George Armstrong Custer that radically changes our view of the man and his turbulent times.In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person—capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (he was court-martialed twice in six years). The key to understanding Custer, Stiles writes, is keeping in mind that he lived on a frontier in time. In the Civil War, the West, and many areas overlooked in previous biographies, Custer helped to create modern America, but he could never adapt to it. He freed countless slaves yet rejected new civil rights laws. He proved his heroism but missed the dark reality of war for so many others. A talented combat leader, he struggled as a manager in the West. He tried to make a fortune on Wall Street yet never connected with the new corporate economy. Native Americans fascinated him, but he could not see them as fully human. A popular writer, he remained apart from Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and other rising intellectuals. During Custer’s lifetime, Americans saw their world remade. His admirers saw him as the embodiment of the nation’s gallant youth, of all that they were losing; his detractors despised him for resisting a more complex and promising future. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation in Custer’s tumultuous marriage to his highly educated wife, Libbie; their complicated relationship with Eliza Brown, the forceful black woman who ran their household; as well as his battles and expeditions. It casts surprising new light on a near-mythic American figure, a man both widely known and little understood.

    The only thing she really fears are the Union soldiers fighting against her Confederate friends. When her youngest sister runs away from home, brave Carrie Ann is determined to find her and bring her back. Disguised as a soldier, she sets off--only to find she's fallen into the hands of the enemy.Her childhood friend Confederate Major Joshua Blevins has warned her against these Yankees: they're all devils, ready to inflict evil on unsuspecting young women. When Colonel Peyton Collier arrests her for her impersonation of an officer, it seems to confirm all her fears.Soon, though, she finds herself drawn to the handsome, gallant colonel. He rescued her, protected her, and has been every inch the gentleman. Carrie Ann discovers that her foe has become her ally--and more than that, someone she could love. But the arrival of Joshua in the Union camp as a spy will test her loyalties. Will she protect someone who has been like family or be loyal to this stranger to whom she wants to offer her heart? When her world is being torn apart around her, whom should she trust?Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, A Thousand Shall Fall is framed around compelling characters and a very romantic setting in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Andrea Boeshaar's extensive research guarantees historical accuracy and romance genre enthusiasts and Civil War buffs alike will enjoy the Christian perspectives on actual historical events.

    Thus begins a trip of constant struggle with disease, severe weather, hardship, Indian attack, and death on his lone journey across much of what is now the United States.B.F. spends the next eleven years in gold rush towns in California—first as a barber, then as a physician’s assistant—before departing for the Caribbean at age nineteen, where he becomes a blockade-runner during the American Civil War. At war’s end, he discovers that the men he had been dealing with were nothing more than common murderers and thieves—Bushwhackers.He travels to the Missouri Ozarks where he meets the girl of his dreams. But their romance is threatened when he finds himself battling a man from his past in order to safeguard his family and his future.Orphan Hero, based on the life of the author’s great-grandfather in the mid-nineteenth century, is a tale of courage and perseverance in the face of incredible hardship.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    Now they're fighting for justice and revenge! They Came from one Missouri family, but Lance and Buck Chaney had been fighting on opposite sides of the war—until they were brought together ba a shipment of gold dust. Fighting for the Confederacy, Buck had been ordered to hijack the gold his brother's Union troops were bringing north to Jefferson City. By the time the skirmish was over the shipment of gold was missing. Now the former enemies have joined together again—to hunt down the man who had taken the gold from them both in an act of treachery and bloodshed.

    Each the subject of innumerable biographies, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee have never before been paired as they are here.Exploring their personalities, their character, and their ethical, moral, political, and military worlds, William C. Davis finds surprising similarities between the two men as well as new perspectives on how their lives prepared them for the war they fought and influenced how they fought it. Davis reveals Lee's sense of failure before the war, Grant's optimism during disaster, and the sophisticated social and political instincts that each had when waging a war between democracies.

    Memories of motherhood and marriage are fresh for Julia Presley--though tragedy took away both years ago. Finding comfort in the routine of running the Peach Orchard Inn, she lets the historic, mysterious place fill the voids of love and family. No more pleasure of a man's gentle kiss. No more joy in hearing a child call her Mommy. Life is calm, unchanging...until a stranger with a young boy and soul-deep secrets shows up in her Tennessee town and disrupts the loneliness of her world. Julia suspects there's more to Eli Donovan's past than his motherless son, Alex. There's a reason he's chasing redemption and bent on earning it with a new beginning in Honey Ridge. Offering the guarded man work renovating the inn, she glimpses someone who--like her--has a heart in need of restoration. But with the chance discovery of a dusty stack of love letters buried within the lining of an old trunk, the long-dead ghosts of a Civil War romance envelop Julia and Eli, connecting them to the inn's violent history and challenging them both to risk facing yesterday's darkness for a future bright with hope and healing.

    Goliath struggle in which the North waged “total war” over an underdog South. In The Myth of the Lost Cause, historian Edward Bonekemper deconstructs this multi-faceted myth, revealing the truth about the war that nearly tore the nation apart 150 years ago.

    The Civil War posed a critical test of the young nation's character, endurance, and will to survive. Coming only two generations after the nation's founding, the secession of Southern states challenged the very existence of the United States. "America's most monumental drama and morality tale" comes alive in this brilliant collection from America's leading history magazine, as selected by its current editor-in-chief, Edwin S. Grosvenor.

     In a world of pageantry and show, the Montgomery family accepts the way of life that has been antebellum Charleston for over a hundred years. Two cousins, the handsome and debonair, Wade Montgomery and the bold and brooding Cullen Smythe, were born to be brothers. Raised as Southern gentlemen, their character could never be questioned--loyalty, honor, duty to one's country, God and family. It was the tie that binds until...their bond is threatened, not only by the cry for secession but by a woman--Josephine Buchanan Wright. Josephine Buchanan Wright is a dutiful, southern belle. Her future seems fated to the two Montgomery cousins...until all she has placed her faith in falls apart. As her life spirals out of control, she tries desperately to cling to the honor and duty that has been instilled in her. But how can she do so when all she has known is no more?

    His ancestor, Turner Hall, Jr., a Black Confederate, served as a body servant for two Confederate soldiers and an orderly for Gen. Robert E. Lee. Turner Hall, Jr. was celebrated by Blacks and Whites in his community. Hall attended the last Civil War reunion at Gettysburg in 1938. He was interviewed by the national talk radio show, "We, The People". This is a personal journey of faith, heritage, race and family wrapped around the grace of God through the eyes and honest thoughts of a modern Black man. Arnold argues for African Americans to embrace Confederate heritage to capture the enriched Black history of the Civil War era. He bestows dignity and honor on his Confederate ancestor and challenges the traditional thoughts of modern African Americans. Arnold rests in his faith as the uniting force that reconciles our colorful past to our bright future.

    Despite her parents' objections, she will attend Verity College in Hades, Mississippi, and live with her grandparents. She'll complete her degree in record time and go on to become a doctor. But things at the college are strangely neglected, her class work is unexpectedly hard, Grand gets called out-of-town, and Poppa starts acting weird—so weird she suspects he has Alzheimer's. On top of that, she has to work extra hours at her student job inputting financial data for the college—boring! But soon her job gets more interesting than she’d like: she finds that millions of dollars are unaccounted for and that something creepy is going on in the Big House basement. She discovers secrets tying her family into the dark beginnings of Verity, founded on a slave plantation, and she is forced to question the characters of people she has always trusted. Finally, confronted with a psychotic killer, Patience has to face facts—her plans are not necessarily God’s plans. Will the truth set her free?

    

    General William T. Sherman's battle-hardened army conducted a punitive campaign against the seat of the Rebellion, South Carolina, while General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant sought to break the months-long siege at Petersburg, defended by Robert E. Lee's starving Army of Northern Virginia. In Richmond, Confederate President Jefferson Davis struggled to hold together his unraveling nation while simultaneously sanctioning diplomatic overtures to bid for peace. Meanwhile, President Abraham Lincoln took steps to end slavery in the United States forever.Their Last Full Measure relates these thrilling events, which followed one on the heels of another, from the battles ending the Petersburg siege and forcing Lee's surrender at Appomattox to the destruction of South Carolina's capital, the assassination of Lincoln, and the intensive manhunt for his killer. The fast-paced narrative braids the disparate events into a compelling account that includes powerful armies; leaders civil and military, flawed and splendid; and ordinary people, black and white, struggling to survive in the war's wreckage.

