McPherson sheds light on topics large and small, from the average soldier's avid love of newspapers to the postwar creation of the mystique of a Lost Cause in the South. Readers will find insightful pieces on such intriguing figures as Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Jesse James, and William Tecumseh Sherman, and on such vital issues as Confederate military strategy, the failure of peace negotiations to end the war, and the realities and myths of the Confederacy. This Mighty Scourge includes several never-before-published essays--pieces on General Robert E. Lee's goals in the Gettysburg campaign, on Lincoln and Grant in the Vicksburg campaign, and on Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief. All of the essays have been updated and revised to give the volume greater thematic coherence and continuity, so that it can be read in sequence as an interpretive history of the war and its meaning for America and the world. Combining the finest scholarship with luminous prose, and packed with new information and fresh ideas, this book brings together the most recent thinking by the nation's leading authority on the Civil War.

    The three-days of maneuver, attack, and counterattack consisted of literally scores of encounters, from corps-size actions to small unit engagements. Despite all its coverage, Gettysburg remains one of the most complex and difficult to understand battles of the war. The Maps of Gettysburg: An Atlas of the Gettysburg Campaign, June 3 - July 13, 1863, by Bradley Gottfried offers a unique approach to the study of this multifaceted engagement. The Maps of Gettysburg plows new ground in the study of the campaign by breaking down the entire campaign in 140 detailed original maps. These cartographic originals bore down to the regimental level, and offer Civil Warriors a unique and fascinating approach to studying the always climactic battle of the war. The Maps of Gettysburg offers thirty "action-sections" comprising the entire campaign. These include the march to and from the battlefield, and virtually every significant event in between. Gottfrieds original maps (from two to as many as twenty) enrich each "action-section." Keyed to each piece of cartography is detailed text that includes hundreds of soldiers quotes that make the Gettysburg story come alive.This presentation allows readers to easily and quickly find a map and text on virtually any portion of the campaign, from the cavalry drama at Brandy Station on June 9, to the last Confederate withdrawal of troops across the Potomac River on July 15, 1863. Serious students of the battle will appreciate the extensive and authoritative endnotes. They will also want to bring the book along on their trips to the battlefield. Perfect for the easy chair or for stomping the hallowed ground of Gettysburg, The Maps of Gettysburg promises to be a seminal work that belongs on the bookshelf of every serious and casual student of the battle.

    Discover how these two friends end up leading opposing armies in the conflict tearing apart the Marvel Universe!

    For Cause and For Country revisits the battle of Spring Hill and Franklin, using previously untapped resources to shed an entirely different light on those dark and difficult days.

    Freehling offers a new answer, in the final volume of his monumental history The Road to Disunion. Here is history in the grand manner, a powerful narrative peopled with dozens of memorable portraits, telling this important story with skill and relish. Freehling highlights all the key moments on the road to war, including the violence in Bleeding Kansas, Preston Brooks's beating of Charles Sumner in the Senate chambers, the Dred Scott Decision, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and much more. As Freehling shows, the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked a political crisis, but at first most Southerners took a cautious approach, willing to wait and see what Lincoln would do--especially, whether he would take any antagonistic measures against the South. But at this moment, the extreme fringe in the South took charge, first in South Carolina and Mississippi, but then throughout the lower South, sounding the drum roll for secession. Indeed, The Road to Disunion is the first book to fully document how this decided minority of Southern hotspurs took hold of the secessionist issue and, aided by a series of fortuitous events, drove the South out of the Union. Freehling provides compelling profiles of the leaders of this movement--many of them members of the South Carolina elite. Throughout the narrative, he evokes a world of fascinating characters and places as he captures the drama of one of America's most important--and least understood--stories. The long-awaited sequel to the award-winning Secessionists at Bay, which was hailed as "the most important history of the Old South ever published," this volume concludes a major contribution to our understanding of the Civil War. A compelling, vivid portrait of the final years of the antebellum South, The Road to Disunion will stand as an important history of its subject.

    Manning’s work reveals that Union soldiers, though evincing little sympathy for abolitionism before the war, were calling for emancipation by the second half of 1861, ahead of civilians, political leaders, and officers, and a full year before the Emancipation Proclamation. She recognizes Confederate soldiers’ primary focus on their own families, and explores how their beliefs about abolition—that it would endanger their loved ones, erase the privileges of white manhood, and destroy the very fabric of southern society—motivated even non-slaveholding Confederates to fight and compelled them to persevere through military catastrophes like Gettysburg and Atlanta, long after they grew to despise the Confederate government and disdain the southern citizenry. She makes clear that while white Union troops viewed preservation of the Union as essential to the legacy of the Revolution, over the course of the war many also came to think that in order to gain God’s favor, they and other white northerners must confront the racial prejudices that made them complicit in the sin of slavery. We see how the eventual consideration of the enlistment of black soldiers by the Confederacy eliminated any reason for many Confederate soldiers to fight; how, by 1865, black Union soldiers believed the forward racial strides made during the war would continue; and how white Union troops’ commitment to racial change, fluctuating with the progress of the war, created undreamt-of potential for change but failed to fulfill it.An important and eye-opening addition to our understanding of the Civil War.

