Little do they know that this place has an unusual history.Twelve years prior, Adelaide Mannheim—daughter of Mordecai, the only Jewish planter in the county—was given her own maid, a young slave named Rachel. The two became friends, and soon they discovered a secret: Mordecai was Rachel’s father, too.As the country moved toward war, Adelaide and Rachel struggled to navigate their newfound sisterhood—from love and resentment to betrayal and, ultimately, forgiveness.Now, facing these Union soldiers as General Sherman advances nearer, their bond is put to the ultimate test. Will the plantation be spared? Or will everything they’ve lived for be lost? Revised edition: Previously published as Slave and Sister, this edition of Sister of Mine: A Novel includes editorial revisions.

    As much as any person in the Confederate pantheon, even Robert E. Lee, he embodies the romantic Southern notion of the virtuous lost cause. Jackson is also considered, without argument, one of our country’s greatest military figures. His brilliance at the art of war tied Abraham Lincoln and the Union high command in knots and threatened the ultimate success of the Union armies. Jackson’s strategic innovations shattered the conventional wisdom of how war was waged; he was so far ahead of his time that his techniques would be studied generations into the future. In April 1862 Jackson was merely another Confederate general in an army fighting what seemed to be a losing cause. By June he had engineered perhaps the greatest military campaign in American history and was one of the most famous men in the Western world. He had, moreover, given the Confederate cause what it had recently lacked—hope—and struck fear into the hearts of the Union. Rebel Yell is written with the swiftly vivid narrative that is Gwynne’s hallmark and is rich with battle lore, biographical detail, and intense conflict between historical figures. Gwynne delves deep into Jackson’s private life, including the loss of his young beloved first wife and his regimented personal habits. It traces Jackson’s brilliant twenty-four-month career in the Civil War, the period that encompasses his rise from obscurity to fame and legend; his stunning effect on the course of the war itself; and his tragic death, which caused both North and South to grieve the loss of a remarkable American hero.

    Lee—perhaps the most famous and least understood legend in American history and one of our most admired heroes.Michael Korda, author of Ulysses S. Grant and the bestsellers Ike and Hero, paints a vivid and admiring portrait of Lee as a brilliant general, a devoted family man, and principled gentleman who disliked slavery and disagreed with secession, yet who refused command of the Union Army in 1861 because he could not "draw his sword" against his beloved Virginia.Well-rounded and realistic, Clouds of Glory analyzes Lee's command during the Civil War and explores his responsibility for the fatal stalemate at Antietam, his defeat at Gettysburg (as well the many troubling controversies still surrounding it) and ultimately, his failed strategy for winning the war. As Korda shows, Lee's dignity, courage, leadership, and modesty made him a hero on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line and a revered American icon who is recognized today as the nation's preeminent military leader.Clouds of Glory features dozens of stunning illustrations, some never before seen, including twelve pages of color, twenty-four pages of black-and-white, and nearly fifty in-text battle maps.

    Lincoln realized that the Civil War had taken on a wider significance—that all of Europe and Latin America was watching to see whether the United States, a beleaguered model of democracy, would indeed “perish from the earth.”In The Cause of All Nations, distinguished historian Don H. Doyle explains that the Civil War was viewed abroad as part of a much larger struggle for democracy that spanned the Atlantic Ocean, and had begun with the American and French Revolutions. While battles raged at Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg, a parallel contest took place abroad, both in the marbled courts of power and in the public square. Foreign observers held widely divergent views on the war—from radicals such as Karl Marx and Giuseppe Garibaldi who called on the North to fight for liberty and equality, to aristocratic monarchists, who hoped that the collapse of the Union would strike a death blow against democratic movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Nowhere were these monarchist dreams more ominous than in Mexico, where Napoleon III sought to implement his Grand Design for a Latin Catholic empire that would thwart the spread of Anglo-Saxon democracy and use the Confederacy as a buffer state.Hoping to capitalize on public sympathies abroad, both the Union and the Confederacy sent diplomats and special agents overseas: the South to seek recognition and support, and the North to keep European powers from interfering. Confederate agents appealed to those conservative elements who wanted the South to serve as a bulwark against radical egalitarianism. Lincoln and his Union agents overseas learned to appeal to many foreigners by embracing emancipation and casting the Union as the embattled defender of universal republican ideals, the “last best hope of earth.”A bold account of the international dimensions of America's defining conflict, The Cause of All Nations frames the Civil War as a pivotal moment in a global struggle that would decide the survival of democracy.

    The result is Battle Lines, a monumental graphic history—rendered in Fetter-Vorm’s sweeping full-color panoramas, and grounded in Kelman’s nuanced understanding of the period—offering a series of wholly new perspectives on the conflict that turned this nation against itself.     Each chapter in Battle Lines begins with an object; each object tells its own story. A tattered flag, lowered in defeat at Fort Sumter. A set of chains, locked to the ankles of a slave as he scrambles toward freedom. A bullet, launched from the bore of a terrifying new rifle. A brick, hurled from a crowd of ration-starved rioters. With these objects and others, both iconic and commonplace, Battle Lines traces a broad and ambitious narrative from the early rumblings of secession to the dark years of Reconstruction. Richly detailed and wildly inventive, its stories propel the reader to all manner of unlikely vantages as only the graphic form can: from the malaria-filled gut of a mosquito to the faded ink of a soldier’s pen, and from the barren farms of the home front to the front lines of an infantry charge.     Beautiful, uncompromising, poignant, and utterly original, Battle Lines is a daring vision of the war that nearly tore America apart.

    Gen. John Buford and his First Cavalry Division troops, there is not a single book-length study devoted entirely to the critical delaying actions waged by Buford and his dismounted troopers and his horse artillerists on the morning of July 1, 1863. Award-winning Civil War historian Eric J. Wittenberg rectifies this glaring oversight with The Devil s to Pay: John Buford at Gettysburg. A History and Walking Tour.This comprehensive tactical study examines the role Buford and his horse soldiers played from June 29 through July 2, 1863, including the important actions that saved the shattered remnants of the First and Eleventh Corps. Wittenberg relies upon scores of rare primary sources, including many that have never before been used, to paint a detailed picture of the critical role the quiet and modest cavalryman known to his men as Honest John or Old Steadfast played at Gettysburg. The Devil s to Pay also includes a detailed walking and driving tour of pertinent sites, complete with GPS coordinates. Three appendices address the nature of Buford s defense at Gettysburg, whether his troopers were armed with repeating weapons, and whether a feint by his men late in the day caused the Confederate infantry to form squares (a Napoleonic defensive tactic). Finally, 17 maps by Gettysburg cartographer Phil Laino, together with more than 80 images, several published for the first time, round out this study. The Devil s to Pay is a must-have for Gettysburg enthusiasts."

    As he grows older, he finds his kind nature exploited by others—including an alluring young woman named Lucy—until he gets swept away by the conflict that divides a nation.After the bloody siege of Petersburg, Joseph floats in and out of consciousness at a Union army hospital. Keeping vigil at his side is Rebecca Walker, a nurse and widow all too familiar with the horrors of war. As Joseph fights for his life and Rebecca struggles to follow her heart, both face a devastating choice: whether to hang on to the wounds of the past or move on to an uncertain future.From the fields of Ireland to the metropolis of Quebec to the battlefields of Virginia, Going Home follows one man’s quest for his place in a world still healing from the wreckage of war.

    In this gripping and affecting novel, three young Confederates and an entire town come face-to-face with the prison’s atrocities and will learn the cost of compassion, when withheld and when given.Sentry Dance Pickett has watched, helpless, for months as conditions in the camp worsen by the day. He knows any mercy will be seen as treason. Southern belle Violet Stiles cannot believe the good folk of Americus would knowingly condone such barbarism, despite the losses they’ve suffered. When her goodwill campaign stirs up accusations of Union sympathies and endangers her family, however, she realizes she must tread carefully. Confederate corporal Emery Jones didn’t expect to find camaraderie with the Union prisoner he escorted to Andersonville. But the soldier’s wit and integrity strike a chord in Emery. How could this man be an enemy? Emery vows that their unlikely friendship will survive the war—little knowing what that promise will cost him.As these three young Rebels cross paths, Emery leads Dance and Violet to a daring act that could hang them for treason. Wrestling with God’s harsh truth, they must decide, once and for all, Who is my neighbor?

    It will be an event that will change the lives of everyone in its path. The Harper family included.Frank Harper is a young man full of dreams and ambitions. Even when the country is split and war breaks out, Frank will do whatever is necessary to see his dreams come true, even when that means putting on a uniform and leaving home.For the first time, Claire Harper is forced to consider the reasons behind such a conflict. Should slavery be abolished? Which side should she be on, and what does God have to say about this? Claire is torn between her own opinions and those of her family. The struggle within her only increases when she repeatedly runs into a kind and handsome Union soldier. She longs to see her brother turn to Christ before it is too late. Desperate to reach her brother with the gospel, Claire pens a series of inspiring letters. Will she be able to handle all the obstacles of war and continue to be a witness to those around her?How long can Claire last when her heart is torn in half and she is burdened for her brother's soul? How long can Frank resist his sister's urgent pleas or the gentle tugging from within? Can a man outrun a holy God?

    It certainly lived up to that grim sobriquet in September 1863 when the Union Army of the Cumberland and Confederate Army of Tennessee waged bloody combat along the banks of West Chickamauga Creek. Long considered a two-day affair, award-winning author David Powell embraces a fresh approach that explores Chickamauga as a three-day battle, with September 18 being key to understanding how the fighting developed the next morning. The second largest battle of the Civil War produced 35,000 casualties and one of the last, clear-cut Confederate tactical victories—a triumph that for a short time reversed a series of Rebel defeats and reinvigorated the hope for Southern independence. At issue was Chattanooga, the important gateway to the South and logistical springboard into Georgia.Despite its size, importance, and fascinating cast of characters, this epic Western Theater battle has received but scant attention. Powell masterfully rectifies this oversight with The Chickamauga Campaign—A Mad Irregular Battle: From the Crossing of the Tennessee River Through the Second Day, August 22 September 19, 1863. The first of three installments spanning the entire campaign, A Mad Irregular Battle includes the Tullahoma Campaign in June, which set the stage for Chickamauga, and continues through the second day of fighting on September 19. The second installment finishes the battle from dawn on September 20 and carries both armies through the retreat into Chattanooga and the beginning of the siege. The third and last book of the series includes appendices and essays exploring specific questions about the battle in substantially greater detail.Powell's magnificent study fully explores the battle from all perspectives and is based upon fifteen years of intensive study and research that has uncovered nearly 2,000 primary sources from generals to private, all stitched together to relate the remarkable story that was Chickamauga. Here, finally, readers will absorb the thoughts and deeds of hundreds of the battle s veterans, many of whom they have never heard of or read about. In addition to archival sources, newspapers, and other firsthand accounts, Powell grounds his conclusions in years of personal study of the terrain itself and regularly leads tours of the battlefield. His prose is as clear and elegant as it is authoritative and definitive.The Chickamauga Campaign—A Mad Irregular Battle is Powell s magnum opus, a tour-de-force rich in analysis brimming with heretofore untold stories. It will surely be a classic must-have battle study for every serious student of the Civil War."