    When serving the Union as a Sharpe's Shooter he stumbles across one of the murderers of his parents and his focus then returns to his quest of revenge taking him into the expanding west.

    She soon discovers that she's combatting more than just the rebellion by becoming a nurse. Will the two men who love her simply stand by and watch as she fights her own battles? Or will their desire for her wage war on her desire to serve God? In Widow of Gettysburg, the farm of Union widow Liberty Holloway is disfigured into a Confederate field hospital, bringing her face to face with unspeakable suffering-and a Confederate scout who awakens her long dormant heart. Will Liberty be defined by the tragedy in her life, or will she find a way to triumph over it? In Yankee in Atlanta, soldier Caitlin McKae wakes up in Atlanta after being wounded in battle. The Georgian doctor who treated her believed Caitlin's only secret was that she had been fighting for the Confederacy disguised as a man. To avoid arrest or worse, Caitlin hides her true identity and makes a new life for herself in Atlanta. When Sherman's troops edge closer to Atlanta, Caitlin tries to escape north, but is arrested on charges of being a spy. Will honor dictate that Caitlin follow the rules, or love demand that she break them? In Spy of Richmond, Union loyalist Sophie Kent attempts to end the war from within the Confederate capital, but she can't do it alone. As Sophie's spy network grows, she walks a tightrope of deception, using her father's position as newspaper editor and a suitor's position in the ordnance bureau. When her espionage endangers the people she loves, she's forced to make a life-and-death gamble.

    The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln stunned a nation that was just emerging from the chaos and calamity of the Civil War, and the president's untimely death altered the trajectory of postwar history. But to those who knew Booth, the event was even more shocking-for no one could have imagined that this fantastically gifted actor and well-liked man could commit such an atrocity. In Fortune's Fool, Terry Alford provides the first comprehensive look at the life of an enigmatic figure whose life has been overshadowed by his final, infamous act. Tracing Booth's story from his uncertain childhood in Maryland, characterized by a difficult relationship with his famous actor father, to his successful acting career on stages across the country, Alford offers a nuanced picture of Booth as a public figure, performer, and deeply troubled man. Despite the fame and success that attended Booth's career--he was billed at one point as "the youngest star in the world"--he found himself consumed by the Confederate cause and the desire to help the South win its independence. Alford reveals the tormented path that led Booth to conclude, as the Confederacy collapsed in April 1865, that the only way to revive the South and punish the North for the war would be to murder Lincoln--whatever the cost to himself or others. The textured and compelling narrative gives new depth to the familiar events at Ford's Theatre and the aftermath that followed, culminating in Booth's capture and death at the hands of Union soldiers 150 years ago. Based on original research into government archives, historical libraries, and family records, Fortune's Fool offers the definitive portrait of John Wilkes Booth.

    Each could choose any image and interpret it in personal and scholarly terms. The result is a remarkable set of essays by twenty-seven scholars whose numerous volumes on the Civil War have explored military, cultural, political, African American, women’s, and environmental history. The essays describe a wide array of photographs and present an eclectic approach to the assignment, organized by topic: Leaders, Soldiers, Civilians, Victims, and Places. Readers will rediscover familiar photographs and figures examined in unfamiliar ways, as well as discover little-known photographs that afford intriguing perspectives. All the images are reproduced with exquisite care. Readers fascinated by the Civil War will want this unique book on their shelves, and lovers of photography will value the images and the creative, evocative reflections offered in these essays.Contributors: Stephen Berry, William A. Blair, Stephen Cushman, Gary W. Gallagher, J. Matthew Gallman, Judith A. Giesberg, Joseph T. Glatthaar, Thavolia Glymph, Earl J. Hess, Harold Holzer, Caroline E. Janney, James Marten, Kathryn Shively Meier, Megan Kate Nelson, Susan Eva O’Donovan, T. Michael Parrish, Ethan S. Rafuse, Carol Reardon, James I. Robertson Jr., Jane E. Schultz, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Brooks D. Simpson, Daniel E. Sutherland, Emory M. Thomas, Elizabeth R. Varon, Joan Waugh, Steven E. Woodworth.

    Author Earl J. Hess challenges this deeply entrenched assumption. He contends that long-range rifle fire did not dominate Civil War battlefields or dramatically alter the course of the conflict because soldiers had neither the training nor the desire to take advantage of the musket rifle's increased range. Drawing on the drill manuals available to officers and a close reading of battle reports, Civil War Infantry Tactics demonstrates that linear tactics provided the best formations and maneuvers to use with the single-shot musket, whether rifle or smoothbore. The linear system was far from an outdated relic that led to higher casualties and prolonged the war. Indeed, regimental officers on both sides of the conflict found the formations and maneuvers in use since the era of the French Revolution to be indispensable to the survival of their units on the battlefield. The training soldiers received in this system, combined with their extensive experience in combat, allowed small units a high level of articulation and effectiveness. Unlike much military history that focuses on grand strategies, Hess zeroes in on formations and maneuvers (or primary tactics), describing their purpose and usefulness in regimental case studies, and pinpointing which of them were favorites of unit commanders in the field. The Civil War was the last conflict in North America to see widespread use of the linear tactical system, and Hess convincingly argues that the war also saw the most effective tactical performance yet in America's short history.

    Royalist officer Major Innocent Stryker is dispatched to hunt a dangerous spy, the link between power brokers in Westminster and Edinburgh. But after running his prey to ground near the Royalist stronghold of Newark, disaster befalls the mission. A large Parliamentarian army is massing before Newark's walls and the garrison is out-gunned and outnumbered: its fall would spell ruin for the King's cause in the Midlands. But Stryker knows that the monarch's formidable nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, is gathering his own force to march to the rescue. A contest of arms is inevitable, and Stryker, still pursuing his own quarry, finds himself embroiled in one of the most remarkable episodes of the English Civil War. Amid the clash of steel and the stink of powder smoke, he will need all his courage and ingenuity to prevail.

    Lee is well known as a major figure in the Civil War. However, by removing Lee from the delimiting frame of the Civil War and placing him in the context of the Republic's total history, Dowdey shows the "eternal relevance" of this tragic figure to the American heritage. With access to hundreds of personal letters, Dowdey brings fresh insights into Lee's background and personal relationships and examines the factors which made Lee that rare specimen, “a complete person.” In tracing Lee's reluctant involvement in the sectional conflict, Dowdey shows that he was essentially a peacemaker, very advanced in his disbelief in war as a resolution.Lee had never led troops in combat until suddenly given command of a demoralized, hodgepodge force under siege from McClellan in front of Richmond. In a detailed study of Lee's growth in the mastery of the techniques of war, he shows his early mistakes, the nature of his seemingly intuitive powers, the limitations imposed by his personal character and physical decline, and the effect of this character on the men with whom he created a legendary army. It was after the fighting was over that Dowdey believes Lee made his most significant and neglected achievement. As a symbol of the defeated people, he rose above all hostilities and, in the wreckage of his own fortunes, advocated rebuilding a New South, for which he set the example with his progressive program in education. The essence of Lee's tragedy was the futility of his efforts toward the harmonious restoration of the Republic with the dissensions of the past forgotten.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    This fascinating book shares the behind-the-scenes drama of both the battle and the development of the ships that transformed naval warfare and changed the course of the Civil War.

    On board is her husband, Alex, crowded into a boxcar with fellow recruits and imagining the terrors awaiting him in Manassas, Gettysburg, Olustee, and the Wilderness. With Alex on the battlefield, Sarah uses her wit and Christian faith to sustain her family through innumerable hardships, made all the more threatening without comfort from her husband. Alone to face these challenges, Sarah makes the most dramatic decision of her life. Based on a true family story, Alligator Creek presents strong characters who survived the hardship of the American Civil War through love, sacrifice, and endurance.

    Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in combat, torpedoed the Union blockade ship USS Housatonic, a feat that would not be repeated for another 50 years. But fate was not kind to the Hunley that night as it sank with all of its crew on board before it could return to shore. Considered by many to be the Civil War’s greatest mystery, the Hunley’s demise and its resting place have been a topic of discussion for historians and Civil War buffs alike for more than a hundred years.Adding still more to the intrigue, the vessel was discovered in 1995 by a dive team led by famed novelist and shipwreck hunter Clive Cussler, sparking an underwater investigation that resulted in the raising of the Hunley on August 8, 2000. Since that time, the extensive research and restorative efforts underway have unraveled the incredible secrets that were locked within the submarine at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.Join Civil War expert Brian Hicks as The Hunley Revealed recounts the most historically accurate narrative of the sinking and eventual recovery ever written. Hicks has been given unprecedented access to all the main characters involved in the discovery, raising, and restoration of the Hunley. Complete with a foreword and additional commentary by Clive Cussler, The Hunley Revealed offers new, never-before-published evidence on the cause of the Hunley’s sinking, providing readers a tantalizing behind-the-scenes look inside the historic submarine.

    She'd rather let "the Americans" settle their differences-until her brothers join Missouri's Union Irish Brigade, and one of their names appears on a list of injured soldiers. Desperate for news, Maggie heads for Boonville, where the Federal army is camped. There she captures the attention of Sergeant John Coulter. When circumstances force Maggie to remain with the brigade, she discovers how capable she is of helping the men she comes to think of as "her boys." And while she doesn't see herself as someone a man would court, John Coulter is determined to convince her otherwise.As the mistress of her brother's Missouri plantation, Elizabeth Blair has learned to play her part as the perfect hostess-and not to question her brother Walker's business affairs. When Walker helps organize the Wildwood Guard for the Confederacy, and offers his plantation as the Center of Operations, Libbie must gracefully manage a house with officers in residence and soldiers camped on the lawn. As the war draws ever closer to her doorstep, she must also find a way to protect the people who depend on her. Despite being neighbors, Maggie and Libbie have led such different lives that they barely know one another-until war brings them together, and each woman discovers that both friendship and love can come from the unlikeliest of places.

    Gallagher and Joan Waugh provide a fresh examination of the Civil War, its aftermath, and enduring memory in a masterful work that prize-winning historian William C. Davis calls, "easily the best one-volume assessment of the Civil War to date."Nothing had prepared Americans for the fury that ensued when eleven slaveholding states seceded and formed the Confederacy in 1860-1861. Four years of fighting claimed more than 1.4 million casualties, directly affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and freed four million enslaved black people. The durability of the Union was confirmed, and the social and economic system based on slavery lay in ruins.By investigating this crucial period through the eyes of civilians, celebrated leaders, and citizen soldiers, readers interested in the Civil War era will gain a profound understanding of the dramatic events, personalities, and social and economic processes that caused the war, enabled the Union to prevail, and forever transformed the United States. It also will help readers understand why, more than 150 years after Appomattox, it remains impossible to grasp the larger sweep of U.S. history without coming to terms with the American War.

    This is not a book about how great generals won their battles, nor is it a study in grand strategy. Men of War is instead a riveting, visceral, and astonishingly original look at ordinary soldiers under fire. Drawing on an immense range of firsthand sources from the battlefield, Alexander Rose begins by re-creating the lost and alien world of eighteenth-century warfare at Bunker Hill, the bloodiest clash of the War of Independence—and reveals why the American militiamen were so lethally effective against the oncoming waves of British troops. Then, focusing on Gettysburg, Rose describes a typical Civil War infantry action, vividly explaining what Union and Confederate soldiers experienced before, during, and after combat. Finally, he shows how in 1945 the Marine Corps hurled itself with the greatest possible violence at the island of Iwo Jima, where nearly a third of all Marines killed in World War II would die. As Rose demonstrates, the most important factor in any battle is the human one: At Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, and Iwo Jima, the American soldier, as much as any general, proved decisive. To an unprecedented degree, Men of War brings home the reality of combat and, just as important, its aftermath in the form of the psychological and medical effects on veterans. As such, the book makes a critical contribution to military history by narrowing the colossal gulf between the popular understanding of wars and the experiences of the soldiers who fight them.Praise for Men of War“A tour de force . . . strikingly vivid, well-observed, and compulsively readable.”—The Daily Beast “Military history at its best . . . This is indeed war up-close, as those who fought it lived it—and survived it if they could. Men of War is deeply researched, beautifully written.”—The Wall Street Journal “A brilliant, riveting, unique book . . . Men of War will be a classic.”—General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army (Retired) “The fact is that Men of War moves and educates, with the reader finding something interesting and intriguing on virtually every page.”—National Review “This is a book that has broad value to a wide audience. Whether the reader aims to learn what actually happens in battle, draw on the military lessons within, or wrestle with what actually defines combat, Men of War is a valuable addition to our understanding of this all-too-human experience.”—The New Criterion “A highly recommended addition to the literature of military history . . . [Rose] writes vividly and memorably, with a good eye for the telling detail or anecdote.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Using the firsthand accounts of brave soldiers who fought for freedom, Rose sheds new light on viewpoints we haven’t heard as widely before. It’s a welcome perspective in an era where most people have no military experience to speak of.”—The Washington Times “Rose poignantly captures the terror and confusion of hand-to-hand combat during the battle.”—The Dallas Morning News “If you want to know the meaning of war at the sharp end, this is the book to read.”—James McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The War That Forged a NationFrom the Hardcover edition.

    Lee wrote to General Ulysses S. Grant asking for peace. Peace was beyond his authority to negotiate, Grant replied, but surrender terms he would discuss. As Gregory Downs reveals in this gripping history of post Civil War America, Grant s distinction proved prophetic, for peace would elude the South for years after Lee s surrender at Appomattox."After Appomattox" argues that the war did not end with Confederate capitulation in 1865. Instead, a second phase commenced which lasted until 1871 not the project euphemistically called Reconstruction but a state of genuine belligerency whose mission was to shape the terms of peace. Using its war powers, the U.S. Army oversaw an ambitious occupation, stationing tens of thousands of troops in hundreds of outposts across the defeated South. This groundbreaking study of the post-surrender occupation makes clear that its purpose was to crush slavery and to create meaningful civil and political rights for freed people in the face of rebels bold resistance.But reliance on military occupation posed its own dilemmas. In areas beyond Army control, the Ku Klux Klan and other violent insurgencies created near-anarchy. Voters in the North also could not stomach an expensive and demoralizing occupation. Under those pressures, by 1871, the Civil War came to its legal end. The wartime after Appomattox disrupted planter power and established important rights, but the dawn of legal peacetime heralded the return of rebel power, not a sustainable peace."

    In a split second, the story of a nation was changed. During the hours that followed, America's future would hinge on what happened in a cramped back bedroom at Petersen's Boardinghouse, directly across the street from Ford's Theatre. There, a twenty-three-year-old surgeon -- fresh out of medical school -- struggled to keep the president alive while Mary Todd Lincoln moaned at her husband's bedside.In Lincoln's Final Hours, author Kathryn Canavan takes a magnifying glass to the last moments of the president's life and to the impact his assassination had on a country still reeling from a bloody civil war. With vivid, thoroughly researched prose and a reporter's eye for detail, this fast-paced account not only furnishes a glimpse into John Wilkes Booth's personal and political motivations but also illuminates the stories of ordinary people whose lives were changed forever by the assassination.While countless works on the Lincoln assassination exist, Lincoln's Final Hours moves beyond the well-known traditional accounts, offering readers a front-row seat to the drama and horror of Lincoln's death by putting them in the shoes of the audience in Ford's Theatre that dreadful evening. Through her careful narration of the twists of fate that placed the president in harm's way, of the plotting conversations Booth had with his accomplices, and of the immediate aftermath of the assassination, Canavan illustrates how the experiences of a single night changed the course of history.

