive and sometimes surprisingly modern pictures, selected by noted historian William C. Davis, Director of Programs at the Virginia Center for Civil War studies, who also provides the commentary.

    Numbering 3,396, they include the presidents and their cabinet members, state governors, general officers of the Union and Confederate armies (regular, provisional, volunteers, and militia), and admirals and commodores of the two navies. Civil War High Commands will become a cornerstone reference work on these personalities and the meaning of their commands, and on the Civil War itself.Errors of fact and interpretation concerning the high commanders are legion in the Civil War literature, in reference works as well as in narrative accounts. The present work brings together for the first time in one volume the most reliable facts available, drawn from more than 1,000 sources and including the most recent research. The biographical entries include complete names, birthplaces, important relatives, education, vocations, publications, military grades, wartime assignments, wounds, captures, exchanges, paroles, honors, and place of death and interment.In addition to its main component, the biographies, the volume also includes a number of essays, tables, and synopses designed to clarify previously obscure matters such as the definition of grades and ranks; the difference between commissions in regular, provisional, volunteer, and militia services; the chronology of military laws and executive decisions before, during, and after the war; and the geographical breakdown of command structures. The book is illustrated with 84 new diagrams of all the insignias used throughout the war and with 129 portraits of the most important high commanders.

    Taking its title from the cry raised in Williamsburg as the Federal army approached in May 1862, Carol Dubbs's narrative sweeps us into the lives of the residents of this small historic city from the secession of Virginia in 1861 to Lee's surrender four years later. Williamsburg's Civil War ordeal has never before been told in such depth. Located midway on the only land route between Richmond and the Union-held Fort Monroe, on the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, Williamsburg hosted Confederate troops for the first year of war while defensive earthworks were built across the area. After the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, 1862 - a bloody clash neither side sought but each claimed as victor - Union forces began an occupation of the town that lasted with only short interruptions until the end of the war. Those residents who had not fled remained to stubbornly defend their homes. Dubbs scripts a compelling chronicle of these events, interweaving quotes from diaries, letters, memoirs, and military memoranda to bring immediacy to her subject. Balancing the grim experiences of combat, shortages, tending the d

    She is also the author of two children's books about California history and a co-editor of In the Shadow of the Giant: Thomas Wolfe

    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.

    Douglas MacArthur Utilizes hundreds of primary sources--letters, diaries, and contemporary newspaper articles Formed in the summer of 1862, the 24th Wisconsin Infantry participated in many major battles of the Western theater, earning a reputation as a brave, hard-fighting unit. Unlike other unit histories, this book makes no attempt, as the author freely admits, to provide "an objective history" of the regiment. Rather, the book digs deeper, following the personal stories of the soldiers themselves, providing hundreds of individual vignettes that, taken together, paint a vivid picture of the life of a Union soldier.

    . . full of marvelous quotes."--William W. Freehling, University of Kentucky"Shows clearly that the Solid South was not solid at all [and] demonstrates that the war encompassed much more than military strategy and tactics . . . it was fought at home as well as on the battlefield."--Wayne K. Durrill, University of CincinnatiThis compelling and engaging book sheds new light on how planter self-interest, government indifference, and the very nature of southern society produced a rising tide of dissent and disaffection among Georgia's plain folk during the Civil War. The authors make extensive use of local newspapers, court records, manuscript collections, and other firsthand accounts to tell a story of latent class resentment that emerged full force under wartime pressures and undermined southern support for the Confederacy.More directly than any previous historians, the authors make clear the connections between the causes of class resentment and their impact. Planters produced far too much cotton and avoided the draft at will. Speculators hoarded scarce goods and brought on spiraling inflation. Government officials turned a blind eye to the infractions of the rich, and were often bribed to do so. Women left to go hungry took matters into their own hands, stealing livestock in rural areas and rioting for food in every major city in Georgia. The hardships of families back home weighed heavily on soldiers in the field, contributing to rampant desertion. Deserters banded together, sometimes with draft dodgers and blacks escaping enslavement, to defend themselves or to go on the offensive against Confederate authorities. Some whites even planned and participated in slave resistance, a joining of forces that previous historians have long dismissed as highly improbable. So violent did Georgia’s inner civil war become that one resident commented, "We are fighting each other harder than we ever fought the enemy."This work stresses more forcefully than any before it that plain folk in the Deep South were far from united behind the Confederate war effort. That lack of unity, brought on largely by class resentment, helped to ensure that the Confederacy’s cause would, in the end, be lost.David Williams is professor and acting chair of the Department of History at Valdosta State University.