    In "A World Such as Heaven Intended," Amara McKirnan and Nathan Simmons share a devotion to their Catholic faith but their loyalties lie on opposite sides of the conflict. Dedicated to the Confederate cause, Amara offers to help out at her uncle’s makeshift hospital in Atlanta. Fate brought Nathan to their doorstep and into Amara’s life. Little does Amara know that the wounded soldier she cares for harbors a secret that will not only jeopardize his life but hers as well. Follow Amara and Nathan’s story from the heart of war-torn Atlanta to the Northern Georgia battlefields to the plains of East Texas as their lives become intertwined in a way that shatters the separate worlds they once knew.

    Author and historian Chris DeRose chronicles history’s most epic Presidential Royal Rumble, which culminated in a multi-front effort against Lincoln’s reelection bid, but not before:     * John Tyler engaged in shuttle diplomacy between President Buchanan and the new Confederate Government. He chaired the Peace Convention of 1861, the last great hope for a political resolution to the crisis. When it failed, Tyler joined the Virginia Secession Convention, voted to leave the Union, and won election to the Confederate Congress.     * Van Buren, who had schemed to deny Lincoln the presidency, supported him in his efforts after Fort Sumter, and thwarted Franklin Pierce's attempt at a meeting of the ex-Presidents to undermine Lincoln.     * Millard Fillmore hosted Lincoln and Mary Todd on their way to Washington, initially supported the war effort, offered critical advice to keep Britain at bay, but turned on Lincoln over emancipation.      * Franklin Pierce, talked about as a Democratic candidate in 1860 and ’64, was openly hostile to Lincoln and supportive of the South, an outspoken critic of Lincoln especially on civil liberties. After Vicksburg, when Jefferson Davis’s home was raided, a secret correspondence between Pierce and the Confederate President was revealed.     * James Buchanan, who had left office as seven states had broken away from the Union, engaged in a frantic attempt to vindicate his administration, in part by tying himself to Lincoln and supporting the war, arguing that his successor had simply followed his policies.      How Abraham Lincoln battled against his predecessors to preserve the Union and later to put an end to slavery is a thrilling tale of war waged at the top level of power.

    Civil War, this passionate opening volume of a projected series successfully melds historical narrative, women’s issues, and breathless romance with horsewomanship, trailside deer-gutting, and alluring smidgeons of Celtic ESP." ~ Publishers Weekly______________________The Civil War has ended, leaving the country with a gaping wound. Lorie Blake, a southern orphan sold into prostitution at fifteen, has carefully guarded her aching soul from the disgrace forced upon her every evening. Two years have passed, leaving her with little hope of anything more. Meanwhile, three men – longtime friends – and a young boy with a heart of gold are traveling northward, planning to rebuild their lives in the north and leave behind the horrors of their time as soldiers in the Confederate Army.Fate, however, has plans of its own, causing their lives to collide in a river town whorehouse. Forced to flee, Lorie escapes and joins them on the journey north. But danger stalks them all in the form of a vindictive whorehouse madam and an ex-Union soldier, insane and bent on exacting revenge. At last, Lorie must come to terms with her past and devastating secrets that she cannot yet bear to reveal.Heart of a Dove is the first book in a gripping, sweeping romantic saga of pain, unbearable choices, loss and true love set against the backdrop of a scarred, post-Civil War America.

    The name lived up to that grim sobriquet in September 1863 when the Union Army of the Cumberland and Confederate Army of Tennessee waged a sprawling bloody combat along the banks of West Chickamauga Creek. This installment of Powell s tour-de-force depicts the final day of battle, when the Confederate army attacked and broke through the Union lines, triggering a massive rout, an incredible defensive stand atop Snodgrass Hill, and a confused retreat and pursuit into Chattanooga. Powell presents all of this with clarity and precision by weaving nearly 2,000 primary accounts with his own cogent analysis. The result is a rich and deep portrait of the fighting and command relationships on a scale never before attempted or accomplished.His upcoming third volume, Analysis of a Barren Victory, will conclude the set with careful insight into the fighting and its impact on the war, Powell s detailed research into the strengths and losses of the two armies, and an exhaustive bibliography.Powell's magnum opus, complete with original maps, photos, and illustrations, is the culmination of many years of research and study, coupled with a complete understanding of the battlefield s complex terrain system. For any student of the Civil War in general, or the Western Theater in particular, Powell s trilogy is a must-read.

    On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, doing precisely that. In between, however, was perhaps the most tumultuous six months of his presidency, an episode during which the sixteenth president fought bitterly with his generals, disappointed his cabinet, and sank into painful bouts of clinical depression. Most surprising, the man who would be remembered as "The Great Emancipator" did not hold firm to his belief in emancipation. He agonized over the decision and was wracked by private doubts almost to the moment when he inked the decree that would change a nation.Popular myth would have us believe that Lincoln did not suffer from such indecision, that he did what he did through moral resolve; that he had a commanding belief in equality, in the inevitable victory of right over wrong. He worked on drafts of the document for months, locking it in a drawer in the telegraph room of the War department. Ultimately Lincoln chose to act based on his political instincts and knowledge of the war. It was a great gamble, with the future of the Union, of slavery, and of the presidency itself hanging in the balance.In this compelling narrative, Todd Brewster focuses on these critical six months to ask: was it through will or by accident, intention or coincidence, personal achievement or historical determinism that he freed the slaves? The clock is always ticking in these pages as Lincoln searches for the right moment to enact his proclamation and simultaneously turn the tide of war. Lincoln's Gamble portrays the president as an imperfect man with an unshakable determination to save a country he believed in, even as the course of the Civil War remained unknown.

    Streight, at the head of a brigade of Federal infantry, set out on a 220-mile ride to destroy the Western and Atlantic Railroad at Rome, Georgia. The most fascinating thing about the raid is that Streight’s brigade of four infantry regiments, almost 1,800 soldiers, was mounted on mules, a huge problem in itself; few of his men had ever ridden a horse, let alone a mule. But not only did Streight have almost 1,600 stubborn and wily animals to contend with, he soon found himself being relentlessly pursued by the inimitable Confederate cavalry commander, General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The raid soon turned into a running battle between Streight’s raiders and Forrest's cavalry. For Streight, it was a long and tortuous journey across Northern Alabama. For Forrest, it was one defeat after another at the hands of the very “able” Abel Streight, even though he, Forrest, had the advantage of home territory and the sympathy and aid of the local populace. There are some wildly hilarious moments involving the mules and their new masters; or is it the other way around? There's plenty of action and suspense, and an unforgettable cast of characters, real and fictional, animal and human; some you will come to love, some... not so much. They say that truth is stranger than fiction. This amazing story proves the point, for the end of the story is”� well, unbelievable. The Mule Soldiers is the true story ”" fictionalized ”" of Colonel Abel Streight’s Raid into Northern Alabama that took place from 19 April to 3 May 1863. It is an enthralling and bittersweet story that will stay with you long after you have you have finished reading it. Scroll up and grab a copy today.

    However, none has told the story of Shiloh as Timothy Smith does in this volume, the first comprehensive history of the two-day battle in April 1862 a battle so fluid and confusing that its true nature has eluded a clear narrative telling until now. Unfolding over April 6th and 7th, the Battle of Shiloh produced the most sprawling and bloody field of combat since the Napoleonic wars, with an outcome that set the Confederacy on the road to defeat. Contrary to previous histories, Smith tells us, the battle was not won or lost on the first day, but rather in the decision-making of the night that followed and in the next day's fighting. Devoting unprecedented attention to the details of that second day, his book shows how the Union's triumph was far less assured, and much harder to achieve, than has been acknowledged. Smith also employs a new organization strategy to clarify the action. By breaking his analysis of both days' fighting into separate phases and sectors, he makes it much easier to grasp what was happening in each combat zone, why it unfolded as it did, and how it related to the broader tactical and operational context of the entire battle. The battlefield's diverse and challenging terrain also comes in for new scrutiny. Through detailed attention to the terrain's major features most still visible at the Shiloh National Military Park Smith is able to track their specific and considerable influence on the actions, and their consequences, over those forty-eight hours. The experience of the soldiers finally finds its place here too, as Smith lets us hear, as never before, the voices of the common man, whether combatant or local civilian, caught up in a historic battle for their lives, their land, their honor, and their homes. "We must this day conquer or perish," Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston declared on the morning of April 6, 1862. His words proved prophetic, and might serve as an epitaph for the larger war, as we see fully for the first time in this unparalleled and surely definitive history of the Battle of Shiloh."

    John Michael Priest, dubbed the Ernie Pyle of the Civil War soldier, wrote this book to help readers understand and experience, as closely as possible through the written word, the stress and terror of that fateful day in Pennsylvania. Readers will gain a deeper appreciation of the personal sacrifice made that awful day by privates and generals alike. This invaluable method uses their own words to paint a rich tapestry of their personal courage and cowardice, and their failures and triumphs.Nearly 60 detailed maps, mostly on the regimental level, illustrate the tremendous troop congestion in the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, and Devil s Den. They accurately establish, by regiment or by company, the extent of the Federal skirmish line from Ziegler s Grove to the Slyder farm and portray the final Confederate push against the Codori farm and the center of Cemetery Ridge, which three Confederate divisions in what is popularly known as Pickett s Charge would unsuccessfully attack on the final day of fighting.This is a book about combat as seen through the eyes of those who waged it. There is no glamour here, and no adventure. Nor are there accusations, confessions, or second-guessing from the comfort of an easy chair. Instead, Stand to It and Give Them Hell offers the brutal, heart-wrenching story of a slice of America s greatest battle as described by those who marched, fought, bled, and died there. This is their story, and it is one you will long remember.

    A profile of the iconic Civil War general explores the paradoxes attributed to his character to discuss such topics as his achievements as a military strategist, his contributions to the Transcontinental Railroad, and his tempestuous family relationships.

    West Point has created military history texts for its cadets since 1836. For the first time in over forty years, the United States Military Academy has authorized a new military history series that will bear the name West Point. That text has been updated repeatedly, but now it has been completely rewritten and The West Point History of the Civil War is the first volume to result in a new series of military histories authorized by West Point.The West Point History of the Civil War combines the expertise of preeminent historians commissioned by West Point, hundreds of maps uniquely created by cartographers under West Point’s direction, and hundreds of images, many created for this volume or selected from West Point archives. Offering careful analysis of the political context of military decisions, The West Point History of the Civil War is singularly brilliant at introducing the generals and officer corps of both Union and Confederacy, while explaining the tactics, decisions, and consequences of individual battles and the ebb and flow of the war. For two years it has been beta-tested, vetted, and polished by cadets, West Point faculty, and West Point graduates and the results are clear: This is the best military history of its kind available anywhere.

    Robert E. Lee used intelligence resources, including cavalry, civilians, newspapers, and spies to gather information about Union activities during his invasion of the North in June and July 1863, and how this intelligence influenced General Lee's decisions. Simultaneously, Ryan explores the effectiveness of the Union Army of the Potomac's intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Both Maj. Gens. Joe Hooker and George G. Meade relied upon cavalry, the Signal Corps, and an intelligence staff known as the Bureau of Military Information that employed innovative concepts to gather, collate, and report vital information from a variety of sources.The result is an eye-opening, day-by-day analysis of how and why the respective army commanders implemented their strategy and tactics, with an evaluation of their respective performance as they engaged in a battle of wits to learn the enemy's location, strength, and intentions.Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign is grounded upon a broad foundation of archival research and a firm understanding of the theater of operations that specialists will especially value. Everyone will appreciate reading about a familiar historic event from a perspective that is both new and enjoyable. One thing is certain: no one will close this book and look at the Gettysburg Campaign in the same way again.