    Early’s disastrous battles in the Shenandoah Valley ultimately resulted in his ignominious dismissal. But Early’s lesser-known summer campaign of 1864, between his raid on Washington and Phil Sheridan’s renowned fall campaign, had a significant impact on the political and military landscape of the time. By focusing on military tactics and battle history, Scott C. Patchan uncovers the facts and actions of these little-understood battles and offers a new perspective on Early’s contributions to the Confederate war effort—and to Union battle plans and politicking. Patchan details previously unexplored battles at Rutherford’s Farm and Kernstown (a pinnacle of Confederate operations in the Shenandoah Valley). He examines the campaign’s influence on President Lincoln’s reelection efforts and provides insights into the personalities, careers, and roles in Shenandoah of Confederate General John C. Breckinridge, Union General George Crook, and Union Colonel James A. Mulligan, with his “fighting Irish” brigade from Chicago. Finally, Patchan reconsiders the ever-colorful and controversial Early himself, whose importance in the Confederate military pantheon this book at last makes clear.  Purchase the audio edition.

    Rationale for the Union's "hard war" and the political ramifications of such a war set the foundation for Walter Cisco's enlightening research. Styled the "Black Flag" campaign, the hard line was agreed to by Lincoln in a council with his generals in 1864, when he gave permission to wage unlimited war against civilians, including women and children.In a series of concise and compelling chapters, Cisco chronicles the "St. Louis Massacre," where Federal authorities proceeded to impose a reign of terror and dictatorship in Missouri. He tells of the events leading to, and the suffering caused by, the Federal decree that forced twenty thousand Missouri civilians into exile. The arrests of civilians, the suppression of civil liberties, theft, and murder to "restore the Union" in Tennessee are also examined.Women and children, black and white, were robbed, brutalized, and left homeless in Sherman's infamous raid through Georgia. Torture and rape were not uncommon. In South Carolina, homes, farms, churches, and whole towns disappeared in flames. Civilians received no mercy at the hands of the Union invaders. Earrings were ripped from bleeding ears, graves were robbed, and towns were pillaged. Wherever Federal troops encountered Southern Blacks, whether free or slave, they were robbed, brutalized, belittled, kidnapped, threatened, tortured, and sometimes raped or killed by their blue-clad "liberators."Carefully researched, largely from primary sources, the book includes notes and illustrations. This untold story will interest anyone exploring an alternative perspective on this period in American history.

    Bearss, historian emeritus, National Park Service Nathan Bedford Forrest's astounding military abilities, passionate temperament, and tactical ingenuity on the battlefield have earned the respect of Civil War scholars and military leaders alike. He was a man who stirred the most extreme emotions among his followers and his enemies, and his name continues to inspire controversy. In this comprehensive biography, Forrest is illuminated as the brilliant battlefield tactician that he was--and the only Confederate cavalry leader feared by Ulysses S. Grant. Historians Eddy W. Davison and Daniel Foxx offer a detailed explanation of the Fort Pillow"massacre," unraveling the facts to prove that it was not indeed a massacre. The book also discusses Forrestis role in the Ku Klux Klan and how he came to be its first grand wizard. Dispelling several myths, this is a study of the complete Forrest, including his rise as a self-made millionaire in Memphis, his remarkable success leading the Seventh Tennessee Cavalry, and his life following the Civil War. Although the book is filled with vivid battle narratives, it goes beyond Forrestis military life to examine other aspects of this enigmatic leaderohis role as husband and father, for example, and his dramatic call for full citizenship for Black Southerners.

    Drawing on meticulous research in primary sources and careful examination of battlefields at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Bermuda Hundred, and Cold Harbor, Hess analyzes Union and Confederate movements and tactics and the new way Grant and Lee employed entrenchments in an evolving style of battle. Hess argues that Grant's relentless and pressing attacks kept the armies always within striking distance, compelling soldiers to dig in for protection.

    The stunning Northern victory thrust Union commander Ulysses S. Grant into the national spotlight, claimed the life of Confederate commander Albert S. Johnston, and forever buried the notion that the Civil War would be a short conflict. The conflagration at Shiloh had its roots in the strong Union advance during the winter of 1861-1862 that resulted in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. The offensive collapsed General Albert S. Johnston advanced line in Kentucky and forced him to withdraw all the way to northern Mississippi. Anxious to attack the enemy, Johnston began concentrating Southern forces at Corinth, a major railroad center just below the Tennessee border. His bold plan called for his Army of the Mississippi to march north and destroy General Grant's Army of the Tennessee before it could link up with another Union army on the way to join him. On the morning of April 6, Johnston boasted to his subordinates, "Tonight we will water our horses in the Tennessee!" They nearly did so. Johnston's sweeping attack hit the unsuspecting Federal camps at Pittsburg Landing and routed the enemy from position after position as they fell back toward the Tennessee River. Johnston's sudden death in the Peach Orchard, however, coupled with stubborn Federal resistance, widespread confusion, and Grant's dogged determination to hold the field, saved the Union army from destruction. The arrival of General Don C. Buell's reinforcements that night turned the tide of battle. The next day, Grant seized the initiative and attacked the Confederates, driving themfrom the field. Shiloh was one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war, with nearly 24,000 men killed, wounded, and missing.Edward Cunningham, a young Ph.D. candidate studying under the legendary T. Harry Williams at Louisiana State University, researched and wrote Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 in 1966. Although it remained unpublished, many Shiloh experts and park rangers consider it to be the best overall examination of the battle ever written. Indeed, Shiloh historiography is just now catching up with Cunningham, who was decades ahead of modern scholarship. Western Civil War historians Gary D. Joiner and Timothy B. Smith have resurrected Cunningham's beautifully written and deeply researched manuscript from its undeserved obscurity. Fully edited and richly annotated with updated citations and observations, original maps, and a complete order of battle and table of losses, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 will be welcomed by everyone who enjoys battle history at its finest.