    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.

    Four months later -- on September 3 -- William T. Sherman wired Abraham Lincoln, Atlanta is ours, and fairly won!"The fall of Atlanta was not just one more Union victory. It was pivotal to the outcome of the entire Civil War and also to Lincoln's reelection. With the fall of Atlanta, Confederate morale plummeted. The South's most significant manufacturing center was destroyed, and its primary railroad connections were cut. The destruction of Atlanta was not just a Union victory over one city, but a key to the end of the war.Fields of Glory traces the story of the campaign from the Tennessee border through the heart of Georgia to Jonesboro. Included is a series of driving tours that enable readers to see firsthand the battlefields and important sites of the campaign.Also included are more than 85 illustrations, 25 original maps, a lively history of the campaign, fascinating tours of the battlefields, articles on military strategy, biographies of generals, the chronology of key battles and important events, sources for additional travel information, a bibliography, and an index."In General Sherman's mind, " Jim Miles explains, "before the Civil War could be brought to a victorious conclusion, Atlanta had to be destroyed and the Confederacy denied its products. From that day, Atlanta was a doomed city.""

    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.

    Many have come to believe that the South might have won the Civil War if it had only avoided head-on battles, conducted an aggressive guerrilla campaign, and maneuvered across wide swaths of territory to exhaust the Union's willingness to continue the war. Retreat to Victory? Confederate Strategy Reconsidered challenges this widely held theory. Robert G. Tanner argues that deep retreats and battle avoidance (the strategy of maneuver rather than combat) were not available to Southern leaders in planning their wartime strategy. The South fought as it did for valid reasons, according to Tanner, and this book examines these reasons in detail, including the South's need to protect its slave-based economy, to establish a state's rights-oriented government, and to win independence from the Union. Tanner uses Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz's classic On War as a means for evaluating Confederate actions. On War provides a single measure for testing claims that the South could have prevailed by avoiding battles and forcing the Union to hold large tracts of land. Provocative and carefully researched, Retreat to Victory offers a fresh perspective on Confederate strategy and makes an important contribution to the field that no serious student of American history will want to miss.

    In a year of stellar triumphs by Union armies across the South, the Red River Campaign stands out as a colossal failure. General William Tecumseh Sherman's scathing summation describes it best, "One damn blunder from beginning to end." Taking its title from Sherman's blunt description, One Damn Blunder from Beginning to End: The Red River Campaign of 1864 is a fresh inspection of what was the Civil War's largest operation between the Union Army and Navy west of the Mississippi River. In a bold, but poorly managed effort to wrest Louisiana and Texas from Confederate control, a combined force of 40,000 Union troops and 60 naval vessels traveled up the twisting Red River in an attempt to capture the capital city of Shreveport. Gary D. Joiner provides not a recycled telling of the campaign, but a strategic and tactical overview based on a stunning new array of facts gleaned from recently discovered documents. This never-before-published information reveals that the Confederate army had laid a clever trap by engineering a drop in the water level of the Red River to try to maroon the Union naval flotilla. Only the equally amazing ingenuity of the Union troops saved the fleet from certain destruction, despite a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Mansfield. The Red River campaign had lasting implications. One Damn Blunder from Beginning to End magnifies just how devastating the diversion of so many men and so much material to this failed campaign was to the Union effort in the pivotal year of 1864. Because of the Union Army's failures, Northern plans to capture Mobile were scrapped. Military careers were made and lost. And at time when the Confederacy was teetering on the brink of oblivion, Southern morale was bolstered. Joiner puts together

    Doyle looks at some unexpected parallels in American and Italian history. What we learn will reattune us to the complexities and ironies of nationalism. During his travels around southern Italy not long ago, Doyle was caught off guard by frequent images of the Confederate battle flag. The flag could also be seen, he was told, waving in the stands at soccer matches. At the same time, a political movement in northern Italy called for secession from the South. A historian with a special interest in the long troubled relationship between the American South and the United States, Doyle was driven to understand the forces that unite and divide nations from within.The Italian South had been at odds with the more prosperous, metropolitan North of Italy since the country's bloody unification struggles in the 1860s. Thousands of miles from Doyle's Tennessee home was an eerily familiar scenario: a South characterized in terms of its many perceived problems by a North eager to define national ideals against the southern "other." From this abruptly decentered perspective, Doyle reexamines both countries' struggle to create an independent, unified nation and the ongoing effort to instill national identity in their diverse populace. The Fourth of July and Statuto Day; Lincoln and Garibaldi; the Confederate States of America and the secessionist dreams of Italy's Northern League; NAFTA and the European Union--such topics appear in telling juxtaposition, both inviting and defying easy conclusions. At the same time, Doyle negotiates the conceptual slipperiness of nationalism by discussing it as both constructed and real, unifying and divisive, inspiration for good and excuse for atrocity."Americans like to think of themselves as being innocent of the vicious ethnic warfare that has raged in the Old World and over so much of the globe," writes Doyle. "Europeans, in turn, enjoy reminding Americans of how little history they have." This enlightening, challenging meditation shows us that Europeans and Americans have much to learn from the common history of nationalism that has shaped both their worlds.