    He has to do something about it and decides to go to the war and kill the soldier who killed his father. But it’s not as simple as he thinks. Entering the war during the Kentucky Campaign of 1862 with the 2nd Tennessee under Brigadier General Patrick Cleburne, he later finds himself with the 31st Indiana under Brigadeer General Charles Cruft when he falls at Perryville. Friendship with an enemy soldier has unexpected consequences.

    Organized in the late summer of 1862, the 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was unprepared for battle a month later, when it entered the fight at Antietam. The results were catastrophic: nearly a quarter of the men were killed or wounded, and Connecticut's 16th panicked and fled the field. In the years that followed, the regiment participated in minor skirmishes before surrendering en masse in North Carolina in 1864. Most of its members spent months in southern prison camps, including the notorious Andersonville stockade, where disease and starvation took the lives of over one hundred members of the unit.The struggles of the 16th led survivors to reflect on the true nature of their military experience during and after the war, and questions of cowardice and courage, patriotism and purpose, were often foremost in their thoughts. Over time, competing stories emerged of who they were, why they endured what they did, and how they should be remembered. By the end of the century, their collective recollections reshaped this troubling and traumatic past, and the unfortunate regiment emerged as The Brave Sixteenth, their individual memories and accounts altered to fit the more heroic contours of the Union victory.The product of over a decade of research, Lesley J. Gordon's A Broken Regiment illuminates this unit's complex history amid the interplay of various, and often competing, voices. The result is a fascinating and heartrending story of one regiment's wartime and postwar struggles.

    Undercurrents of Secession tear at the fabric of a tiny town near the banks of the Brazos River. The majority of the men in Bold Springs join up to defend the South from Yankee intrusion. So begins the saga of Will James and his increasingly difficult son, Sam; John Browder, the Confederate Chaplain with northern roots and a secret past; their wives who remain behind with nothing but faith and determination to sustain fragile hopes; and a young love held together by no more than a whispered promise at a painful parting. … During our nation’s commemoration of the Civil War’s sesquicentennial, here is their tale—told by a Texan born and bred.

     With Sherman organizing a reinforced army in Nashville, and George Thomas still poised to invade Georgia, Jackson must adapt his strategy and find a way to permanently liberate the “Mother Earth” of Middle Tennessee. While generals like Patrick Cleburne, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and A.P. Stewart prove reliable, others like Leonidas Polk continue to vex Jackson’s efforts. Meanwhile, Sherman must contend with sniping politicians from above and a scheming Joe Hooker from below as he works to hurl Jackson’s army back into Alabama and continue his drive on Atlanta. What ensues across the early and mid-summer of 1864 is a colossal struggle pitting two of the Civil War’s greatest generals, Sherman and Jackson, against each other. The outcome will decide the fate of Middle Tennessee, and with it the course of a Civil War destined to be changed in unforeseen ways.

    His pictures, actions, words in his speeches and his private letters are analyzed and pointed inward toward the person, to help us understand the man: the heart and soul of the man. This book is about the artifacts that are left us all these years later (letters, speeches and particularly pictures)-things that LIFE can show that allow us to know this man more intimately. And so we, with help from experts and several famous commentators, will show them in our pages, and lead the reader to the clues about Lincoln's essence.Includes chapters such as:"Lincoln Pictured," an introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.A narrative by Allen C. Guelzo, explaining the man and his image-how the image reflects the true man"Who Was Mathew Brady?"-the famous photographer, his life and times, his truths and deceptions (before and after shots from the Gettysburg battlefield, detailing how he moved things around - even bodies - for dramatic impact)The words of Lincoln, in an artifact presentation with removable letters and speeches on archival paper that bring the reader back to the times"The Camera and the White House" - A fascinating chapter on American Presidents and their visual image - Thomas McAvoy's secret snaps of FDR, FDR hiding his legs, JFK's manipulation of photography taken of him, etc.The "book within a book" - the likes of David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Richard Norton Smith, Walter Isaacson, Jon Meachem, Macklemore, Brad Pitt, Maya Angelou, Zadie Smith, Gay Talese, Tom Wolf and more in answer to the question "When you see Lincoln's face, what do you see?"

    C. Adams, tend to think of the Civil War as more glorious, less awful, than the reality. Millions of tourists flock to battlefields each year as vacation destinations, their perceptions of the war often shaped by reenactors who work hard for verisimilitude but who cannot ultimately simulate mutilation, madness, chronic disease, advanced physical decay. In Living Hell, Adams tries a different tack, clustering the voices of myriad actual participants on the firing line or in the hospital ward to create a virtual historical reenactment.Perhaps because the United States has not seen conventional war on its own soil since 1865, the collective memory of its horror has faded, so that we have sanitized and romanticized even the experience of the Civil War. Neither film nor reenactment can fully capture the hard truth of the four-year conflict. Living Hell presents a stark portrait of the human costs of the Civil War and gives readers a more accurate appreciation of its profound and lasting consequences.Adams examines the sharp contrast between the expectations of recruits versus the realities of communal living, the enormous problems of dirt and exposure, poor diet, malnutrition, and disease. He describes the slaughter produced by close-order combat, the difficulties of cleaning up the battlefields—where tens of thousands of dead and wounded often lay in an area of only a few square miles—and the resulting psychological damage survivors experienced.Drawing extensively on letters and memoirs of individual soldiers, Adams assembles vivid accounts of the distress Confederate and Union soldiers faced daily: sickness, exhaustion, hunger, devastating injuries, and makeshift hospitals where saws were often the medical instrument of choice.Inverting Robert E. Lee’s famous line about war, Adams suggests that too many Americans become fond of war out of ignorance of its terrors. Providing a powerful counterpoint to Civil War glorification, Living Hell echoes William Tecumseh Sherman’s comment that war is cruelty and cannot be refined.Praise for Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861–1865"This excellent and provocative work concludes with a chapter suggesting how the image of Southern military superiority endured in spite of defeat."— Civil War History"Adams's imaginative connections between culture and combat provide a forceful reminder that Civil War military history belongs not in an encapsulated realm, with its own categories and arcane language, but at the center of the study of the intellectual, social, and psychological currents that prevailed in the mid-nineteenth century."— Journal of American HistoryPraise for The Best War Ever: America and World War II"Adams has a real gift for efficiently explaining complex historical problems."— Reviews in American History"Not only is this mythologizing bad history, says Adams, it is dangerous as well. Surrounding the war with an aura of nostalgia both fosters the delusion that war can cure our social ills and makes us strong again, and weakens confidence in our ability to act effectively in our own time."— Journal of Military History

    In Loathing Lincoln, historian John McKee Barr surveys the broad array of criticisms about Abraham Lincoln that emerged when he stepped onto the national stage, expanded during the Civil War, and continued to evolve after his death and into the present. The first panoramic study of Lincoln's critics, Barr's work offers an analysis of Lincoln in historical memory and an examination of how his critics -- on both the right and left -- have frequently reflected the anxiety and discontent Americans felt about their lives. From northern abolitionists troubled by the slow pace of emancipation, to Confederates who condemned him as a "black Republican" and despot, to Americans who blamed him for the civil rights movement, to, more recently, libertarians who accuse him of trampling the Constitution and creating the modern welfare state, Lincoln's detractors have always been a vocal minority, but not one without influence.By meticulously exploring the most significant arguments against Lincoln, Barr traces the rise of the president's most strident critics and links most of them to a distinct right-wing or neo-Confederate political agenda. According to Barr, their hostility to a more egalitarian America and opposition to any use of federal power to bring about such goals led them to portray Lincoln as an imperialistic president who grossly overstepped the bounds of his office. In contrast, liberals criticized him for not doing enough to bring about emancipation or ensure lasting racial equality. Lincoln's conservative and libertarian foes, however, constituted the vast majority of his detractors. More recently, Lincoln's most vociferous critics have adamantly opposed Barack Obama and his policies, many of them referencing Lincoln in their attacks on the current president. In examining these individuals and groups, Barr's study provides a deeper understanding of American political life and the nation itself.

    When it was over, the Civil War's tide had turned.In the spring of 1864, Virginia remained unbroken, its armies having repelled Northern armies for more than two years. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had defeated the campaigns of four Union generals, and Lee's veterans were confident they could crush the Union offensive this spring, too. But their adversary in 1864 was a different kind of Union commander—Ulysses S. Grant. The new Union general-in-chief had never lost a major battle while leading armies in the West. A quiet, rumpled man of simple tastes and a bulldog's determination, Grant would lead the Army of the Potomac in its quest to destroy Lee's army.During six weeks in May and June 1864, Grant's army campaigned as no Union army ever had. During nearly continual combat operations, the Army of the Potomac battered its way through Virginia, skirting Richmond and crossing the James River on one of the longest pontoon bridges ever built. No campaign in North American history was as bloody as the Overland Campaign. When it ended outside Petersburg, more than 100,000 men had been killed, wounded, or captured on battlefields in the Wilderness, near Spotsylvania Court House, and at Cold Harbor. Although Grant's casualties were nearly twice Lee's, the Union could replace its losses. The Confederacy could not.Lee's army continued to fight brilliant defensive battles, but it never mounted another major offensive. Grant's spring 1864 campaign had tipped the scales permanently in the Union's favor. The war's denouement came less than a year later with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.

    Each essay addresses how Americans have misconstrued the legacy of these struggles and why scholars feel it necessary to reconsider one of the most critical turning points of the American Civil War.The first academic analysis that delineates all three Civil War campaigns fought from 1862 to 1863 for control of Chattanooga -- the trans-portation hub of the Confederacy and gateway to the Deep South -- this book deals not only with military operations but also with the campaigns' origins and consequences. The essays also explore the far-reaching social and political implications of the battles and bring into sharp focus their impact on postwar literature and commemoration. Several chapters revise the traditional portraits of both famous and con-troversial figures including Ambrose Bierce and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Others investigate some of the more salient moments of these cam-paigns such as the circumstances that allowed for the Confederate breakthrough assault at Chickamauga. Gateway to the Confederacy reassesses these pivotal battles, long in need of reappraisal, and breaks new ground as each scholar re-shapes a particular aspect of this momentous part of the Civil War.CONTRIBUTORSRussell S. Bonds Stephen Cushman Caroline E. Janney Evan C. Jones David A. Powell Gerald J. Prokopowicz William Glenn Robertson Wiley Sword Craig L. Symonds

    It's all part of the true stories from the Top Secret Files: The Civil War. Take a look if you dare, but be careful! Some secrets are meant to stay hidden...