    Reeling with grief and thoughts of vengeance, David enlists and sets off for Richmond to join the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.But once in the cavalry, David's life changes drastically, and his dream of glamorous chivalry becomes nothing but a cold, cruel existence of pain and suffering. He is hurled into one battle after another, and his desire for revenge wanes when he experiences first-hand the catastrophes of war.A haunting look at the human side of one of America's most tragic conflicts, "A Beckoning Hellfire "speaks to the delusion of war's idealism.

    In crafting his work to reflect poignant moments or critical instances of the conflict, he has turned to leading historians and scholars?such as Henry Steele Commager, James McPherson, William C. Davis, and James I. Robertson Jr.?for informative details that he has then translated on canvas to create an indelible image of this defining ordeal in America's history. More that 160 of these images?supplemented by preliminary sketches, early studies, and photographs of works in progress?are the basis for the four volumes in this series.

    In crafting his work to reflect poignant moments or critical instances of the conflict, he has turned to leading historians and scholars?such as Henry Steele Commager, James McPherson, William C. Davis, and James I. Robertson Jr.?for informative details that he has then translated on canvas to create an indelible image of this defining ordeal in America's history. More than 160 of these images?supplemented by preliminary sketches, early studies, and photographs of works in progress?are the basis for the four volumes in this series.

    

    

    Union Major General George G. Meade's Army of Paradise defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North. Historic Photos of Gettysburg is a photographic history collected from the area's top archives on this historical battle. With approximately 200 photographs, many of which have never been published, this beautiful coffee table book shows dramatic shots of this historical battle in stunning black and white photography. This is a must have for any Civil War buff or lover of Gettysburg history!

    Lee’s birth, a new portrait drawing on previously unpublished correspondence Robert E. Lee’s war correspondence is well known, and here and there personal letters have found their way into print, but the great majority of his most intimate messages have never been made public. These letters reveal a far more complex and contradictory man than the one who comes most readily to the imagination, for it is with his family and his friends that Lee is at his most candid, most engaging, and most vulnerable. Over the past several years historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor has uncovered a rich trove of unpublished Lee materials that had been held in both private and public collections. Her new book, a unique blend of analysis, narrative, and historiography, presents dozens of these letters in their entirety, most by Lee but a few by family members. Each letter becomes a departure point for an essay that shows what the letter uniquely reveals about Lee’s time or character. The material covers all aspects of Lee’s life—his early years, West Point, his work as an engineer, his relationships with his children and his slaves, his decision to join the South, his thoughts on military strategy, and his disappointments after defeat in the Civil War. The result is perhaps the most intimate picture to date of Lee, one that deftly analyzes the meaning of his actions within the context of his personality, his relationships, and the social tenor of his times.

    This well-deserved accolade is all the more remarkable considering that Rodes, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and a prewar railroad engineer, was one of a very few officers in Lee's army to rise so high without the benefit of a West Point education. Major General Robert E. Rodes of the Army of Northern Virginia: A Biography, is the first deeply researched scholarly biography on this remarkable Confederate officer.From First Manassas in 1861 to Third Winchester in 1864, Rodes served in all the great battles and campaigns of the legendary Army of Northern Virginia. He quickly earned a reputation as a courageous and inspiring leader who delivered hard-hitting attacks and rock steady defensive efforts. His greatest moment came at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, when he spearheaded Stonewall Jackson's famous flank attack that crushed the left wing of General Hooker's Army of the Potomac. Rodes began the conflict with a deep yearning for recognition and glory, coupled with an indifferent attitude toward religion and salvation. When he was killed at the height of his glorious career at Third Winchester on September 19, 1864, a trove of prayer books and testaments were found on his corpse.Based upon exhaustive new research, Darrell Collins's new biography breathes life into a heretofore largely overlooked Southern soldier. Although Rodes' widow consigned his personal papers to the flames after the war, Collins has uncovered a substantial amount of firsthand information to complete this compelling portrait of one of Robert E. Lee's most dependable field generals.