    Indeed, most histories mention it not at all. Mark A. Smith s and Wade Sokolosky s To Prepare for Sherman s Coming: The Battle of Wise s Forks, March 1865 erases this misconception and elevates this battle and its related operations to the historical status it deserves.By March 1865, the Confederacy was on its last legs. Its armies were depleted, food and resources were scarce, and morale was low. Gen. Robert E. Lee was barely holding on to his extended lines around Richmond and Petersburg, and Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was operating with nearly complete freedom in North Carolina on his way north to form a junction with Union forces in Virginia. As the authors demonstrate, the fighting that is the subject of this book came about when Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant initiated a broad military operation to assist Sherman.The responsibility for ensuring a functioning railroad from New Bern to Goldsboro rested with Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox. On March 2, 1865, Cox ordered his hastily assembled Provisional Corps to march toward Goldsboro. In response to Cox s movement, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston executed a bold but risky plan to divert troops away from Sherman by turning back Cox s advance. Under the command of the aggressive but controversial Gen. Braxton Bragg, the Confederates stood for four days and successfully halted Cox at Wise s Forks. This delay provided Johnston with the precious time he needed to concentrate his forces and fight the large and important Battle of Bentonville. To Prepare for Sherman s Coming is the result of years of careful research in a wide variety of archival sources, and relies upon official reports, diaries, newspapers, and letter collections, all tied to a keen understanding of the terrain. Sokolosky and Smith, both career army officers, have used their expertise in military affairs to produce what is not only a valuable book on Wise s Forks, but what surely must be the definitive study of one of the Civil War s overlooked yet significant battles. Outstanding original maps by George Skoch coupled with period photographs reinforce the quality of this account and the authors commitment to excellence.REVIEWS The March 8-10, 1865 Battle of Wise s Forks has been neglected by Civil War historians for too long even though it was one of the largest battles in North Carolina s history. Fought near Kinston, it was the Confederates first major attempt to defeat General Sherman s forces in the Tar Heel State. Authors Wade Sokolosky and Mark A. Smith have crafted a deeply researched and engagingly written study that at last places the Wise s Forks in its proper strategic and operational context. To Prepare for Sherman s Coming will remain the definitive work on the battle for many years to come. Mark L. Bradley, author of Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville The March 8-10, 1865 combat at Wise s Forks was one of the major engagements of Sherman s Carolinas Campaign, and until now, has been completely ignored. A Confederate victory there would have cut Sherman s main line of supply and directly impacted his ability to march across North Carolina. To Prepare for Sherman s Coming rectifies this glaring oversight in a detailed tactical study by retired career Army officers Wade Sokolosky and Mark Smith. For the first time, this small but important battle gets the attention and treatment it has long deserved. The clear and crisp writing, supplemented with original maps, photos, and wonderful research, means this book deserves a place on the bookshelf of any student of the Carolinas Campaign. Eric J. Wittenberg, award-winning Civil War historian and author of The Battle of Monroe s Crossroads and the Civil War s Final Campaign Civil War battle study advocates in general, and enthusiasts of the Carolinas Campaign in particular, will be more than pleased with Sokolosky s and Smith s new book on the battle of Wise s Forks. It is everything readers of this genre enjoy: good research, good writing, helpful original maps, and plentiful photos and illustrations. Now, finally, this small but important battle during the war s final full month in North Carolina gets the due it rightfully deserves. Chris Mackowski, Emerging Civil War Series editor and author of Chancellorsville s Forgotten Front and Grant s Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant"

    The Introduction places the hearings in historical context and draws connections between slavery and post-Emancipation violence. The documents evidence the varieties of violence leveled at freedmen and Republicans, from attacks hinging on land and the franchise to sexual violence and the targeting of black institutions. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions to consider, and a bibliography enrich students’ understanding of the role of violence in the history of Reconstruction.

    A Nation of Rights explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering Americans' relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues that this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.

    Gottfried's efforts to study and illustrate the major campaigns of the Civil War's Eastern Theater. This is his fifth book in the ongoing Savas Beatie Military Atlas Series. The previous four were The Maps of Gettysburg (2007), The Maps of First Bull Run (2009), The Maps of Antietam (2012), and The Maps of the Bristoe Station and Mine Run Campaigns (2013).This latest magisterial work breaks down the entire campaign (and all related operational maneuvers) into 24 map sets or "action-sections" enriched with 120 original full-page color maps. These spectacular cartographic creations bore down to the regimental and battery level. The Maps of the Wilderness includes an assessment of the winter of 1863-1864, the planning for the campaign, the crossing of the Rapidan River, and two days of bloody combat and the day of watchful stalemate thereafter.At least one--and as many as eight--maps accompany each "action-section." Opposite each map is a full facing page of detailed footnoted text describing the units, personalities, movements, and combat (including quotes from eyewitnesses) depicted on the accompanying map, all of which make the story of the first large-scale combat of 1864 come alive. Each cartographic snapshot also serves to unlock everything ever written on the subject. This detailed coverage also includes an order of battle, interview with the author, bibliography, and an index.This original presentation leads readers on a journey through the epic battle that would prove to be the opening salvo in a prolonged fight that would not end until the Confederates surrendered at Appomattox in April 1865. The Wilderness Campaign has two unique characteristics. First, although he did not command the Army of the Potomac, the battle was Ulysses S. Grant's first against General Robert E. Lee. Second, the Wilderness fighting--prolonged, bloody, and inconclusive--is widely viewed as the most confusing action of the entire war. The dense thickets and deep smoke obscured much of what occurred during the two days of combat. Gottfried's book cuts through the confusion to deliver a clear account of the horrendous struggle.Perfect for the easy chair or for walking hallowed ground, The Maps of the Wilderness is a seminal work that, like his earlier studies, belongs on the bookshelf of every serious and casual student of the Civil War, or in the hands of an avid enthusiast out walking the Hallowed Ground.

    Although the masked man disappears as quietly as he came, Anna finds she cannot forget him. Nor can the conductor forget her, and when slave catchers pursue Anna and her charges, he returns to rescue them. Love blossoms, but the advent of the American Civil War soon tears them apart. Called upon to spy for the Union Army, the conductor must leave the woman he loves. Can they find each other again in the chaos and destruction of war? Is love truly enough to surmount every obstacle?

    Ordered to crush the morale as well as the military infrastructure of the Confederacy, Sherman and his army increasingly targeted wealthy civilians in their progress through Georgia and the Carolinas. To drive home the full extent of northern domination over the South, Sherman's soldiers besieged the female domain-going into bedrooms and parlors, seizing correspondence and personal treasures-with the aim of insulting and humiliating upper-class southern women. These efforts blurred the distinction between home front and warfront, creating confrontations in the domestic sphere as a part of the war itself. Historian Lisa Tendrich Frank argues that ideas about women and their roles in war shaped the expectations of both Union soldiers and Confederate civilians. Sherman recognized that slaveholding Confederate women played a vital part in sustaining the Rebel efforts, and accordingly he treated them as wartime opponents, targeting their markers of respectability and privilege. Although Sherman intended his efforts to demoralize the civilian population, Frank suggests that his strategies frequently had the opposite effect. Confederate women accepted the plunder of food and munitions as an inevitable part of the conflict, but they considered Union invasion of their private spaces an unforgivable and unreasonable transgression. These intrusions strengthened the resolve of many southern women to continue the fight against the Union and its most despised general. Seamlessly merging gender studies and military history, The Civilian War illuminates the distinction between the damage inflicted on the battlefield and the offenses that occurred in the domestic realm during the Civil War. Ultimately, Frank's research demonstrates why many women in the Lower South remained steadfastly committed to the Confederate cause even when their prospects seemed most dim.

    From spine-tingling sounds coming from the dark woods to slave catchers hot on their trail, fear is their constant companion. Can Moses and Tom trust the two men on horseback who offer them aid? Across the Ohio River in Ripley, young Will Butler fears the consequences of the Fugitive Slave Law if he helps runaways. But after hearing Rev. John Rankin's compelling message, the entire Butler family becomes a link in the Underground Railroad. Grampa told the boys to trust God, but will Grampa's prayers be enough to get them safely through the snake-filled Great Black Swamp? A life or death decision stands between them and the steamship at Lake Erie. Will Moses and Tom ever be free?