    Gen. Andrew Jackson Smith, set out from Tennessee with a goal that had proven impossible in all prior attempts to find and defeat the cavalry under the command of Confederate major general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest's cavalry was the greatest threat to the long supply line feeding Sherman s armies as they advanced on Atlanta.Smith marched at the head of his gorillas, veteran soldiers who were fresh from the Red River Campaign. Aside from diverting Confederate attention away from Sherman, Smith's orders were to destroy Southern railroads and confront Forrest in Mississippi. Just weeks earlier, a similar Union expedition had met with disaster at the Battle of Brice's Crossroads, perhaps the greatest victory of Forrest's military career.Joined by reinforcements led by Lt. Gen. Stephen Dill Lee, Forrest and his men were confident and their morale had never been higher. However, for two weeks, Smith outmarched, outfought, and outmaneuvered the team of Lee and Forrest. In three days of bitter fighting, culminating in the battle at Harrisburg, the Confederates suffered a staggering defeat. Forrest s corps was devastated. He and his men would recover but would never regain their earlier strength, nor would they ever again prove a serious threat to veteran Union infantry.Work for Giants focuses on the details of this overlooked campaign and the efforts, postbattle and postwar, to minimize the outcome and consequences of an important Union victory. Parson draws heavily from previously untapped diaries, letters and journals, and eyewitness accounts, bringing to life the oppressive heat, cruel depredations, and brutal combat the soldiers encountered, and the stoic humor they used to endure them

    For the 250 Union soldiers facing down rebel irregulars on Enoch Toothman’s farm near Butler, Missouri, this was no battle over abstract principles. These were men of the First Kansas Colored Infantry, and they were fighting for their own freedom and that of their families. They belonged to the first black regiment raised in a northern state, and the first black unit to see combat during the Civil War. Soldiers in the Army of Freedom is the first published account of this largely forgotten regiment and, in particular, its contribution to Union victory in the trans-Mississippi theater of the Civil War. As such, it restores the First Kansas Colored Infantry to its rightful place in American history. Composed primarily of former slaves, the First Kansas Colored saw major combat in Missouri, Indian Territory, and Arkansas. Ian Michael Spurgeon draws upon a wealth of little-known sources—including soldiers’ pension applications—to chart the intersection of race and military service, and to reveal the regiment’s role in countering white prejudices by defying stereotypes. Despite naysayers’ bigoted predictions—and a merciless slaughter at the Battle of Poison Spring—these black soldiers proved themselves as capable as their white counterparts, and so helped shape the evolving attitudes of leading politicians, such as Kansas senator James Henry Lane and President Abraham Lincoln. A long-overdue reconstruction of the regiment’s remarkable combat record, Spurgeon’s book brings to life the men of the First Kansas Colored Infantry in their doubly desperate battle against the Confederate forces and skepticism within Union ranks.

    Relatively few academic historians, however, have devoted study to it, viewing the murder as a side note tied to neither the Civil War nor Reconstruction. Over time, the traditional story of the assassination has become littered with myths, from the innocence of Mary Surratt and Samuel Mudd to John Wilkes Booth’s escape to Oklahoma or India, where he died by suicide several years later. In this succinct volume, Edward Steers, Jr. sets the record straight, expertly analyzing the historical evidence to explain Lincoln’s assassination.The decision to kill President Lincoln, Steers shows, was an afterthought. John Wilkes Booth’s original plan involved capturing Lincoln, delivering him to the Confederate leadership in Richmond, and using him as a bargaining chip to exchange for southern soldiers being held in Union prison camps. Only after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia and Richmond fell to Union forces did Booth change his plan from capture to murder. As Steers explains, public perception about Lincoln’s death has been shaped by limited but popular histories that assert, alternately, that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton engineered the assassination or that John Wilkes Booth was a mad actor fueled by delusional revenge. In his detailed chronicle of the planning and execution of Booth’s plot, Steers demonstrates that neither Stanton nor anyone else in Lincoln’s sphere of political confidants participated in Lincoln’s death, and Booth remained a fully rational person whose original plan to capture Lincoln was both reasonable and capable of success. He also implicates both Mary Surratt and Samuel Mudd, as well as other conspirators, clarifying their parts in the scheme.At the heart of Lincoln’s assassination, Steers reveals, lies the institution of slavery. Lincoln’s move toward ending slavery and his unwillingness to compromise on emancipation spurred the white supremacist Booth and ultimately resulted in the president’s untimely death. With concise chapters and inviting prose, this brief volume will prove essential for anyone seeking a straightforward, authoritative analysis of one of the most dramatic events in American history.

    Lee, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Clara Barton, Stonewall Jackson, and others.Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and a fitting sequel to Houses of the Presidents, HOUSES OF CIVIL WAR AMERICA takes readers into the daily lives of the most important historical figures in the nation-defining conflict. From modest abolitionist homes to the plantations of the antebellum south. Howard and Straus bring the most intimate moments of the war to life. With insightful narrative and gorgeous photography, HOUSES OF CIVIL WAR AMERICA demonstrates--through these landmark homes--the nation we were and the nation we became.

    Helena Island still relate that their people wanted to “catch the learning” after northern abolitionists founded Penn School in 1862, less than six months after the Union army captured the South Carolina sea islands. In this broad history Orville Vernon Burton and Wilbur Cross range across the past 150 years to reacquaint us with the far-reaching impact of a place where many daring and innovative social justice endeavors had their beginnings.Penn Center’s earliest incarnation was as a refuge where escaped and liberated enslaved people could obtain formal liberal arts schooling, even as the Civil War raged on sometimes just miles away. Penn Center then earned a place in the history of education by providing agricultural and industrial arts training for African Americans after Reconstruction and through the Jim Crow era, the Great Depression, and two world wars. Later, during the civil rights movement, Penn Center made history as a safe meeting place for organizations like Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Peace Corps. Today, Penn Center continues to build on its long tradition of leadership in progressive causes. As a social services hub for local residents and as a museum, conference, and education complex, Penn Center is a showcase for activism in such areas as cultural, material, and environmental preservation; economic sustainability; and access to health care and early learning.Here is all of Penn Center’s rich past and present, as told through the experiences of its longtime Gullah inhabitants and countless visitors. Including forty-two extraordinary photographs that show Penn as it was and is now, this book recounts Penn Center’s many achievements and its many challenges, reflected in the momentous events it both experienced and helped to shape.

    When one thinks of the American Civil War, it is easy to conjure up images of great generals developing brilliant strategies and influential politicians making historic decisions; but there was a great deal more going on…In this book, you will find Civil War stories most people have never heard before, told by people who actually lived during those momentous times. From intrepid young men who went aloft in balloons and viewed the enemy’s position, to the joys and miseries of the private soldier, to the daring activities of secret spies... Laugh as Sir Henry Morton Stanley recounts his adventure, as a young private, raiding the farm of a Unionist to “forage” for he and his messmates’ Christmas dinner. Or, be amazed as Sarah Edmonds tells how she disguised herself and made her way deep within Confederate lines. These accounts and many more make up this unique collection of amazing Civil War stories... From camp pranks to close, bloody conflict; and from the jubilation of victory to the misery of defeat, you can find it all in War Stories: The American Civil War, Remembered by Those Who Were There.

    But when Confederate troops launched a strong counterattack, both sides realized the war would be longer and costlier than anticipated. First Bull Run, or First Manassas, set the stage for four years of bloody conflict that forever changed the political, social, and economic fabric of the nation. It also introduced the commanders, tactics, and weaponry that would define the American way of war through the turn of the twentieth century.This crucial campaign receives its most complete and comprehensive treatment in Edward G. Longacre’s The Early Morning of War. A magisterial work by a veteran historian, The Early Morning of War blends narrative and analysis to convey the full scope of the campaign of First Bull Run—its drama and suspense as well as its practical and tactical underpinnings and ramifications. Also woven throughout are biographical sketches detailing the backgrounds and personalities of the leading commanders and other actors in the unfolding conflict.Longacre has combed previously unpublished primary sources, including correspondence, diaries, and memoirs of more than four hundred participants and observers, from ranking commanders to common soldiers and civilians affected by the fighting. In weighing all the evidence, Longacre finds correctives to long-held theories about campaign strategy and battle tactics and questions sacrosanct beliefs—such as whether the Manassas Gap Railroad was essential to the Confederate victory. Longacre shears away the myths and persuasively examines the long-term repercussions of the Union’s defeat at Bull Run, while analyzing whether the Confederates really had a chance of ending the war in July 1861 by seizing Washington, D.C.Brilliant moves, avoidable blunders, accidents, historical forces, personal foibles: all are within Longacre’s compass in this deftly written work that is sure to become the standard history of the first, critical campaign of the Civil War.662 pages in length, 502 pages of narrative.

    The invaluable cache of Confederate General John Bell Hood s personal papers includes wartime and postwar letters from comrades, subordinates, former enemies and friends, exhaustive medical reports relating to Hood s two major wounds, and dozens of touching letters exchanged between Hood and his wife, Anna. This treasure trove of information is being made available for the first time for both professional and amateur Civil War historians in Stephen Sam Hood s The Lost Papers of Confederate General John Bell Hood.The historical community long believed General Hood s papers were lost or destroyed, and numerous books and articles were written about him without the benefit of these invaluable documents. In fact, the papers were carefully held for generations by a succession of Hood s descendants, and in the autumn of 2012 transcribed by collateral descendent Sam Hood as part of his research for his book John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General (Savas Beatie, 2013.)This collection offers more than 200 documents. While each is a valuable piece of history, some shed important light on some of the war s lingering mysteries and controversies. For example, several letters from multiple Confederate officers may finally explain the Confederate failure to capture or destroy Schofield s Union army at Spring Hill, Tennessee, on the night of November 29, 1864. Another letter by Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee goes a long way toward explaining Confederate Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne s gallant but reckless conduct that resulted in his death at Franklin. Lee also lodges serious allegations against Confederate Maj. Gen. William Bate. While these and others offer a military perspective of Hood the general, the revealing letters between he and his beloved and devoted wife, Anna, help us better understand Hood the man and husband.Historians and other writers have spent generations speculating about Hood s motives, beliefs, and objectives, and the result has not always been flattering or even fully honest. Now, long-believed lost firsthand accounts previously unavailable offer insights into the character, personality, and military operations of John Bell Hood the general, husband, and father."

    His world spins in the same circle each day: working at his family’s store, taking his sisters on boyish escapades and bickering with his rogue of a cousin, Lucas. Joe can’t understand why his mother allows Lucas to live and work with them after all the pain he caused their family. When war is declared, Joe is quick to join up and become a soldier with the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteers, but war is nothing like he imagined. To make matters worse, he must endure having Lucas in the same regiment. Can Joe put the pain of the past behind him? Forgiveness is easier said than done.

    Little more than twenty years later, both the Union and Confederate armies fortified the hills and ridges surrounding the gorge to deny the other passage during the Civil War. In October 1864, the two sides met in a fierce struggle to control the iron lifeline between the North and the recently captured city of Atlanta. Though small compared to other battles of the war, this division-sized fight produced casualty rates on par with or surpassing some of the most famous clashes. Join author Brad Butkovich as he explores the controversy, innovative weapons and unwavering bravery that make the Battle of Allatoona Pass one of the war's most unique and savage battles.