    

    

    Col. Theodore Lyman served as Gen. George Gordon Meade's aide-de-camp from September 1863 until the end of the Civil War. Lyman was a Harvard-trained natural scientist who was exceptionally disciplined in recording the events, the players, and his surroundings during his wartime duty. His private notebooks document his keen observations. Published here for the first time, Meade's Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman contains anecdotes, concise vignettes of officers, and lively descriptions of military campaigns as witnessed by this key figure in the Northern war effort. Lyman may well be the finest chronicler of the day-to-day experiences of a staff officer in the Civil War, and his notebook entries have an immediacy, coming as close to real-time reporting as possible. As combat raged, Lyman penciled notations into his dispatch books, including exact times...

    Poorly deployed, the unit was routed by "Stonewall" Jackson and became the scapegoat for the Northern defeat, blamed by many on the "flight" of German immigrant troops. The impact on America's large German community was devastating. But there is much more to the story than that.Drawing for the first time on German-language newspapers, soldiers' letters, memoirs, and regimental records, Christian Keller reconstructs the battle and its aftermath from the German-American perspective, military and civilian. He offers a fascinating window into a misunderstood past, one where the German soldiers' valor has been either minimized or dismissed as cowardly. He critically analyzes the performance of the German regiments and documents the impact of nativism on Anglo-American and German-American reactions--and on German self-perceptions as patriots and Americans. For German-Americans, the ghost of Chancellorsville lingered long, and Keller traces its effects not only on ethnic identity, but also on the dynamics of inclusion andassimilation in American life.

    What a perfect gift this companion volume will be for all those fans who can never get enough bonus material and commentary on the world of Scarlett O'Hara. The Authentic South of Gone with the Wind features photographs, facts, and trivia about the world that surrounds this famous heroine. But you don't even have to be a fan of the book or movie to be mesmerized by this evocative portrait of the war-era South with its grand houses, great societies, splendid uniforms, and exacting manners. Witness also its marvelous cities and the shadow society of slaves that made all the prosperity possible.

    However, traditional unreconstructed writers, like Southern historian and award-winning Tennessee author Colonel Lochlainn Seabrook, know that General Forrest was none of these things. In fact, he was quite the opposite, as is revealed in Mr. Seabrook's classic work: Nathan Bedford Forrest: Southern Hero, American Patriot.As we learn in this enlightening little book, far from being an inhumane slave owner and trader, Forrest granted most of his servants their freedom even before Lincoln's War. Others he enlisted in his own command (half of dozen who served as his personal guards), then emancipated them in the fall of 1863 - the same year Lincoln issued his "military measure," the fake and illegal Emancipation Proclamation (which freed no slaves in either the North or the South). Forrest never separated servant families, refused to sell to cruel slavers, and was even responsible for reuniting divided black families.Unlike Lincoln - who throughout his life repeatedly blocked black civil rights and aggressively campaigned for American apartheid and the deportation of all blacks out of the U.S. - after the War Forrest happily hired back his original servants with full civil rights, then called for the South to repopulate herself with new African immigrants. Neither the founder or leader of the KKK as pro-North and New South historians disingenuously teach, Forrest closed the anti-Yankee organization down in 1869 when it began to take on racist overtones. These and many other captivating facts are presented clearly and concisely by Colonel Seabrook, a cousin of Forrest, in this rousing defense of the Wizard of the Saddle, one of the greatest, most inspiring, beloved, romantic, complex, and intriguing figures in American history.Lavishly illustrated and written in an easy-to-read style, at 120 pages it's perfect for Civil War museum shops, historic homes, or any tourist hot spot. Makes a great gift as well. Nathan Bedford Forrest includes 139 footnotes, a bibliography, and an index. Also available in hardcover. The foreword is by bestselling Southern educator James Ronald Kennedy, author of The South Was Right!Civil War scholar Colonel Lochlainn Seabrook, a cousin of General Forrest, is the most prolific and popular pro-South writer in the world today. Known as the "new Shelby Foote," he is a recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal and the author of over 50 books which have introduced hundreds of thousands to the truth about the War for Southern Independence. He has penned nine books on Forrest, more than any other writer, and his screenplay of his Forrest biography A Rebel Born is being turned into a major motion picture. A seventh-generation Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage, Mr. Seabrook has a forty-year background in American and Southern history, and is the author of the international blockbuster, Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!His other titles include: The Great Yankee Coverup: What the North Doesn't Want You to Know About Lincoln's War; Confederacy 101: Amazing Facts You Never Knew About America's Oldest Political Tradition; Confederate Flag Facts: What Every American Should Know About Dixie's Southern Cross; Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!; Give This Book to a Yankee: A Southern Guide to the Civil War for Northerners; and Honest Jeff and Dishonest Abe: A Southern Children's Guide to the Civil War.

    In his absence, his family would bear witness to the most ferocious and bloody battle of the Civil War.On July 1, 1863, a shell exploded in the Thorn's kitchen when the brutal Battle of Gettysburg began. The cannons sounded on Cemetery Hill, as more than 51,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured during the three day battle. For days after the battle, seven-year-old Fred, his pregnant mother, Elizabeth, and his grandfather worked to honor the dead by digging graves and burying Union and Confederate soldiers.Neither the Thorn family nor the rest of America would be the same again after witnessing the terrible toll the battle took. Though the Gettysburg Address paid tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives, this is a tribute to the family that so dutifully tended to the soldiers after they had fallen.