    Now, with the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War upon us, TIME-LIFE The Civil War in 500 Photographs will be an indispensable guide to a nation-changing era and the military, social, economic, and political forces that shaped it. The narrative of the Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865, is familiarly to almost all Americans, from Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln's noble declaration that "the government cannot endure permanently half-slave, half-free" to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Yet the details of the battles and battlefields, the political maneuverings, and the personalities who defined the war continue to fascinate citizens of all ages. TIME-LIFE The Civil War in 500 Photographs taps into that into that interest, providing a fresh and accessible way to appreciate this most important conflict. It will lay out the war's major developments in arresting, colorized images and cover topics from the backstory through secession, the Union's early setbacks, the Underground Railroad, victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and Reconstruction. For history buffs and the newly curious, The Civil War in 500 Photographs will be the ultimate, easy-to-use guide to four years that changed our nation forever.

    Only one will survive.One boy is Stanley Mitchell, a Yankee, shot and his leg broken. The other is Aaron Matthews, a Confederate, mortally wounded, the son of a local Christian family. When Aaron's mother, Davina, comes in search of her son, she finds Stanley instead, who tells her where Aaron is—on the condition that she take Stanley back to her farm and nurse him back to health.Davina's older children are outraged at Stanley's presence in their home, but no one could have anticipated the results of his presence among them:• The kindling of romance between Stanley and Davina's teenaged daughter, Anna.• The challenge Stanley's presence brings to Davina's relationship with the Jacksons, her family of slaves.• The uncontrollable enmity with which Davina's son Luke regards Stanley.• The warmth that develops between Stanley and Davina herself.Until Shiloh Comes, the first novel in the Shiloh Trilogy, is a story of love—love between Stanley and Anna, and love among the members of the two families on the farm, one white, one black. It is a story of personal choices and their consequences. And it's the story of the fight to save Stanley from the grief-fueled anger of Southerners who would rather kill a Yankee than allow him to live among them.Once you have begun to read Until Shiloh Comes, you won't be able to put it down.

    Confederate forces under John Bell Hood desperately fought to stop William T. Sherman's advancing armies as they tried to cut the last Confederate supply line into the city. Confederates under General Stephen D. Lee nearly overwhelmed the Union right flank, but Federals under General Oliver O. Howard decisively repelled every attack. After five hours of struggle, 5,000 Confederates lay dead and wounded, while only 632 Federals were lost. The result was another major step in Sherman's long effort to take Atlanta.Hess's compelling study is the first book-length account of the fighting at Ezra Church. Detailing Lee's tactical missteps and Howard's vigilant leadership, he challenges many common misconceptions about the battle. Richly narrated and drawn from an array of unpublished manuscripts and firsthand accounts, Hess's work sheds new light on the complexities and significance of this important engagement, both on and off the battlefield.

    Meanwhile, Lee had one final option open to him: escape to North Carolina and join up with General Joe Johnston or otherwise accept defeat. Here are the war’s final days and minutes, the race to the finish of America’s bloodiest years.

    Almost every topic has been thoroughly scrutinized except one: Paul Philippoteaux s massive cyclorama painting The Battle of Gettysburg, which depicts Pickett s Charge, the final attack at Gettysburg. The Gettysburg Cyclorama: The Turning Point of the Civil War on Canvas is the first comprehensive study of this art masterpiece and historic artifact.This in-depth study of the history of the cyclorama discusses every aspect of this treasure, which was first displayed in 1884 and underwent a massive restoration in 2008. Coverage includes not only how it was created and what it depicts, but the changes it has undergone and where and how it was moved. Authors Chris Brenneman and Sue Boardman also discuss in fascinating detail how the painting was interpreted by Civil War veterans in the late 19th Century.With the aid of award-winning photographer Bill Dowling, the authors utilized modern photography to compare the painting with historic and modern pictures of the landscape. Dowling s remarkable close-up digital photography allows readers to focus on distant details that usually pass unseen. Every officer, unit, terrain feature, farm, and more pictured in the painting is discussed in detail. Even more remarkable, the authors reveal an important new discovery made during the research for this book: in order to address suggestions from the viewers, the cyclorama was significantly modified five years after it was created to add more soldiers, additional flags, and even General George Meade, the commander of the Union Army!With hundreds of rare historic photographs and beautiful modern pictures of a truly great work of art, The Gettysburg Cyclorama: The Turning Point of the Civil War on Canvas is a must-have for anyone interested in the Battle of Gettysburg or is simply a lover of exquisite art.REVIEWS For generations, millions of Gettysburg s visitors have experienced Pickett s Charge through the canvas of Paul Philippoteaux s massive Cyclorama. But the full story of the painting s creation, restoration, and ongoing interpretation has never before been fully told. Authors Chris Brenneman and Sue Boardman, along with photographer Bill Dowling, have used their behind the scenes access to create a colorful and lively guide that will appeal to Gettysburg students, scholars, and lovers of fine art. James A. Hessler, Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide, author of Sickles at Gettysburg (2009) and Pickett s Charge at Gettysburg (2015) The Gettysburg Cyclorama of Pickett s Charge by Paul Philippoteaux is the most famous and iconic work of art about the battle.This beautifully illustrated and superbly researched book is quite simply the most thorough exploration of the painting s fascinating history and subject matter ever written. D. Scott Hartwig, former Supervisory Historian for Gettysburg National Military Park, and the author of To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign of September 1862 Few works of art are more important or more fascinating than the Gettysburg Cyclorama, Paul Philippoteaux s mammoth painting documenting Pickett s Charge on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. Here, for the first time, Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guides Chris Brenneman, Sue Boardman, and Bill Dowling examine every detail of this epic painting, including its restoration in the early 2000s, the changes made to it, and the politics, history, and accuracy behind its fascinating detail. Scores of photographs in both color and black and white enhance this book which is a must-read for anyone interested in the Battle of Gettysburg and how it is remembered. Eric J.Wittenberg, award-winning author of Gettysburg s Forgotten Cavalry Actions(Savas Beatie, 2011) and The Devil s to Pay: John Buford at Gettysburg: A History andWalking Tour (Savas Beatie, 2014)"

    The literature on the subject is replete with errors, theories and guesswork. This comprehensive work on the assassination and on the attempted assassination of other Northern leaders in the closing days of the Civil War, seeks to correct major and minor errors in the record, reconcile differences of opinion of historians and scholars, offer explanations for great unknowns and make sense of conspiracy theories. After a Foreword by the renowned historian, Joan L. Chaconas, it begins with the background of the conflict, threats and assassination attempts against Lincoln, black flag warfare, the Wistar and Dahlgren-Kilpatrick Raids on Richmond and the Confederate response thereto, and it ends with the incarceration, trial and sentencing of the assassin's action team (except for John H. Surratt, who would be tried separately in 1867, and except that one of those tried was not really a member of Booth's team) and an in-depth analysis of conspiracy. In between are chapters on the underground mosaic; Booth and his co-conspirators; the great kidnapping myth that concealed the planned decapitation of the United States government; the setting for assassination; riddles, conundrums, enigmas and mysteries relating to key players in the drama; carnage in the presidential box; Booth's descent to the stage, declamations, broken leg, exit and escape; attempted decapitation of the government; the death of the President; Edman Spangler's innocence; the pursuit of the fugitives; and the death of Booth. The author rejects the simple conspiracy theory and affirms the Tidwell, Hall and Gaddy thesis of the complicity of the highest levels of the Confederate government and its Secret Service Bureau. The author makes use of hundreds of sources to justify his conclusions and to give greater cohesion to the record of the events of April 14, 1865.