    In a landmark work that challenges sterilized portraits accepted for generations, Civil War historian Brian Matthew Jordan creates an entirely new narrative. These veterans— tending rotting wounds, battling alcoholism, campaigning for paltry pensions— tragically realized that they stood as unwelcome reminders to a new America eager to heal, forget, and embrace the freewheeling bounty of the Gilded Age. Mining previously untapped archives, Jordan uncovers anguished letters and diaries, essays by amputees, and gruesome medical reports, all deeply revealing of the American psyche.In the model of twenty-first-century histories like Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering or Maya Jasanoff ’s Liberty’s Exiles that illuminate the plight of the common man, Marching Home makes almost unbearably personal the rage and regret of Union veterans. Their untold stories are critically relevant today.

    It could only be tied in battle, if against great odds, but would more usually vanquish its opponents. A huge measure of that army s success was attributable to its cavalry arm, under Major General J.E.B. Stuart, which had literally run rings around its enemies.But Northern arithmetic and expertise were gradually catching up. In this work, the sequel to his acclaimed Year of Glory, author Monte Akers tracks Stuart and his cavalry through the following year of the war, from Gettysburg to the Overland Campaign, concluding only when Jeb himself succumbs to a gunshot while fending off a force three times his size at the very gates of Richmond. Gettysburg put paid to the aura of unstoppable victory surrounding the Army of Northern Virginia. But when Grant and Sheridan came east they found that Lee, Stuart, Longstreet, and the rest still refused to be defeated. It was a year of grim casualties and ferocious fighting in short, a year of desperate struggle with the gloves off on both sides.This work picks up where Year of Glory left off, with a minute examination of Stuart s cavalry during the controversial Gettysburg campaign, followed by the nine months of sparring during which the Army of Potomac declined to undertake further major thrusts against Virginia. But then the Union s western chieftains arrived and the war became one huge funeral procession, as Grant and Sheridan found that their prior victories had by no means prepared them for meeting the Army of Northern Virginia.In this work Akers provides a fascinating, close-in view of the Confederacy s cavalry arm during this crucial period of the war. After Stuart s death the Army of Northern Virginia would eventually be cornered, but while he was alive it was often the Northerners who most needed to look to their security."

    This compact yet comprehensive guide allows armchair historian and battlefield visitor alike to follow the campaign's course, with a clear view of its multifaceted strategic, operation, tactical, and human dimensions. A concise, single-volume collection of official reports and personal accounts, the guide is organized in one-day and multi-day itineraries that take the reader to all the battlefields of the campaign, some of which have never before been interpreted and described for the visitor so extensively. Comprehensive campaign and battle maps reflect troop movements, historical terrain features, and modern roads for ease of understanding and navigation. A uniquely useful resource for the military enthusiast and the battlefield traveler, this is the essential guide for anyone hoping to see the historic landscape and the human face of this most decisive campaign of the Civil War.

    "In the waning days of the Civil War, orphaned teen Jebediah Abernathy has been indentured to one of the most notorious plantations in Mississippi, Beechwood. Ramses, the sadistic overseer, rules completely, unchecked by owners driven mad by the loss of their only son. Cruelty and torture are commonplace. And slave boys are mysteriously vanishing. But Jebediah is not completely alone. The ghost of his father and an escaped slave sorceress will lead him to the horrific truth about the disappearances a knowledge that will probably cost him his life. "

    General John Bell Hood of the ConfederateArmy of Tennessee attempted to capture Nashville, the final realistic chance fora battlefield victory against the Northern juggernaut. Hood’s former West Pointinstructor, Major General George Henry Thomas, led the Union force, fighting thosewho doubted him in his own army as well as Hood’s Confederates. Through thebloody, horrific battles at Spring Hill, Franklin and Nashville and a freezingretreat to the Tennessee River, Hood ultimately failed. Civil War historianJames R. Knight chronicles the Confederacy’s last real hope at victory and itsbitter disappointment.

    Before the war, Bostonians were bitterly divided between those who supported the Union and those opposed to its endorsement of slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act brought the horrors of slavery close to home and led many to join the abolitionists. March to war with Boston's brave soldiers, including the grandson of Patriot Paul Revere and the Fighting Irish. The all-black Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment battled against both slavery and discrimination, while Boston's women fought tirelessly against slavery and for their own right to be full citizens of the Union. Join local historian and author Barbara F. Berenson on a thrilling and memorable journey through Civil War Boston.

    Although Welles initially knew little of naval matters, he rebuilt a service depleted by Confederate defections, planned actions that gave the Union badly needed victories in the war’s early days, and oversaw a blockade that weakened the South’s economy.   Perhaps the hardest-working member of the cabinet, Welles still found time to keep a detailed diary that has become one of the key documents for understanding the inner workings of the Lincoln administration. In this new edition, William E. and Erica L. Gienapp have restored Welles’s original observations, gleaned from the manuscript diaries at the Library of Congress and freed from his many later revisions, so that the reader can experience what he wrote in the moment. With his vitriolic pen, Welles captures the bitter disputes over strategy and war aims, lacerates colleagues from Secretary of State William H. Seward to General-in-Chief Henry Halleck, and condemns the actions of the self-serving southern elite he sees as responsible for the war. He can just as easily wax eloquent about the Navy's wartime achievements, extoll the virtues of Lincoln, or drop in a tidbit of Washington gossip.   Carefully edited and extensively annotated, this edition contains a wealth of supplementary material. The several appendixes include short biographies of the members of Lincoln’s cabinet, the retrospective Welles wrote after leaving office covering the period missing from the diary proper, and important letters regarding naval matters and international law.

    1: Secession to the Suffolk CampaignThe 5th Texas Infantry--"The Bloody Fifth"--was one of only three Texas regiments to fight with Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The 5th Texas established an exceptional combat record in an army known for its fighting capabilities.The regiment took part in 38 engagements, including nearly every significant battle in the Eastern Theater, as well as the Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Knoxville campaigns in the Western Theater, before laying down its arms forever at Appomattox. "The Bloody Fifth," in a pair of magnificent volumes, is the first full-length study to document this fabled regimental command.The first installment, Secession to the Suffolk Campaign, opens the regiment's rich history from the withdrawal of the Lone Star State from the Union and the organization of ten independent east and central Texas companies, through the spring of 1863 and its complex and often-misunderstood mission around Suffolk, Virginia. The 5th's battlefield prowess was demonstrated early in its inaugural fighting on the Virginia peninsula in early 1862, but it was at Second Manassas later that year where the regiment earned its enduring nickname by attacking and crushing the 5th New York Zouaves. Flushed with victory, the Texans pushed through the disintegrating Federal lines and outdistanced not only the remainder of the brigade but the rest of the Confederate army. The 5th Texas, boasted Gen. John Bell Hood in his official report, had "slipped the bridle." The undying sobriquet "The Bloody Fifth" was now part of American military history.Schmutz's definitive study is based upon years of archival battlefield research that uncovered hundreds of primary sources, many never before used. The result is a lively account of not only the regiment's marches and battles but also a personal look into the lives of these Texans as they struggled to survive a vicious war 2,000 miles from home. The second installment, Gettysburg to Appomattox, will complete the history."The Bloody Fifth"--The 5th Texas Infantry, Hood's Texas Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, with photos, original maps, explanatory footnotes, and important and useful appendices, is a significant contribution to the history of Texas and the American Civil War.

    Richard Madden"Now, the unfortunate Africans whose case is the subject of the present representation, have been thrown by accidental circumstances into the hands of the authorities of the United States Government whether these persons shall recover the freedom to which they are entitled, or whether they shall be reduced to slavery, in violation of known laws and contracts publicly passed, prohibiting the continuance of the African slave-trade by Spanish subjects.” – Henry Stephen Fox, British diplomatBy the early 19th century, several European nations had banned slavery, but while the United States had banned the international slave trade, slavery was still legal in the country itself. As a result, there was still a strong financial motive for merchants and slave traders to attempt to bring slaves to the Western hemisphere, and a lot of profits to be gained from successfully sneaking slaves into the American South and the Caribbean by way of locations like Havana, Cuba. At the same time, the cruelties of the slave trade often led to desperate attempts by slaves or would-be slaves to avoid the horrific fate that they were either experiencing or about to face. In 1831, Nat Turner’s revolt shocked the South and scared plantation owners across the country, while also bringing the issue of slavery to the forefront of the national debate. But just years after Turner’s rebellion was quickly put down, the United States was embroiled in another similar controversy as a result of the successful insurrection aboard the Amistad, a Spanish schooner that was carrying Africans taken from modern day Sierra Leone and brought across the Atlantic to Cuba.In 1839, the Amistad was loaded in Havana with Africans who had been brought across the ocean to be made slaves, but after the ship left Havana for another location on Cuba, the Africans escaped their shackles, killed the captain, and took over the ship. When they demanded to be taken back to Africa, the ship’s crew instead sailed north, and the ship was ultimately captured off the coast of Long Island in New York by the USS Washington. All of this resulted in one of the most famous maritime cases in history, and one that affected not just the international slave trade ban but also how jurisdiction over such a case was determined. While the British were interested in enforcing the ban on the slave trade, Spain wanted to protect its own rights by asserting that their property (crew and ship) could not be subjected to American jurisdiction, and that since slavery was legal in Cuba, a foreign country had no right to determine the legal status of the Africans aboard the Amistad. On top of that, both the Spanish slave traders intending to sail the ship around Cuba and the American captain who seized the Amistad claimed ownership of the Africans. The legal case proceeded all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, which eventually affirmed a lower court ruling that allowed the Africans to be returned home as free men, but not before the British and Spanish used diplomatic and political leverage to try to influence the outcome. Ultimately, the rebellion on the Amistad and the case that followed became a watershed moment in the debate over slavery and abolition in America about 20 years before the Civil War.

    From the time of his presidency to the present day, American Jews have persistently viewed Lincoln as one of their own, casting him as a Jewish sojourner and, in certain respects, a Jewish role model. This pioneering compendiumOCo The first volume of annotated documents to focus on the history of LincolnOCOs image, influence, and reputation among American JewsOCo considers how Lincoln acquired his exceptional status and how, over the past century and a half, this fascinating relationship has evolved.Organized into twelve chronological and thematic chapters, these little-known primary source documentsOComany never before published and some translated into English for the first timeOCoconsist of newspaper clippings, journal articles, letters, poems, and sermons, and provide insight into a wide variety of issues relating to LincolnOCOs Jewish connection. Topics include LincolnOCOs early encounters with Central European Jewish immigrants living in the Old Northwest; LincolnOCOs Jewish political allies; his encounters with Jews and the Jewish community as President; LincolnOCOs response to the Jewish chaplain controversy; General U. S. GrantOCOs General Orders No. 11 expelling OC Jews, as a classOCO from the Military Department of Tennessee; the question of amending the U.S. Constitution to legislate the countryOCOs so-called Christian national character; and Jewish eulogies after LincolnOCOs assassination. Other chapters consider the crisis of conscience that arose when President Andrew Johnson proclaimed a national day of mourning for Lincoln on the festival of "Shavuot "(the Feast of Weeks), a day when Jewish law enjoins Jews to rejoice and not to mourn; LincolnOCOs Jewish detractors contrasted to his boosters; how American Jews have intentionally OC JudaizedOCO Lincoln ever since his death; the leading role that American Jews have played in in crafting LincolnOCOs image and in preserving his memory for the American nation; American Jewish reflections on the question OC What Would Lincoln Do?OCO; and how Lincoln, for AmericaOCOs Jewish citizenry, became the avatar of AmericaOCOs highest moral aspirations. With thoughtful chapter introductions that provide readers with a context for the annotated documents that follow, this volume provides a fascinating chronicle of American JewryOCOs unfolding historical encounter with the life and symbolic image of Abraham Lincoln, shedding light on how the cultural interchange between American ideals and Jewish traditions influences the dynamics of the American Jewish experience."