    Yet he has been eclipsed in fame by such names as Grant, Sherman, or Sheridan.Offering vivid accounts of combat, Einolf depicts the fighting from Thomas's perspective to allow a unique look at the real experience of decision making on the battlefield. He examines the general's recurring confrontations with the Union high command to make a strong case for Thomas's integrity and competence, even as he exposes Thomas's shortcomings and poor decisions. The result is a more balanced, nuanced picture than has previously been available. Einolf also explores Thomas's schooling at West Point, early military service in the Seminole and Mexican wars, and his postwar life--notably his service as a military commander in Tennessee protecting freed slaves from the terror of the Ku Klux Klan.

    A German immigrant, Scherneckau served with the First Nebraska Volunteers from 1862 through 1865. Depicting the unit’s service in Missouri, Arkansas, and Nebraska Territory, he offers detail, insight, and literary quality matched by few other accounts of the Civil War in the West. His observations provide new perspective on campaigns, military strategy, leadership, politics, ethnicity, emancipation, and a host of other topics.Scherneckau takes readers on the march as he and his comrades plod through mud and snow during a grueling winter campaign in the Missouri Ozarks. He served as a provost guard in St. Louis, where he helped save a former slave from kidnappers and observed the construction of Union gunboats. He describes the process of transforming a regiment from infantry to cavalry, and his account of the First Nebraska’s pursuit of Freeman’s Partisans in Arkansas is an exciting portrayal of mountain fighting.An annotated edition that brings to bear the editors’ and translator’s respective expertise in both the Civil War and the German language, Scherneckau’s account is an important addition to primary material on the war’s forgotten theater. It will be a valued resource for historian and Civil War enthusiast alike.

    This book takes a look at the people involved and how their personalities and attributes shaped the course of events. It presents the events from a contemporary viewpoint and includes several period photographs and illustrations.

    SharpShooters Based on diaries, letters, and other firsthand sources Photos of the men as well as their uniforms, equipment, and firearms plus paintings by acclaimed Civil War artist Don Troiani This detailed and beautifully illustrated book tells the story of Col. Hiram Berdan's brilliant conception: the U.S. SharpShooters, a specialized 2-regiment unit of marksmen recruited from the farming and backwoods communities of the North. Known for their distinctive green uniforms, Sharps breech-loading rifles, and risky tactics, the SharpShooters fought at battles such as the Peninsula, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. The book covers their training, tactics, and weapons and is a must-have for Civil War enthusiasts and anyone interested in the history of special forces.

     However, it’s not long before he strikes up an unwelcome rivalry with wagon boss Walt Shaw, after taking a fancy to the beautiful Sheila Blake. A growing discord between the two men, coupled with a serious water shortage, hamper the wagon’s progress and Mark is all too aware of the dangers that arise from loitering in the desert. They need to pick up the pace. Things quickly go from bad to worse when they are suddenly attacked by a wild Apache tribe and find themselves in mortal danger. Mark’s mission to safely escort the families across the mountainous terrain before winter arrives, if quickly becoming his toughest challenge to date. Can they reach the safety of the West? Or will they become yet more victims of the hostile and unrelenting desert? From the saloon, to the prairie, to the foothills of California, The Gold Seekers is a thrilling and classic Old West adventure. Praise for E C Tubb 'A thrilling read.' - Robert Foster, acclaimed author of The Lunar Code. Edwin Charles Tubb was a British writer of western novels, science fiction and fantasy. The author of over 140 novels and 230 short stores and novellas, Tubb used 58 different pen names over five decades. He passed away in 2010, but his legacy lives on. Pioneering Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK’s leading independent digital publisher. We publish new and classic westerns by authors from the US and the UK.

    But that's precisely what Walter D. Kennedy and Al Benson Jr. assert in Red Republicans and Lincoln's Marxists. The pair completely reassess this tumultuous time in American history, exposing the "politically correct" view of the War for Southern Independence as nothing less than the same observation announced by Marx himself. During the American Civil War, Marx wrote about his support of the Union Army, the Republican Party, and Lincoln himself. In fact, he named the president as "the single-minded son of the working class."In addition to shedding light on this little-known part of our history, Kennedy and Benson also ask pertinent questions about the validity of today's federal government and why its role seems so much larger than the liberty found in the states it represents. Red Republicans and Lincoln's Marxists is a bold undertaking, but it's one that needs our immediate and absolute attention.