    

    Collected here are numerous documents written by Abraham Lincoln from 1832 to 1865, over the course of his long career as a lawyer, statesman, and president of the United States. From the man who led the nation through the Civil War and into its Reconstruction, Lincoln’s written statements—including the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address—are some of the most significant documents in American history. Included with these works are telegrams to politicians and wartime generals as well as personal letters discussing a range of topics, from youth and marriage to depression.   This extensive collection is not only an excellent documentary history of America’s greatest trial as a nation, but also an opportunity to enjoy the intellect and wit of one of America’s greatest orators. As Theodore Roosevelt says in his introductory comments, “Lincoln’s deeds and words are not only of consuming interest to the historian, but should be intimately known to every man engaged in the hard practical work of American political life.”  This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    Grant and George Gordon Meade, against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In spite of having outmaneuvered Lee, after three days of battle in which the Confederates at Petersburg were severely outnumbered, Union forces failed to take the city, and their final, futile attack on the fourth day only added to already staggering casualties. By holding Petersburg against great odds, the Confederacy arguably won its last great strategic victory of the Civil War.In The Battle of Petersburg, June 15–18, 1864, Sean Michael Chick takes an in-depth look at an important battle often overlooked by historians and offers a new perspective on why the Army of the Potomac’s leadership, from Grant down to his corps commanders, could not win a battle in which they held colossal advantages. He also discusses the battle’s wider context, including politics, memory, and battlefield preservation. Highlights include the role played by African American soldiers on the first day and a detailed retelling of the famed attack of the First Maine Heavy Artillery, which lost more men than any other Civil War regiment in a single battle. In addition, the book has a fresh and nuanced interpretation of the generalships of Grant, Meade, Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, and William Farrar Smith during this critical battle.

    This was not the end of his exploits, however, and by war's end, he was so respected that Ulysses S. Grant chose Chamberlain to accept the South's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. The novel traces his evolution from an arrogant, overbearing professor to unwitting and unlikely hero and leader of men. Interwoven are subplots including the coming of age of his young orphaned aide, a complicated marriage, and of course, lots of rousing battle scenes. The story begins with a ferocious battle scene that orphans fourteen-year-old Emmett Collins. Following the last instructions of his father, Emmett shows up on Chamberlain's doorstep in Brunswick, Maine, where he joins Chamberlain and the 20th Maine as they embark for war in the late summer of 1862. He grows from a boy into a man over the next three years as he accompanies Chamberlain on his rise through the ranks to Major General and recipient of the Medal of Honor. Joshua Chamberlain and Emmett Collins journey to the battlefront in September of 1862, engaging in limited action until July of 1863. As is the wont of history, sometimes-great fates turn on the smallest of incidents. In this case, the 20th Maine was positioned on a small knoll, Little Round Top, on the extreme left of the entire Union Army. The order was given to defend this hill AT EVERY HAZARD, for failure here would allow the Confederates to roll up the flank and would most certainly result in Union defeat. After hours and hours of fierce fighting, outnumbered, with half his regiment wounded or dead and those still standing short on ammunition, Joshua Chamberlain ordered the 20th Maine to fix bayonets and led a sweeping charge. This cleared the field, making sure the defense of the left flank, the success of the army, the saving of the capital, and possibly the endurance of the United States of America. Subsequently, Chamberlain continued to prove his mettle even after being grievously wounded and left for dead at RIVES SALIENT, Virginia, in June of 1864. During the course of his recovery from this and five other wounds requiring journeys home to heal, we get glimpses of his difficult marriage to Fanny, an early feminist who fancied herself better suited to the world of art than motherhood. Once back on the battlefield, Chamberlain's exploits continue in an almost unbelievable series of events. In March of 1865 the Siege of Petersburg ends with the Union Army driving the Confederates from their defensive positions and into a desperate flight of survival. General Chamberlain, now commanding the 1st Brigade of the 2nd Division, furthers his reputation as a fearless leader in the battle of WHITE OAK ROAD. Badly wounded, Chamberlain survived to drive the Confederates from the field, and later, FIVE FORKS. When his presence closed the final trap on Lee and his army a week later at APPOMATTOX, General Ulysses S. Grant bestowed on him the honor of receiving their surrender. During the ceremony, he paid tribute to the defeated Confederates, ordering "carry arms," an honorable marching salute, as they laid down their guns. Observing the course of his extraordinary rise through the ranks, we come to understand the American Civil War in all of its horrible carnage, cloaked as it was in threadbare veils of honor, valor, and chivalry. This is the story of a boy, a hero, a conflicted country, a troubled society, a story which overflows with period detail and action, with very human characters, all caught up in a drama which truly did change the course of history.

    All through out the country citizens are taking to the streets to give thanks and celebrate the coming peace. Yet, for Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth, the struggle is just beginning. In the White House, Lincoln struggles to make peace with his part in the war and to face the daunting challenge of the coming Reconstruction when he is confronted with a new agony. Terrifying dreams that seem to predict his death and the persistent presence of the ghost of his dead son Willie unsettle him. Unable to sleep without being forced to visit the dark place in the forest where his corpse lay, Lincoln is reduced to spending sleepless nights wandering around his home and office alone in the dark, fearing every sound might be his dead son returning for him. Meanwhile, down the street at the Surratt House, John Wilkes Booth alternates between crippling depression over the collapse of the Confederacy and joy as he designs his plan to salvage the South's cause and etch his name into the history books. Chasing a maniac's desire for fame and redemption he relies on deceit and his force of personality to drag those around him down a dangerous path of revenge. Surrounded by the rejoicing residents of the Union capitol and interesting characters such as Mary Surratt and General Grant, these two men drift towards their dreadful encounter at Ford's Theatre on which the fate of the nation rests.

    Concerned Northerners turned to the print media for guidance on how to be good citizens in a war that hit close to home but was fought hundreds of miles away. They read novels, short stories, poems, songs, editorials, and newspaper stories. They laughed at cartoons and satirical essays. Their spirits were stirred in response to recruiting broadsides and patriotic envelopes. This massive cultural outpouring offered a path for ordinary Americans casting around for direction. Examining the breadth of Northern popular culture, J. Matthew Gallman offers a dramatic reconsideration of how the Union's civilians understood the meaning of duty and citizenship in wartime. Although a huge percentage of military-aged men served in the Union army, a larger group chose to stay home, even while they supported the war. This pathbreaking study investigates how men and women, both white and black, understood their roles in the People's Conflict. Wartime culture created humorous and angry stereotypes ridiculing the nation's cowards, crooks, and fools, while wrestling with the challenges faced by ordinary Americans. Gallman shows how thousands of authors, artists, and readers together created a new set of rules for navigating life in a nation at war.

    Lawrence Abel sheds much-needed light on the fascinating details surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln, including John Wilkes Booth's illness that turned him into an assassin, the medical treatment the president is alleged to have received after he was shot, and the significance of his funeral for the American public. The author provides an in-depth analysis of the science behind the assassination, a discussion of the medical care Lincoln received at the time he was shot and the treatment he would have received if he were shot today, and the impact of his death on his contemporaries and the American public.The book examines Lincoln's fatalism and his unbridled ambition in terms of empirical psychological science rather than the fanciful psychoanalytical explanations that often characterize Lincoln psychohistories. The medical chapters challenge the long-standing description of Lincoln's last hours and examine the debate about whether Lincoln's doctors inadvertently doomed him.

    It was a groundbreaking look at the then-known photographs of the sixteenth president of the United States, who was the first president to be photographed while in office. In the decades that followed, Meserve made new discoveries and updated the information that was known about each image. He published an expanded edition in 1944, collaborating with the Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg. This new work, published on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's death, is an update to Meserve's original biographical documentation, and includes 114 portraits. Here we see Lincoln's striking face, photographed over a span of 20 years (1846-65). Published with the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, this new iteration of The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln reflects not only Meserve's pioneering research, but the work of the many Lincoln scholars who followed in his footsteps and the work of five generations of Meserve's family who advanced his scholarship. The new volume is edited by Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., the executive director of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, who brings his expertise on Lincoln, having previously coauthored two titles on the president. This new edition of The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln is an essential and intimate collection of portraits of the legendary president, and an important volume for American archival and photographic history.

    Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant had resolved to destroy his Confederate adversaries through attrition if by no other means. He would just keep at them until he used them up.Meanwhile, Grant s Confederate counterpart, Robert E. Lee, looked for an opportunity to regain the offensive initiative. We must strike them a blow, he told his lieutenants.The toll on both armies was staggering.But Grant s war of attrition began to take its toll in a more insidious way. Both army commanders operating on the dark edge of exhaustion, fighting off illness, pressure-cooked by stress began to feel the effects of that continuous, merciless grind in very personal ways. Punch-drunk tired, they began to second-guess themselves, began missing opportunities, began making mistakes.As a result, along the banks of the North Anna River, commanders on both sides brought their armies to the brink of destruction without even knowing it.Picking up the story started in the Emerging Civil War Series book A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, historian Chris Mackowski follows the road south to the North Anna River. Strike Them a Blow: Battle Along the North Anna River offers a concise, engaging account of the mistakes and missed opportunities of the third and least understood phase of the Overland Campaign.REVIEWS A fascinating account of just one battle during the American Civil War. -Books Monthly"

    Lee's Army of Northern Virginia encompasses the defense and evacuation of the Confederate capital of Richmond, the horrific combat in the trenches of Petersburg, General Robert E. Lee's withdrawal toward the Carolinas in his forlorn hope of a rendezvous with General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee to carry on the fight, the relentless pursuit of Union forces, and the ultimate realization that further resistance against overwhelming odds was futile.The Army of Northern Virginia was the fighting soul of the Confederacy in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War. From its inception, it fought against overwhelming odds. Union forces might have occupied territory, but as long as the Confederate army was active in the field, the rebellion was alive. Through four years of bitter conflict, the Army of Northern Virginia and its longtime commander, General Robert E. Lee, became the stuff of legend. By April 1865, its days were numbered.There are many stories of heroism and sacrifice, both Union and Confederate, during the Civil War, and Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia wrote their own epic chapter. Author Michael E. Haskew, a researcher, writer, and editor of many military history subjects for over twenty years, puts the hardship and deprivation suffered by this Army's soldiers while defending their home and ideals into proper perspective.

    Nothing else very uncommon.” Many years later came the 1856 Pottawatomie Massacre, where his uncommon convictions led him and his band of abolitionists to kill five pro-slavery settlers in Franklin County, Kansas. Three years later, Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and his subsequent trial and execution helped push an already divided nation inexorably toward civil war.This is the story of John Brown, the age he embodied and the myth he became, and how the tragic gravity of his actions transformed America’s past and future. Through biographical narrative, his life and legacy are discussed as a study in metaphor and power and the nature of historical memory.

    Despite popular perception that doctors recklessly erred on the side of amputation, surgeons labored mightily to adjust to the medical quagmire of war. And as Brian Craig Miller shows in Empty Sleeves, the hospital emerged as the first arena where southerners faced the stark reality of what amputation would mean for men and women and their respective positions in southern society after the war. Thus, southern women, through nursing and benevolent care, prepared men for the challenges of returning home defeated and disabled. Still, amputation was a stark fact for many soldiers. On their return, southern amputees remained dependent on their spouses, peers, and dilapidated state governments to reconstruct their shattered manhood and meet the challenges brought on by their newfound disabilities. It was in this context that Confederate patients based their medical care decisions on how comrades, families, and society would view the empty sleeve. In this highly original and deeply researched work, Miller explores the ramifications of amputation on the Confederacy both during and after the Civil War and sheds light on how dependency and disability reshaped southern society.

    Nonetheless, Union commander Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade had yet to come to serious blows with his Confederate counterpart, Gen. Robert E. Lee. Lee is undoubtedly bullying you, one of Meade s superiors goaded.Lee s army severely bloodied at Gettysburg did not have quite the offensive capability it once possessed, yet Lee s aggressive nature could not be quelled. He looked for the chance to strike out at Meade.In mid-October, 1863, both men shifted their armies into motion. Each surprised the other. Quickly, Meade found himself racing northward for safety along the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, with Lee charging up the rail line behind him.Last stop: Bristoe Station.Authors Robert Orrison and Bill Backus have worked at the Bristoe Station battlefield, which is now surrounded by one of the fastest-growing parts of Virginia. In A Want of Vigilance, they trace the campaign from the armies camps around Orange and Culpeper northwest through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and along the vital railroad to Centreville and back in a back-and-forth game of cat and mouse: the goggle-eyed snapping turtle versus the old gray fox pitted against each other in one of the most overlooked periods of the war."REVIEWS " an excellent short summary of a complex but often overlooked period of the Civil War. The tactical stalemates of Bristoe and later Mine Run led to the reorganization of the Union war effort in the East and the subsequent Overland Campaign of the Spring and Summer of 1964.Civil War News September 2016

    Surratt, John's mother, but no major book has focused on John Surratt. Surratt was John Wilkes Booth's closest associate during the four months leading up to the assassination, and a known member of the Confederate Secret Service with ties to the highest levels of CSA Government. Adding to the intrigue, Surratt's two-year run from the law is a fascinating adventure, spanning the globe from New York to Canada, England, Italy and Egypt. When in Italy he went into hiding as a member of the Papal Zouaves - the Pope's mercenary army.

    Since neutrality appeared virtually impossible, the vast majority of territory residents chose a side, doing so for myriad reasons and not necessarily out of affection for either the Union or the Confederacy. Indigenous residents found themselves fighting to protect their unusual dual status as communities distinct from the American citizenry yet legal wards of the federal government. The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory is a nuanced and authoritative examination of the layers of conflicts both on and off the Civil War battlefield. It examines the military front and the home front; the experiences of the Five Nations and those of the agency tribes in the western portion of the territory; the severe conflicts between Native Americans and the federal government and between Indian nations and their former slaves during and beyond the Reconstruction years; and the concept of memory as viewed through the lenses of Native American oral traditions and the modern evolution of public history. These carefully crafted essays by leading scholars such as Amanda Cobb-Greetham, Clarissa Confer, Richard B. McCaslin, Linda W. Reese, and F. Todd Smith will help teachers and students better understand the Civil War, Native American history, and Oklahoma history.

    Marching armies, sounds of battle and fear of war had arrived on their doorsteps by the summer of 1862. The Maryland Campaign of September 1862 brought thousands of wounded Confederates into the town’s homes, churches and warehouses. The story of Shepherdstown’s transformation into “one vast hospital” recounts nightmarish scenes of Confederate soldiers under the caring hands of an army of surgeons and civilians. Author Kevin R. Pawlak retraces the horrific accounts of Shepherdstown as a Civil War hospital town.

    But when the unthinkable happens and she has nothing to lose she makes a daring plan to escape and embarks on an uncertain future that will take her deep into the heart of a war torn country, where she will meet with life changing events and people. Travel with this gritty youngster who is determined to survive and create a life of her own. Who learns that the greatest of legacies has nothing to do with where you started or how much you have.

    It is both a war for freedom and a war that turns brother against brother. It is also a period of technological warfare. The most advanced weapons and tactics the world has ever seen make their appearance. Will you: Fight as an infantryman in either the Union or Confederate Army? Fight as a Union or Confederate artillery soldier? Fight as a cavalry soldier for the Union or Confederate Army? You Choose offers multiple perspectives on history, supporting Common Core reading standards and providing readers a front row seat to the past.

    Sanders examines the life of Emilie Todd Helm, the rebel sister-in-law of President Abraham Lincoln. As the wife of a Confederate general and the half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln, Emilie was torn between two worlds. Having lost several brothers in the Civil War, she suffered another blow when her husband was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga. In December 1863, she traveled to the White House and mourned with Mary Lincoln. Although politicians condemned the Union commander-in-chief for hosting this rebel widow, to President Lincoln she was simply “Little Sister,” a grieving family member who brought comfort to his wife. Sadly, a year later, Emilie ended contact with Mary after she blamed Lincoln for their family woes. Their relationship—fractured like their family—was another casualty of the war. "Lincoln’s Confederate 'Little Sister:' Emilie Todd Helm" describes Emilie’s life, her controversial 1863 visit to the White House, and her unique role in postwar reconciliation, when she revered her husband’s Confederate legacy while commemorating Lincoln’s memory. Stuart W. Sanders is the author of three Civil War books, including "Perryville Under Fire: The Aftermath of Kentucky’s Largest Civil War Battle," "The Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky," and "Maney’s Confederate Brigade at the Battle of Perryville."

    The stories range from the Union’s delayed introduction of repeating arms and why a commercial steamer and not a warship was sent to relieve Fort Sumter to how Robert E. Lee’s critical dispatch at the battle of Antietam may have been lost and whether Southern poverty is the most protracted legacy of the war. Written to promote discussion and debate, this volume will intrigue those who enjoy Civil War history and contemplating alternatives to many assumed conclusions.