    In Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln Jonathan W. White challenges this reigning paradigm in Civil War historiography, arguing instead that the soldier vote in the presidential election of 1864 is not a reliable index of the army's ideological motivation or political sentiment. Although 78 percent of the soldiers' votes were cast for Lincoln, White contends that this was not wholly due to a political or social conversion to the Republican Party. Rather, he argues, historians have ignored mitigating factors such as voter turnout, intimidation at the polls, and how soldiers voted in nonpresidential elections in 1864.While recognizing that many soldiers changed their views on slavery and emancipation during the war, White suggests that a considerable number still rejected the Republican platform, and that many who voted for Lincoln disagreed with his views on slavery. He likewise explains that many northerners considered a vote for the Democratic ticket as treasonous and an admission of defeat.Using previously untapped court-martial records from the National Archives, as well as manuscript collections from across the country, White convincingly revises many commonly held assumptions about the Civil War era and provides a deeper understanding of the Union Army.

    Cherry's one indulgence is a much anticipated monthly meeting she has with Jeb. A meeting that usually devolves into a shouting match. When Jeb Carter becomes ill, perhaps even dying, discord changes to despair and he asks that they spend his remaining time together. Avoiding family and friends, they leave Texas on a journey that takes them to a love they've long denied.

    A series of large-scale Union offensives, grand maneuvers that triggered some of the fiercest battles of the war, broke the monotony of static trench warfare. Grant's Fourth Offensive, August 14-25, the longest and bloodiest operation of the campaign, is the subject of John Horn's revised and updated Sesquicentennial edition of The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864.Frustrated by his inability to break through the Southern front, General Grant devised a two-punch combination strategy in an effort to sever the crucial Weldon Railroad and stretch General Lee's lines. The plan called for Winfield Hancock's II Corps (with X Corps) to move against Deep Bottom north of the James River to occupy Confederate attention while Warren s V Corps, supported by elements of IX Corps, marched south and west below Petersburg toward Globe Tavern on the Weldon Railroad. The move triggered the battles of Second Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Second Reams Station, bitter fighting that witnessed fierce Confederate counterattacks and additional Union operations against the railroad before Grant's troops dug in and secured their hold on Globe Tavern. The end result was nearly 15,000 killed, wounded, and missing, the severing of the railroad, and the jump-off point for what would be Grant's Fifth Offensive in late September.Revised and updated for this special edition, Horn's outstanding tactical battle study emphasizes the context and consequences of every action and is supported by numerous maps and grounded in hundreds of primary sources. Unlike many battle accounts, Horn puts Grant's Fourth Offensive into its proper perspective not only in the context of the Petersburg Campaign and the war, but in the context of the history of warfare."A superior piece of Civil War scholarship." - Edwin C. Bearss, former Chief Historian of the United States National Park Service and award-winning author.

    The bombing attack that came early on a December Sunday morning in 1941 left thousands of civilians, many of them suddenly widowed women and their young children, vulnerable and afraid, at least 3000 miles from home. Just as on 9/11, with the awful events of one morning, everything had changed. After a few panicked days spent in fear of another attack, the decision was made to evacuate as many as possible back to the mainland, along with the wounded servicemen who had survived. In an era in which plane flight was not yet common, evacuation would be by sea in armed convoys on civilian ships, including cruise ships commandeered from throughout the Pacific - an eight-to-ten-day crossing in crowded vessels stripped of any luxuries, in heavy winter seas, and under constant fear of further attacks by Japanese submarines. Based on interviews with evacuees and over ten years of research, SAFE PASSAGE: The Civilian Evacuation from Hawaii after Pearl Harbor tells the full true story for the first time in a book. Detailing the bureaucratic infighting between the Army and Navy and the occasional heroism of desk officers suddenly tasked with implementing martial law on Hawaii and coordinating the evacuation, SAFE PASSAGE recounts evacuees’ tales of sacrifice and bravery - and some moments of cowardice. The ocean journey was just the first stage. The evacuees - including an entire college football team - landed in California, where they conveyed the first eyewitness accounts of the attack to waiting reporters. With the help of the Red Cross, they traveled by unheated trains and with little food back to their families throughout the US during the coldest and snowiest winter in years. Treated as heroes in their hometowns, the evacuated civilians were held up as examples of American toughness in the face of adversity as the US plunged into a World War. Author James F. Lee’s mother was widowed during the attack, and she and his half-sister were among the evacuees. His mother subsequently married Lee’s father. Lee is a freelance journalist who writes about travel and history, and teaches journalism at Bucknell University, where he also works as student media adviser.

    It comes as no surprise, then, that few readers are even aware that Petersburg s citizens felt war s hard hand nearly a week before the armies of Grant and Lee arrived on their doorstep in the middle of June 1864.During his ill-fated Bermuda Hundred Campaign, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler in late May took note of the Cockade City s position astride Richmond s railroad lifeline and its minuscule garrison. When two attempts to seize the city and destroy the bridges over the Appomattox River failed, Butler mounted an expedition to Petersburg on June 9. Led by Maj. Gen. Quincy Gillmore and Brig. Gen. August Kautz, the Federal force of 3,300 infantry and 1,300 cavalry appeared large enough to overwhelm Brig. Gen. Henry Wise s paltry 1,200 Confederate defenders, one-quarter of which were reserves that included several companies of elderly men and teenagers. The attack on the critical logistical center, and how the Confederates managed to hold the city, is the subject of Robertson s groundbreaking study. Ironically, Butler s effort resulted in Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard s decision to slightly enlarge Petersburg s garrison troops that may have provided the razor-thin margin of difference when the head of the Army of the Potomac appeared in strength six days later.The First Battle for Petersburg describes the strategy, tactics, and generalship of the Battle of June 9 in full detail, as well as the impact on the city s citizens, both in and out of the ranks. Robertson s study is grounded in extensive primary sources supported by original maps and photos and illustrations. It remains the most comprehensive analysis of the June 9 engagement of Petersburg s old men and young boys. Petersburg itself has never forgotten the sacrifices of its citizens on that summer day 150 years ago, and continues to honor their service with an annual commemoration. Once you read Dr. Robertson s The First Battle for Petersburg: The Attack and Defense of the Cockade City, June 9, 1864, you will understand why.REVIEWS The campaigns around Petersburg rank among the least understood elements of Civil War military history. This revised edition of Glenn Robertson s study of the initial fighting around the city provides an excellent starting point for anyone who hopes to understand the sprawling operations that unfolded over the next ten months and did much to settle the fate of the Confederacy. Gary W. Gallagher, award-winning author and Nau Professor of History, University of Virginia Petersburg was the second largest city in all of Virginia, a major rail center of strategic importance. The first Federal effort to capture it on June 9, 1864, when it was defended by little more than old men and young boys, is the subject of Dr. Robertson s The First Battle for Petersburg, a completely revised edition of his outstanding micro-history, and one I highly recommend to anyone who wants to understand how the subsequent siege began, and why. Chris Calkins, noted Civil War author and historian, Petersburg, Virginia Only one Civil War battle continues to be commemorated in Petersburg, Virginia, today. The Battle of Old Men and Young Boys on June 9, 1864 is brought to life in this new edition of Glenn Robertson s comprehensive study. Deeply researched, well-written, and updated with new information, Robertson s new edition provides a splendid preface to any study of the Petersburg Campaign. A. Wilson Greene, author of Civil War Petersburg: Confederate City in the Crucible of War"

    

    And the only two Union people who know this are a man playing a woman, and a runaway slave. Months earlier, Nathan VanHorn was a stage actor in 1862 Connecticut. He was skilled at playing (short) leading men, also teen boys—but what he was famous for was playing young women. Theater critics described his portrayals of ingénues as "uncanny." Nathan's acting talents got him recruited as the perfect Union spy. What Southerner would believe that a moustached German man, an Irish crone, a panhandler twelve-year-old stripling, and a Southern belle were all the same Connecticut man? Nathan and Hattie Hamundsen, a smart and educated Negress, are sneaked into South Carolina. Soon they arrive at Belle Bois, where Nathan impersonates Katherine Bonveneau, the young, flighty heir to her father's plantation. Soon after, Nathan and Hattie get orders: the Rebels are shipping lots of iron to a South Carolina swamp; "Investigate and report." But soon they realize: This ironclad is a serious threat, and things are happening too quickly. Nathan and Hattie must do more than report the ironclad, they must _destroy_ it. Tags: acting and actors, American Civil War, Charleston (SC), Civil War, Confederacy, Confederate Navy, Connecticut, cross-dressing, female impersonator, ironclad ship, New Haven (CT), no sex, plantation life, South Carolina, spies, tg, theater, transgender, transvestite PUBLISHER'S NOTE: All ebooks by this publisher are free of DRM (Digital Rights Meddling).

    Mutual trust and respect between generals and their corps commanders, though vital to military success, was all too rare: Corps commanders were often forced to exercise considerable discretion in the execution of orders from their generals, and bitter public arguments over commanders' performances in battle followed hard on the heels of many major engagements. Controversies that arose during the war around the decisions of corps and army commanders-such as Daniel Sickles's disregard of George Meade's orders at the Battle of Gettysburg-continue to provoke vigorous debate among students of the Civil War.Corps Commanders in Blue offers eight case studies that illuminate the critical roles the Union corps commanders played in shaping the war's course and outcome. The contributors examine, and in many cases challenge, widespread assumptions about these men while considering the array of internal and external forces that shaped their efforts on and off the battlefield. Providing insight into the military conduct of the Civil War,Corps Commanders in Blue fills a significant gap in the historiography of the war by offering compelling examinations of the challenges of corps command in particular campaigns, the men who exercised that command, and the array of factors that shaped their efforts, for good or for ill.

    Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. It was May, 1864. The Civil War had dragged into its fourth spring. It was time to end things, Grant resolved, once and for all.With the Union Army of the Potomac as his sledge, Grant crossed the Rapidan River, intending to draw the Army of Northern Virginia into one final battle. Short of that, he planned to hammer continuously against the armed forces of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him . . . . Almost immediately, though, Robert E. Lee s Confederates brought Grant to bay in the thick tangle of the Wilderness. Rather than retreat, as other army commanders had done in the past, Grant outmaneuvered Lee, swinging left and south.There was, after all, no turning back. I intend to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer, Grant vowed. And he did: from the dark, close woods of the Wilderness to the Muleshoe of Spotsylvania, to the steep banks of the North Anna River, to the desperate charges of Cold Harbor. The 1864 Overland Campaign would be a nonstop grind of fighting, maneuvering, and marching, much of it in rain and mud, with casualty lists longer than anything yet seen in the war.In No Turning Back: A Guide to the 1864 Overland Campaign, from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May 4 - June 13, 1864, historians Robert M. Dunkerly, Donald C. Pfanz, and David R. Ruth allow readers to follow in the footsteps of the armies as they grapple across the Virginia landscape. Pfanz spent his career as a National Park Service historian on the battlefields where the campaign began; Dunkerly and Ruth work on the battlefields where it concluded. Few people know the ground, or the campaign, better."