    Grant initiated a drive through central Virginia to crush Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. For forty days, the armies fought a grinding campaign from the Rapidan River to the James River that helped decide the course of the Civil War. Several of the war's bloodiest engagements occurred in this brief period: the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, the North Anna River, Totopotomoy Creek, Bethesda Church, and Cold Harbor. Pitting Grant and Lee against one another for the first time in the war, the Overland Campaign, as this series of battles and maneuvers came to be called, represents military history at its most intense. In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee, a unique blend of narrative and photographic journalism from Gordon C. Rhea, the foremost authority on the Overland Campaign, and Chris E. Heisey, a leading photographer of Civil War battlefields, provides a stunning, stirring account of this deadly game of wits and will between the Civil War's foremost military commanders. Here Grant fought and maneuvered to flank Lee out of his heavily fortified earthworks. And here Lee demonstrated his genius as a defensive commander, countering Grant's every move. Adding to the melee were cavalry brawls among the likes of Philip H. Sheridan, George A. Custer, James Ewell Brown Jeb Stuart, and Wade Hampton. Forty days of combat produced horrific casualties, some 55,000 on the Union side and 35,000 on the Confederate. By the time Grant crossed the James and began the Siege of Petersburg, marking an end to this maneuver, both armies had sustained significant losses that dramatically reduced their numbers.Rhea provides a rich, fast-paced narrative, movingly illustrated by more than sixty powerful color images from Heisey, who captures the many moods of these hallowed battlegrounds as they appear today. Heisey made scores of visits to the areas where Grant and Lee clashed, giving special attention to lesser-known sites on byways and private property. He captures some of central Virginia's most stunning landscapes, reminding us that though battlefields conjure visions of violence, death, and sorrow, they can also be places of beauty and contemplation. Accompanying the modern pictures are more than twenty contemporary photographs taken during the campaign or shortly afterwards, some of them never before published. At once an engaging military history and a vivid pictorial journey, In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee offers a fresh vision of some of the country's most significant historic sites.

    

    -Gary D. Joiner, author of Through the Howling Wilderness: The 1864 Red River Campaign and Union Failure in the WestEarthen Walls, Iron Men tells the story of Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, a major Confederate fortification that defended the lower Red River in 1863-64 during the last stages of the Civil War. Long regarded as little more than a footnote by historians, the fort in fact played a critical role in the defense of the Red River region. The Red River Campaign was one of the Confederacy's last great triumphs of the war, and only the end of the conflict saved the reputations of Union leaders who had recently been so successful at Vicksburg. Fort DeRussy was the linchpin of the Confederates' tactical and strategic victory.Steven M. Mayeux does more than just tell the story of the fort from the military perspective; it goes deeper to closely examine the lives of the people that served in-and lived around-Fort DeRussy. Through a thorough examination of local documents, Mayeux has uncovered the fascinating stories that reveal for the first time what wartime life was like for those living in central Louisiana.In this book, the reader will meet soldiers and slaves, plantation owners and Jayhawkers, elderly women and newborn babies, all of whom played important roles in making the history of Fort DeRussy. Mayeux presents an unvarnished portrait of the life at the fort, devoid of any romanticized notions, but more accurately capturing the utter humanity of those who built it, defended it, attacked it, and lived around it.Earthen Walls, Iron Men intertwines the stories of naval battles and military actions with those human elements such as greed, theft, murder, and courage to create a vibrant, relevant history that will appeal to all who seek to know what real life was like during the Civil War.Steve Mayeux is a graduate of LSU and a former Marine officer. His work as an agricultural consultant in the central Louisiana area for the past thirty years has given him a great appreciation for the history and geography of the lower Red River.

    

    The descriptive incidents in this work detail the terror and suffering encountered by civilians and soldiers alike, as well as provide tales of lighter moments. These anecdotes humanize the participants and infuse a greater appreciation of their struggles. This carefully selected collection is presented in chronological order and immerses the reader into the unfolding drama of events. Here are some examples: South of Gettysburg, over 90,000 Federal soldiers marched towards an encounter with Robert E. Lee's oft-victorious Confederate army. However, the Yankees' morale was high, and northern Maryland residents eagerly supported the Union cause. For many soldiers, the road to Gettysburg passed through the small seminary town of Emmitsburg. One infantryman later recalled, Small flags waved and dipped from the tower of the old Lutheran Church, used as a signal station by the army. Bearers of dispatches and squads of cavalry dashed madly through the town. The long roll of drums and the blood-stirring bugle calls filled the air; the fields were alive with soldiers. To the untrained eye, it looked like a great mob. ** As one Union brigade was marching through a town, the drum corps struck up lively music. The colonel noticed that one drummer boy was not beating his drum. He asked his adjutant to find out why the boy was not playing. Riding up to the musicians, the adjutant, with a deep frown on his face, shouted at the boy, The colonel wants to know why you are not beating your drum? In a whisper loud enough to be enjoyed some distance down the line, the culprit replied, Tell the colonel that I can't beat my drum now. I have two live turkeys in my drum-and one of them is for the colonel!

    At its helm, he would become the most hated and feared man in ports up and down the Union coast—and a Confederate legend. Now, with unparalleled authority and depth, and with a vivid sense of the excitement and danger of the time, Stephen Fox tells the story of Captain Semmes's remarkable wartime exploits. From vicious naval battles off the coast of France, to plundering the cargo of Union ships in the Caribbean, this is a thrilling tale of an often overlooked chapter of the Civil War.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in Southern dissenters. A South Divided presents a panoramic overview of Southern dissent. What emerges is a complex pattern of dissent involving every state of the Confederacy and every year of the war. All of these people and groups had their part to play in the epic drama that sapped the strength of the Confederacy from within. They were rebels against the rebellion.