    Written by today's leading Civil War scholars, the essays are authoritative and easily accessible to anyone with a passion for American history.

    Coffin weaves together stories of the participating military units, outlines the overall campaign, and gives voice to several hundred personalities on the battlefield and back home, primarily through diaries and letters. The family correspondence gives a glimpse into small-town Vermont life as well as life at the front.

    Flush from its victories of the previous year, the Confederacy stood poised and powerful -- tantalizingly close to sundering the shackles of the Union and establishing itself as a new and independent nation-state on the North American continent. The battles, political events, personalities, and innovative weapons of war are re-examined, and often illuminated with new analysis and information, by some of America's foremost historians and scholars including: James M. McPherson, Stephen W. Sears, Tom Wicker, Geoffrey Perret, and many more.

    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

    Child'ss is a writer of wit, humor, candor, understanding, emotion and fact. His letters to his wife take us into the Civil War, into his time, as we relive most of the major battles, the struggles, and are given special insights into the politics. As a witness to the assassination of Lincoln he writes an eyewitness account that leaves you speechless.

    Two would come out alive. This is their story.

    The author also focuses on the individual personalities of the men who made up the battalion, quoting from hundreds of letters and journals. This book will allow readers to actually "see the humanity of the men, " by providing a deep and thorough understanding of the soldiers' passions and motivations. The sheer volume and thoroughly researched facts of Galloping Thunder will make this the most significant work on this subject ever published.

    She also played a major role in the struggle for women's rights, eventually becoming Elizabeth Cady Stanton's candidate to succeed Susan B. Anthony as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Yet for all her remarkable accomplishments, Lillie Blake's story has been all but forgotten. As Grace Farrell reveals in this richly textured biography, Blake's creative writings did not survive the canonical purges of women authors at the turn of the twentieth century, and her contributions to the suffrage movement were simply ignored in the official histories sanctioned by Susan B. Anthony. From the traces that remain, Farrell reconstructs an extraordinary life of passion and purpose. She chronicles Blake's literary career from Civil War correspondent to novelist and provides an inside view of suffrage politics, correcting some longheld misconceptions perpetuated by Anthony and her supporters. At the same time, Farrell expands the generic boundaries of biography by recounting not only

    This campaign-by-campaign account of the Civil War examines the economic, social, political, and military aspects of this turbulent period.

    Houts gives a fascinating and scholarly account of the lives of the 93 men who made up a guerilla army during the Civil War, led by William Quantrill and his Raiders.

    

    

    Men responded in such numbers that 200,000 had to be turned away. Few of these men would have attributed their zeal to the cause of states' rights or slavery. As All That Makes a Man: Love and Ambitionin the Civil War South makes clear, most southern men saw the war more simply as a test of their manhood, a chance to defend the honor of their sweethearts, fianc s, and wives back home. Drawing upon diaries and personal letters, Stephen Berry seamlessly weaves together the stories of six very different men, detailing the tangled roles that love and ambition played in each man's life. Their writings reveal a male-dominated Southern culture that exalted women as "repositories of divine grace" and treasured romantic love as the platform from which men launched their bids for greatness. The exhilarating onset of war seemed to these, and most southern men, a grand opportunity to fulfill their ambition for glory and to prove their love for women--on the same field of battle. As the realities of the war became apparent, however, the letters and diaries turned from idealized themes of honor and country to solemn reflections on love and home. Elegant and poetic, All That Makes a Man recovers the emotional lives of unsung Southern men and women and reveals that the fiction of Cold Mountain mirrors a poignant reality. In their search for a cause worthy of their lives, many Southern soldiers were disappointed in their hopes for a Southern nation. But they still had their women's love, and there they would rebuild.