    Joseph was a hub city for wagon trains going west. Jonah Alexander, a half-breed Indian did well here. His hard childhood had made him tough, unyielding and skeptical. Then Sunny Markley came to town with her beautiful smile, genuine personality and gentle heart. She was soon asking Jonah for things he couldn't give. There were lines he wasn't allowed to cross. It didn't take Sunny long to realize Jonah was not the dark, hard man that some people thought. He soon stole her heart, but she was halted by a jealous deputy, a depraved cowboy and the Civil War. Would God lead them back to each other, so they could make a life together?

    Though Texas was often considered an isolated backwater in the conflict, the Union's pervasive and systematic seizure of Southern ports left Galveston as one of the only strongholds of foreign imports in the anemic supply chain to embattled Confederate forces. Long, fast steamships ran in and out of the city's port almost every week, bound to and from Cuba. Join author Andrew W. Hall as he explores the story of Texas's Civil War blockade runners- a story of daring, of desperation and, in many cases, of patriotism turning coat to profiteering.

     Author James Robbins demonstrates that Custer, having graduated last in his class at West Point, went on to prove himself again and again as an extremely skilled cavalry leader. Robbins argues that Custer's undoing was his bold and cocky attitude, which caused the Army's bloodiest defeat in the Indian Wars. Robbins also dives into Custer’s personal life, exploring his letters and other personal documents to reveal who he was as a person, underneath the military leader. The Real Custer is an exciting and valuable contribution to the legend and history of Custer that will delight Custer fans as well as readers new to the legend.

    Her uncle Tenkaminen, a sorcerer and healer, chose his intelligent, beautiful niece as the recipient of his knowledge of herbs, spells and visions. But her impoverished father sold her to the British, who sent her to be a House slave at Pinewood Plantation, Virginia, their colony in America. At a Charleston, South Carolina, auction house, Saleh was bought by George Leyland—a young, wealthy tobacco planter—who was captivated by her at first sight. Immediately, he changed her name to Sally and drew her into a life of ever-increasing humiliation and sexual brutality. Sally, her daughter Young Sally and her granddaughter Missy all suffered the same forced attentions from three generations of Leyland men. As the Civil War approached, these three black women were suddenly confronted with the possibility of using confusion and dislocation of the tumultuous times to make a strike, each in her own way, for escape to the North ... and to freedom.

    She has become a valuable asset to her cruel master, Daniel Bowen, but Callie, her two brothers, and her young daughter struggle to cope with the outrages of enslavement. Change occurs suddenly on November 7, 1861, when the Union Navy attacks Port Royal Sound in South Carolina. Slavery ends across the surrounding sea islands after the planters flee. Ten thousand newly freed people, like Callie and her family, begin life under the authority of the US government. A historical novel based on actual events from 1861 to 1863, Swift Currents describes the slaves' transition from bondage to freedom through the lens of Callie and her two brothers. As they and others pursue education, work for wages, fight for freedom, and become landowners, their lives intersect with civilian and military authorities. Callie's story seeks to help the nation come to terms with its racial history and serves to provide a greater understanding of shared stories, thus lessening the inherited prejudice of generations.

    But being a woman in 1861, she finds the path to entrepreneurship blocked many times over. The threat of war, her mother's disapproval, and even a malicious arsonist threaten to limit the aspiring textile merchant to the status of impoverished Irish immigrant. As she travels from the factories of Philadelphia to the riverfront wharves of Savannah with her business mentor, James Nolan, the Civil War explodes amidst their blossoming love, and the two are separated. Can Ellen's undaunted, fiery strength guide her through a divided nation, or must she abandon her dream in order to save her own life?

    Former Missouri governor General Sterling Price and his men laid siege for three days against a Union garrison under the command of Colonel James Mulligan. An ingenious mobile breastwork of hemp bales soaked in water, designed to absorb hot shot, enabled the Confederates to close in on September 20 and force surrender. Civil War historian Larry Wood delivers a thorough account of the battle that briefly consolidated Confederate control in the region.

    The Jerry Rescue: The Fugitive Slave Law, Northern Rights, and the American Sectional Crisis is a narrative of the eventssurrounding the arrest of William Jerry Henry on October 1, 1851. Jerry, who thought he was to be charged with a minor infraction committed in Syracuse, went peacefully with the officials who arrested him; but he soon realized that he was in far more trouble than they had indicated. They weredetaining him under the provisions of the recently passed Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and federal officials intended to hold a hearing to determine whether Jerry would remain a free man in New York or if he would be sent to the slave state of Missouri as the property of John McReynolds, who claimedJerry as his slave. Because of the actions of a variety of individuals in Syracuse, that hearing was abruptly cut short and Jerry was forcibly removed from the custody of his captors. The Jerry Rescue provides an absorbing narrative of the events that the arrest of Jerry set in motion, illuminatesthe motives and concerns of those who were involved in those events, and places the story in the wider context of the American sectional crisis. Examining such topics as northern defiance of the Fugitive Slave Law, the growth of sectional tension in the United States, antislavery debates about howbest to attack the institution of slavery, black and white cooperation in the movement to end slavery, and the question of northern states' rights, The Jerry Rescue is eminently rich with historical details, clarity, and objective analysis.

    Will the South be forever separate? Will slaves be freed? A war will decide. Explore the events of the Civil War and watch a country fight for change.

    *Includes accounts of fighting written by Mosby and other generals. *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading. *Includes a table of contents. “Our poor country has fallen a prey to the conqueror. The noblest cause ever defended by the sword is lost. The noble dead that sleep in their shallow though honored graves are far more fortunate than their survivors. I thought I had sounded the profoundest depth of human feeling, but this is the bitterest hour of my life.” – John Mosby The Civil War is best remembered for the big battles and the legendary generals who fought on both sides, like Robert E. Lee facing off against Ulysses S. Grant in 1864. In kind, the Eastern theater has always drawn more interest and attention than the West. However, while massive armies marched around the country fighting each other, there were other small guerrilla groups that engaged in irregular warfare on the margins, and perhaps the most famous of them was Colonel John Mosby. Mosby, the “Gray Ghost” of the Confederate lore that celebrates the Lost Cause, has an image that has proven nearly impossible to corrupt or change, and time has done little good against it. Unlike the vanished 19th century code of honor that he represented, Mosby has retained the image and all its connotations; evident in the pictures taken of him in his Confederate uniform and historical portrayals of him, whether they were written just after the Civil War or much later. But that image, which he helped fashioned, was mostly an invention. Mosby styled himself a “Knight of the South”, as other Virginians would do during the war, branding himself as a warrior of a culture who obeyed an unspoken code of honor. He defended women and lived by his word. Even the style of combat he chose conformed to the definition of honor that Southerners held. With repeated charges into the ranks of federal cavalry, Mosby was lionized by a culture that gloried in the acts of heroic violence. As the war dragged on, Mosby claimed to fight a style of war that was honorable, but if the Union ever entered into acts he considered uncivilized, he was never beyond revenge, including notorious summary executions of prisoners of war. He was so reviled in the North that rumors quickly spread that Mosby knew of John Wilkes Booth’s conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, and that he may have even assisted in it. While the South would come to idolize “Southern gentlemen” as epitomized by Robert E. Lee, Mosby operated under a far different nature. Though he enlisted with the Confederate army in Virginia after Fort Sumter, he ultimately left the infantry to join J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry, and he later became infamous as an irregular scout leading a group of rangers around Virginia. Of course, the successful feats of daring that Mosby would accomplish during the war, which included capturing a Union general and riding around behind enemy lines to raid and destroy supplies, were supported by the people of Virginia, thus legitimizing his unconventional move to leave army life. Mosby not only earned the nickname “Gray Ghost” by being elusive, he was so successful that part of Virginia was known as “Mosby’s Confederacy” during the war, despite the presence of massive Union armies nearby. Mosby did all this while looking the part of a diminutive man, a physical appearance that Southern culture did not generally view as masculine. In fact, his small size, just 5’8 and 125 pounds, might actually have provoked his aggression. Either way, Mosby overcame and looked the part as a cavalier on a horse, weathered by the elements and war but never beaten down by the enemy he looked down upon from his mount.

     Based on the true story of friendship, courage, and sacrifice. After Abraham Lincoln appoints Ulysses S. Grant as General in Chief of Union Forces, Grant targets Virginia’s pristine Shenandoah Valley, breadbasket of the South. The superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington volunteers to send the Corps of Cadets to help protect the valley. Two hundred seventy-four Cadets march north toward the strategic valley chokepoint at New Market. When Union forces blow a gaping hole in the Southern line, the students are ordered forward. On a rainsoaked field, with mud so thick it pulls the shoes right off their feet, the boys answer the grim call to arms. This is their story.

    Johns River; Gen. William Birney's Raid; the intrepid Cow Cavalry; Confederate spy sisters Lola, Panchita, and Eugenia Sanchez; and the "flight into oblivion" of the Confederate cabinet members. Following the war, in the midst of Reconstruction, many veterans from both sides of the Mason-Dixon packed what remained of their lives and traveled to the warm climate of the "Eastern Frontier" to begin a new life. This book serves as a memorial and tribute to those courageous veterans and their families who endured through this tumultuous time in American history. In the eloquent words of Capt. John Jackson Dickison, "Florida may be justly proud of her gallant sons; wherever her standard has been borne, they have covered it with glory, and, with their heart's blood, secured for her an honorable position among her sister states."

    From his earliest days, Lincoln devoured newspapers. As he started out in politics he wrote editorials and letters to argue his case. He spoke to the public directly through the press. He even bought a German-language newspaper to appeal to that growing electorate in his state. Holzer shows us politicized newspaper editors battling for power, and a masterly president using the press to speak directly to the people and shape the nation.

    The image, widespread among antislavery leaders before the Civil War, captures their long-standing strategy for peaceful abolition: they would surround the slave states with a cordon of freedom. They planned to use federal power wherever they could to establish freedom: the western territories, the District of Columbia, the high seas. By constricting slavery they would induce a crisis: slaves would escape in ever-greater numbers, the southern economy would falter, and finally the southern states would abolish the institution themselves. For their part the southern states fully understood this antislavery strategy. They cited it repeatedly as they adopted secession ordinances in response to Lincoln's election. The scorpion's sting is the centerpiece of this fresh, incisive exploration of slavery and the Civil War: Was there a peaceful route to abolition? Was Lincoln late to emancipation? What role did race play in the politics of slavery? With stunning insight James Oakes moves us ever closer to a new understanding of the most momentous events in our history.