    For 150 years, the battlefields of Virginia, Gettysburg, and Antietam were what Americans thought of first when they thought of the Civil War. Wrong. While Easterners were battling to a bloody stalemate, Midwestern farmers, shopkeepers, and country lawyers fighting elsewhere were shaping the war's outcome. Dismissed by haughty Easterners as ?armed rabble or ?drunkards, ? these citizen-soldiers, white and black, often were poorly trained and poorly equipped-?but they were tough, confident, and supported by strong women who found their own ways to get into the fight. And the Midwesterners included most of the Union's top generals. From brilliant, if flawed, commanders to feisty enlisted men who were hard to discipline but hard to scare, Blood, Tears, & Glory tells powerful stories of the war, many for the first time, and all from a new point of view.

    Gibson (1832--1892) grew up on his family's sugar plantation in Terrebonne Parish and was educated at Yale University before studying law at the University of Louisiana in New Orleans. He purchased a sugar plantation in Lafourche Parish in 1858 and became heavily involved in the pro-secession faction of the Democratic Party. Elected colonel of the Thirteenth Louisiana Volunteer Regiment at the start of the Civil War, he commanded a brigade in the Battle of Shiloh and fought in all of the subsequent campaigns of the Army of Tennessee, concluding in 1865 with the Battle of Spanish Fort. As Gibson struggled to establish a law practice in postwar New Orleans, he experienced a profound change in his thinking and came to believe that the elimination of slavery was the one good outcome of the South's defeat. Joining Louisiana's Conservative political faction, he advocated for a postwar unification government that included African Americans. Elected to Congress in 1874, Gibson was directly involved in the creation of the Electoral Commission that resulted in the Compromise of 1877 and peacefully solved the disputed 1876 presidential election. He crafted legislation for the Mississippi River Commission in 1879, which eventually resulted in millions of federal dollars for flood control. Gibson was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1880 and became Louisiana's leading minister of reconciliation with his northern colleagues and its chief political spokesman during the highly volatile Gilded Age. He deplored the growing gap between the rich and the poor and embraced a reformist agenda that included federal funding for public schools and legislation for levee construction, income taxes, and the direct election of senators. This progressive stance made Gibson one of the last patrician Democrats whose noblesse oblige politics sought common middle ground between the extreme political and social positions of his era. At the request of wealthy New Orleans merchant Paul Tulane, Gibson took charge of Tulane's educational endowment and helped design the university that bears Tulane's name, serving as the founding president of the board of administrators. Highly readable and thoroughly researched, Mary Gorton McBride's absorbing biography illuminates in dramatic fashion the life and times of a unique Louisianan.

    

    The Bucktails at the Devil's Den-In the sixth book of the Bucktail series, the famed Pennsylvania riflemen go from battling Rebel guerrillas outside Washington to playing a pivotal role at bloody Gettysburg.

    Both sides fought for possession of the towers and their valuable lenses and lamp oil. Through meticulous research, Neil Hurley has uncovered little-known facts about each lighthouse, including the great care taken by Confederate authorities to protect the lighthouses, lenses and oil.

    

    

    Women paid attention to the details of their attire and their accessories, for one mistake could lead to social ostracism. As a member of the aristocratic Todd family, Mary Lincoln was able to adhere to the latest fashions made from the finest fabrics. As a young woman, Mary was one of the belles in Lexington, Kentucky and in Springfield, Illinois, then a bustling frontier town. She was a member of the social plan where ladies were concerned about the width of their ribbons, the length of their skirts, and the latest Parisian fashions. Even in widowhood, Mary kept abreast of the latest fashions. Mary Lincoln enjoyed shopping. For her it was almost an art form. But other than a few gowns which became famous because she wore them for photo sittings, little is said about Mary's choice of dress. How did they relate to the fashion of the era? Did she dress like other Washington women of society? Where her dresses outstanding because they were different and more elaborate than anyone else's? And what is discovered about Mary's personality by examining her wardrobe? Fashionable First Lady: The Victorian Wardrobe of Mary Lincoln answers these questions and more. Each of Mary's known costumes is examined. When available, detailed information such as the width of a sleeve and the color of piping is given. In addition to information about Mary's gowns is information about 19th century fashion, mourning attire, and photographs of Mary's fashion choices. Information about White House social functions and stories about the Lincoln's entertaining helps the reader gain new insights into Mary's personality and understand her fashion choices.

    Nicolay and John Hay in the White House from 1861 to 1865, completed his autobiography in 1907, one of more than one hundred books he wrote. An abridged version was published by his son in 1955 as “Lincoln’s Third Secretary: The Memoirs of William O. Stoddard.”  In this new, edited version, Lincoln’s White House Secretary: The Adventurous Life of William O. Stoddard, Harold Holzer provides an introduction, afterword, and annotations and includes comments by Stoddard’s granddaughter, Eleanor Stoddard. The elegantly written volume gives readers a window into the politics, life, and culture of the mid-nineteenth century. Stoddard’s bracing writing, eye for detail, and ear for conversation bring a novelistic excitement to a story of childhood observations, young friendships, hardscrabble frontier farming, early hints of the slavery crisis, the workings of the Lincoln administration, and the strange course of war and reunion in the southwest. More than a clerk, Stoddard was an adventurous explorer of American life, a farmer, editor, soldier, and politician.Enhanced by seventeen illustrations, this narrative sympathetically draws the reader into the life and times of Lincoln’s third secretary, adding to our understanding of the events and the larger-than-life figures that shaped history.

    Throughout the course of the war, more than 2000 men were members of Mosby's command, some for only a short time. Mosby had few confidants (he was described by one acquaintance as "a disturbing companion") but became close friends with one of his finest officers, Samuel Forrer Chapman. Chapman served with Mosby for more than two years, and their friendship continued in the decades after the war. Take Sides with the Truth is a collection of more than eighty letters, published for the first time in their entirety, written by Mosby to Chapman from 1880, when Mosby was made U.S. consul to Hong Kong, until his death in a Washington, D.C., hospital in 1916. These letters reveal much about Mosby's character and present his innermost thoughts on many subjects. At times, Mosby's letters show a man with a sensitive nature; however, he could also be sarcastic and freely derided individuals he did not like. His letters are critical of General Robert E. Lee's staff officers ("there was a lying concert between them") and trace his decades-long crusade to clear the name of his friend and mentor J. E. B. Stuart in the Gettysburg campaign. Mosby also continuously asserts his belief that slavery was the cause of the Civil War -- a view completely contrary to a major portion of the Lost Cause ideology. For him, it was more important to "take sides with the Truth" than to hold popular opinions. Peter A. Brown has brought together a valuable collection of correspondence that adds a new dimension to our understanding of a significant Civil War figure.

    Today he is hailed as a hero by some, condemned as a drunkard by others. Paul R. Wylie now offers a definitive biography of this nineteenth-century figure who has long remained an enigma.The Irish General first recalls Meagher’s life from his boyhood and leadership of Young Ireland in the revolution of 1848, to his exile in Tasmania and escape to New York, where he found fame as an orator and as editor of the Irish News. He served in the Civil War—viewing the Union Army as training for a future Irish revolutionary force—and rose to the rank of brigadier general leading the famous Irish Brigade. Wylie traces Meagher’s military career in detail through the Seven Days battles, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville.Wylie then recounts Meagher’s final years as acting governor of Montana Territory, sorting historical truth from false claims made against him regarding the militia he formed to combat attacking American Indians, and plumbing the mystery surrounding his death.Even as Meagher is lauded in most Irish histories, his statue in front of Montana’s capitol is viewed by some with contempt. The Irish General brings this multi-talented but seriously flawed individual to life, offering a balanced picture of the man and a captivating reading experience.

    Some took a different stand and defended the Stars and Stripes rather than the Stars and Bars. It meant placing their lives and those of their families in danger against the persecution of their former friends and neighbors. Fielding Hurst raised a volunteer regiment of fellow Southern Unionists called the Sixth Tennessee Cavalry, with men from Decatur, Gibson, Hardin, McNairy, Perry, Wayne, and Weakley counties in Tennessee. Because of brutality credited to them during the war, hatred for them has been passed down through generations of families in southwest Tennessee.

    Yet less than two years later, he issued a proclamation intended to free all slaves throughout the Confederate states. When critics challenged the constitutional soundness of the act, Lincoln pointed to the international laws and usages of war as the legal basis for his Proclamation, asserting that the Constitution invested the president "with the law of war in time of war." As the Civil War intensified, the Lincoln administration slowly and reluctantly accorded full belligerent rights to the Confederacy under the law of war. This included designating a prisoner of war status for captives, honoring flags of truce, and negotiating formal agreements for the exchange of prisoners -- practices that laid the intellectual foundations for emancipation. Once the United States allowed Confederates all the privileges of belligerents under international law, it followed that they should also suffer the disadvantages, including trial by military courts, seizure of property, and eventually the emancipation of slaves. Even after the Lincoln administration decided to apply the law of war, it was unclear whether state and federal courts would agree. After careful analysis, author Burrus M. Carnahan concludes that if the courts had decided that the proclamation was not justified, the result would have been the personal legal liability of thousands of Union officers to aggrieved slave owners. This argument offers further support to the notion that Lincoln's delay in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation was an exercise of political prudence, not a personal reluctance to free the slaves. In Act of Justice, Carnahan contends that Lincoln was no reluctant emancipator; he wrote a truly radical document that treated Confederate slaves as an oppressed people rather than merely as enemy property. In this respect, Lincoln's proclamation anticipated the psychological warfare tactics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Carnahan's exploration of the president's war powers illuminates the origins of early debates about war powers and the Constitution and their link to international law.

    Fought on the banks of the St. Marks River, the engagement assured Tallahassee's status as the only Southern capital east of the Mississippi not conquered by Union troops. For its size, the Battle of Natural Bridge was a fierce and complex encounter. Involving Federal attacks by land and sea and determined resistance by Confederate forces that included cadets from what is now Florida State University, the engagement was unique and of significant importance.