    This is the story of two cousins, on opposite sides of the conflict, that must fight their bloody war of principles and suffer its terrible price. Leaving behind their farms to an uncertain survival, both families face their own horrendous task; staying alive through uncertainty and strife as soldiers, from either side, strip civilians of their food in an effort to feed their armies. Rapes, murders, and petty crimes often plagued those left at home. The Southerners suffer, as the North smashes the rebellion with the force of their industrial-based power. Resisting mainly on pure guts and determination, Southern civilians still would die of hunger or disease. Once the war ends bad times get worse as the carpetbaggers arrive, often buying up huge plantations for what was owed in back taxes, and for pennies on the dollar. The Southern economy was in shambles, with no jobs, and much of its manpower killed in four years of intense struggle. This is the story of two such families and the men they sent to war.

    William Tecumseh Sherman's push southward toward Atlanta threatened the heart of the Confederacy, and Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of Tennessee were the Confederacy's best hope to defend it. In June, Johnston managed to grind Sherman's advance to a halt northwest of Atlanta at Kennesaw Mountain. After weeks of maneuvering, on June 27, Sherman launched a bold attack on Johnston's lines. The Confederate victory was one of the bloodiest days of the entire campaign. And while Sherman's assaults had a frightful cost, Union forces learned important lessons at Kennesaw Mountain that enabled the fall of Atlanta several months later.

    Yet, the war also had its moments of heroism, pride, and humanity. The Civil War in 3D transports us to this defining time in our country's history and puts us right in the middle of the battlegrounds.This unique book-and-box format includes 35 stereoscopic photographs, a sturdy metal stereoscopic viewer through which to see them, and a 176-page illustrated paperback book that tells of the war from the soldiers' perspective, including firsthand descriptions in the form of letters and diaries. What they ate, where they slept, how they filled the long hours while waiting for the next battle to start, and other aspects of their gritty existence are presented along with a timeline of the war that puts the experiences described into context.The 35 3D photographs, many culled from the Smithsonian archive, include images of soldiers building winter quarters, preparing food in the mess hall, bathing in a river in Virginia, waiting at the depot to be transported to the front lines, building roads, following the wagon trains from battle to battle, and recuperating from wounds in hospitals. Detailed descriptions of the scenes depicted in the photographs are included on the back of each card.

    Augustine followed much of the South and widely supported the Confederacy. Many residents rushed to join the Confederate army. Union forces, however, quickly seized the lightly protected town and used it as a rest area for battle-weary troops. Seven Union regiments called the city home during the war. While no major engagement took place in St. Augustine, the city is filled with Civil War history, from supporting the Confederacy to accepting Union generals as respected residents. Join author Robert Redd as he details St. Augustine's rich history during the Civil War and in the postwar years.

    More than one hundred years later, the picturesque valley was witness to a multitude of bloody skirmishes between Confederate and Union forces in the Civil War. Often-overlooked battles at Boone Court House, Coal River, Pond Fork and Kanawha Gap introduced the beginning of total war" tactics years before General Sherman used them in his March to the Sea. Join author and historian Michael Graham as he expertly details the compelling human drama of West Virginia's bitterly contested Coal River Valley region during the War Between the States."

    Most Confederate soldiers were not slaveholders themselves, but they were products of the largest and most prosperous slaveholding civilization the world had ever seen, and they sought to maintain clear divisions between black and white, master and servant, free and slave.In Marching Masters Colin Woodward explores not only the importance of slavery in the minds of Confederate soldiers but also its effects on military policy and decision making. Beyond showing how essential the defense of slavery was in motivating Confederate troops to fight, Woodward examines the Rebels' persistent belief in the need to defend slavery and deploy it militarily as the war raged on. Slavery proved essential to the Confederate war machine, and Rebels strove to protect it just as they did Southern cities, towns, and railroads. Slaves served by the tens of thousands in the Southern armies--never as soldiers, but as menial laborers who cooked meals, washed horses, and dug ditches. By following Rebel troops' continued adherence to notions of white supremacy into the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, the book carries the story beyond the Confederacy's surrender.Drawing upon hundreds of soldiers' letters, diaries, and memoirs, Marching Masters combines the latest social and military history in its compelling examination of the last bloody years of slavery in the United States.

    Over the next four years, he rose steadily in rank from captain to colonel, placing him among the senior artillerists in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. During the war, Carter wrote more than 100 revealing letters to his wife, Susan, about his service. His interactions with prominent officers--including Lee, Jubal A. Early, John B. Gordon, Robert E. Rodes, and others--come to life in Carter's astute comments about their conduct and personalities. Combining insightful observations on military operations, particularly of the Battles of Antietam and Spotsylvania Court House and the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, with revealing notes on the home front and the debate over the impressment and arming of slaves, Carter's letters are particularly interesting because his writing is not overly burdened by the rhetoric of the southern ruling class.Here, Graham Dozier offers the definitive edition of Carter's letters, meticulously transcribed and carefully annotated. This impressive collection provides a wealth of Carter's unvarnished opinions of the people and events that shaped his wartime experience, shedding new light on Lee's army and Confederate life in Virginia.

    From the spirituals of southern fields and the ringing chords of black gospel, to the protest songs that changed the landscape of labor, and the cadences sung in the face of dogs and water cannons in Birmingham, sacred song has stood center-stage in the African-American drama. Hundreds of interviews, one-of-a-kind sources, and rare or lost recordings are used to examine this enormously persuasive facet of the Movement. Nothing but Love in God's Water explains the historical significance of song and helps us understand how music enabled the Civil Rights Movement to challenge the most powerful nation on the planet.

    Why had North and South grown apart? Had it been all about slavery as a moral question? Or were less visible economic interests at work? Perhaps the cultures of the two sections had finally produced irreconcilable differences. The debates continue to this day, with an occasional nugget of new information to spark revised interpretations. But nowhere is the reader likely to find a more brilliant and succinct analysis than in David Potter’s account of the major events that led to war.

    This important 1,000 page work by award-winning author, Southern historian, and slavery scholar Colonel Lochlainn Seabrook decimates the fictitious, deceitful, purposefully misleading view of slavery annually churned out by Yankee mythologists, writers, filmmakers, and bloggers.Lavishly illustrated with over 500 rare and intriguing images, a helpful world slavery time line, and a detailed index of significant historical figures, Colonel Seabrook lays out the truth about the "peculiar institution," a truth that has been nefariously suppressed for centuries by enemies of the South and more recently by the PC police.Did you know, for instance, that Africa was enslaving her own people thousands of years before the transatlantic slave trade; that white American slavery laid the foundation for black American slavery; that Africa enslaved 1.5 million whites in the 1700s; that genuine slavery was never practiced in the American South; that both the American slave trade and slavery got their start in the North; that the American abolition movement began in the South; that five times more blacks fought for the Confederacy than for the Union?Did you know that there were thousands of African-American and Native-American slave owners in early America, and that less than 5 percent of white Southerners owned slaves; that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave-and was not meant to; that until the last day of his life Abraham Lincoln campaigned to have all blacks deported to Africa; and that Jefferson Davis abolished the foreign slave trade before Lincoln did and adopted a black boy during the War? These and thousands of other little known facts will astound, fascinate, and enlighten.In support of his in-depth research the author provides hundreds of eyewitness accounts - dating from the 1600s to the early 20th Century - firsthand testimony clearly illustrating how American slavery came to be, how it was actually practiced, and how both European-Americans and African-Americans viewed it and experienced it. With 21 chapters, nearly 3,500 endnotes, and a comprehensive 2,000 book bibliography, this well investigated yet easy-to-read work - the result of over 20 years of research - is a must-read for every serious student of American history, Southern history, and American slavery. Its release will require every history book to be rewritten. You will never look at slavery the same way again. The foreword is by African-American educator Barbara G. Marthal, B.A., M.Ed. Available in paperback and hardcover.Civil War scholar Lochlainn Seabrook, a descendant of the families of Alexander H. Stephens and John S. Mosby, 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 that have introduced hundreds of thousands to the truth about the War for Southern Independence. A seventh-generation Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage and the sixth great-grandson of the Earl of Oxford, Colonel 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!

    In this book, Frank’s great-great granddaughter compares his daily account of 1864 to Chaplain R. L. Howard’s History of the 124th Illinois Regiment, allowing a more complete picture to emerge of Frank’s character and experience. The 124th Illinois was an exemplary regiment that saw action at the Siege of Vicksburg and other important battles. Frank’s diary is presented along with what happened after he was gone. This narrative is for historians interested in the Civil War soldier’s day to day activity as well as those fascinated by the lineage of family.

    The Civil War ruins plantation life and the agricultural economy of the South. Jacques dreams of living the quiet plantation life, but Celina, the Creole beauty he fell in love with, loves New Orleans. She's a socialite, loves high society, the ritz and glamour of old New Orleans, adores grand balls, and loves being the belle of them. Jacques wants to give her the belle of the ball when it comes to plantation homes, and he buys a prime piece of real estate from her brother to build her the grand dame of them all on River Road in Vacherie, Louisiana. Nothing is too good for his little Creole beauty, his cher bebe. He hoped he wasn't building his plantation in the wrong place by choosing the banks of the Mississippi River, the hub of transportation, with talk of a Civil War. How would Jacques convince Celina to move fifty miles? He'd have to build Live Oaks Plantation before he brought her there. Otherwise, she'd take one look at the place and run for the city she loved. He didn't think an alley of oaks would be enough to persuade her. He hoped the dazzling white splendor of his dreams would capture hers, too. Only time would tell. Celina loved the French Quarter and her home on Royal Street. She envisioned a grand home in the city, and she'd be the mistress of the manor. How could Jacques expect her to move fifty miles away into swampy bayou country where there were no stores to go shopping? Couldn't he have found a superior piece of real estate in the city she loved? Didn't he realize she was born for the city? Even if he planted her in the bayou, she'd never grow to be a sturdy oak there. Her roots were in the city. As the Civil War rages and gunboats steam up the Mississippi River, Celina must escape in a buggy through the woods before the shelling begins. Both her husband and her brother have told her not to worry her pretty little head about a Civil War since she had the entire Confederate Army to protect her. Now, she has only a Colt. Will it be enough? Visit the beautiful antebellum plantation home on the banks of the Mississippi River with an alley of shaded live oaks dripping in Spanish moss. Journey with Jacques and Celina, the plantation's first owners, through their fictional historical love story and rediscover old New Orleans. Diseases ran rampant, tuberculosis and pneumonia among many others, but despite the Civil War and a disease-ravaged city, Jacques and Celina romance under the oaks and find love on the banks of the Mississippi. Love endures all and grows and flourishes like the sugarcane. Even when life as planters knew it is gone, romance under the oaks lives on.http://www.amazon.com/Romance-Under-O...

    A storm hits a small mountain town and the resident must evacuate, where will they go? Visit a zoo unlike any you have experienced. The sins of the past haunt the present in a once thriving industrial town. Discover what lies beneath the boardwalk. Take a walk down memory lane as a woman is haunted by that thing she most loved. Escaping from a zombie hoard may not be the worst danger you face. What does it really mean to “Keep it Jersey”? Join us as we explore the modern interpretation of folklore, culture, and the uniqueness that is New Jersey through 13 tales of horror. Stories by: Scott M. Goriscak, Frank J. Edler, Armand Rosamilia, Julianne Snow, C.I. Kemp, T. Fox Dunham, Christian Jensen, Eli Constant, Blaze McRob, Diane Arrelle, Margaret Colton, Nathanael Gass, and Tim Baker