    The program for the occasion featured music, prayer, orations, and benedictions. In the middle of it all, the president gave a few commemorative remarks, speaking for just two minutes, delivering what we now know as the Gettysburg Address. Challenged to mark the enormity of the battle — which had turned the tide of the war, though neither side realized it yet — Lincoln used 272 words in ten sentences to rededicate the Union to the preservation of freedom. It remains the most important statement of our nation’s commitment to personal liberty since the Revolutionary War and has become one of the most important speeches in American history, a cornerstone of who we are as a country. A century and a half later, we still hold Lincoln’s message in our hearts. For Gettysburg Replies, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum challenged presidents, judges, historians, filmmakers, poets, actors, and others to craft 272 words of their own to celebrate Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address, or a related topic that stirs their passions. President Jimmy Carter reveals how the Gettysburg Address helped bring Egypt and Israel closer at the Camp David Peace Accords. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor reflects on Lincoln’s dedication to the importance of civic education. General Colin Powell explains how Martin Luther King Jr. took up Lincoln’s mantle and carried it forward. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg touches on the benefits and perils of hero worship. Poet Laureate Billy Collins explores the dichotomy between the private man who wrote poetry (“My Childhood Home I See Again”) and the president who stood before all. Attorney Alan Dershowitz echoes Lincoln’s words to rally us to the freedom from weapons of mass destruction. Gettysburg Replies features images of important Lincoln documents and artifacts, including the first copy of the address that Lincoln wrote out after delivering it, the program from the cemetery dedication, Lincoln’s presidential seal, and more. Together, these words and images create a lasting tribute not only to Lincoln himself but also the power of his devotion to freedom.

    Reynolds, one of the finest generals to command in the Union ranks during the Civil War. The book follows Reynolds’ exploits from childhood through his cadet years at West Point, active service in the Mexican War, and then in the Civil War. Universally respected by the men under his command and even within the Confederate ranks; he fought with skill and courage despite often being handicapped by the Union High Command. His lasting legacy rests on his superlative efforts on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, arriving in the nick of time to stall and then halt the Confederate advance at the cost of his life.“A model of its kind.”—New York Times Book Review

    Abraham Lincoln was one of the most photographed figures of his century. Richard Lowry explores Lincoln’s association with Alexander Gardner, the man who would create the most memorable and ultimately iconic images of the president, both in his studio and on the battlefields of the Civil War. Lowry’s book is an accessible and lively narrative of this symbiotic relationship and an examination of the emerging role of the media at a moment of national transformation. Lincoln was an early adopter of photographic technology and visionary in how he used it—as FDR was with radio, JFK with television, and Obama with the internet. By highlighting this very modern aspect of such a storied presidency, Lowry opens a new door on Lincoln’s relationship to politics and celebrity just as the mass culture of the image was taking root in America.

    Lee’s 1862 Maryland campaign to win Southern independence. Written with close attention to historical events, Six Days in September follows Lee’s struggle against a powerful Federal foe while the men in his army battle starvation and the terror of combat. As the armies descend on the sleepy village of Sharpsburg, a local pastor and his nephew are confronted with the hardship of military occupation and the threatened destruction of their beloved town.

    

    The Civil War in 1861 gave Catholic Americans a chance to prove their patriotism once and for all. Exploring how Catholics sought to use their participation in the war to counteract religious and political nativism in the United States, Excommunicated from the Union reveals that while the war was an alienating experience for many of 200,000 Catholics who served, they still strove to construct a positive memory of their experiences in order to show that their religion was no barrier to their being loyal American citizens.

      This book is new scholarship and, most importantly, fresh research that challenges many commonly held notions of the Vicksburg and Port Hudson campaigns.  In the past, the movement of large armies and the grand assaults garnered the most attention.  As Blood on the Bayou reveals, small unit actions and big government policies in the Trans-Mississippi did as much to shape the outcome of the war as did the great armies and famous captains of legend and lore.  No student of the Civil War should ignore this book.  Scholars of Vicksburg and Port Hudson will find their studies incomplete without a thorough examination of this work.   As with the other books in the Louisiana Quadrille series, the military campaigns remain front and center. I trace the movements of obscure regiments and battles fought on unfamiliar trans-Mississippi landscapes in June and July, 1863, and tell a little-known aspect of the sieges of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. I examine the evolution of Federal and Confederate strategy and sketch the leaders tasked with carrying these plans forward. There is enough combat to satisfy even the most ardent student of campaigns and commanders.   The sources, however, revealed an almost obsessive concern over slavery by both sides. Actually, these soldiers, civilians, and politicians did not fret over the institution of slavery as much as control over the slaves themselves. Both Federal and Confederate authorities seemed preoccupied with who physically controlled the enslaved population. This led me to review Republican views on this subject, and especially those held by Abraham Lincoln. The tug-of-war over people—whom some considered persons held in bondage and others considered human property—also caused me to reexamine the peculiar institution as a salient feature of Confederate national identity. A greater appreciation for the causes of the war emerged. While states’ rights certainly provided a framework and context for the argument, slavery caused the war, not vice versa.   Physical control of the slave population impacted how the Federal Government conducted the war. When war broke out, slaves emerged first as “contraband,” then morphed into “self-emancipated” persons, before becoming the raison d’être of the Mississippi Valley campaigns in 1863. The African-Americans became plunder, if you will. I came to the conclusion that the gathering of these persons drove, in part, Union military strategy in the Mississippi Valley. Lincoln wanted slaves removed from southern owners, concentrated in areas convenient to Union logistics centers, and then redistributed to serve as soldiers or farmers on behalf of the United States. The longer the military campaigns in the Mississippi Valley dragged on, the more Federal officials could feed liberated slaves into the system.   This strategy held that, once Union troops had removed slaves from bondage and repurposed them to other tasks, it would be nearly impossible for their former masters to re-enslave them. No matter the outcome of the war, the Federal government set out to break slavery—forever. Fearing a rapid collapse of the Confederacy, abolitionists intended to make sure that readmitted states did not reestablish slavery. Remember, slavery was then a state prerogative. Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment still lay months into the future.   Concurrently, Lincoln believed Black troops would help achieve victory and then secure the peace. One the shooting ended these African-American regiments might serve as an army of occupation. The largest concentration of slaves lay in the Mississippi Valley and this population needed to be under Federal control. The Rebel forts at Vicksburg and Port Hudson were impediments. Even so, despite the presence of these Confederate citadels, US troops could remove the African-American population of this region into zones of their choosing with increasing impunity. The fall of these positions facilitated commerce and navigation on the Mississippi. Yet, the great gathering of African-Americans began, and continued, notwithstanding the Rebels in the earthworks.

    The overwhelming cataclysm, which would have wrecked a lesser nation, ended with Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Just as the weary citizens on both sides let themselves contemplate peacetime pursuits came one final blow. On April 14, a Marylander and outlandish white supremacist assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Horrified northerners had vengeful thoughts. But vengeance would have to wait. The martyred president, contrary to the wishes of his devastated wife and family, would need an appropriate send-off, a funeral to rival that of an emperor. It would be the first American national funeral and possibly the most spectacular of all. In The Lincoln Funeral: An Illustrated History, artist and historian Michael Leavy presents this solemn, regal, and romantic event in contemporary photographs and drawings, some rarely reproduced. What emerges is a marvel of rapidly formed committees, highly polished trains, and clicking telegraph keys. Cities and towns went into a frenzy to out-do each other in honoring the fallen president. Trains and telegraphs drove the event, producing a near national hysteria that resulted in police having to restrain enormous crowds across the Northeast and Midwest. But this collection of illustrations demonstrates that the Lincoln funeral was not wholly about pageantry. The slow railroad procession and attending ceremonies to Illinois were a collective expression of intractable grief. People wanted somehow to keep “Old Abe” alive—the man who only a month earlier had been despised by as many as revered him. With his death the entire country understood how much he meant to the nation.

    Delivered on November 19, 1863, among the freshly dug graves of the Union dead, the Gettysburg Address defined the central meaning of the Civil War and gave cause for the nation's incredible suffering. The poetic language and moral sentiment inspired listeners at the time, and have continued to resonate powerfully with groups and individuals up to the present day. What gives this speech its enduring significance? This collection of essays, from some of the best-known scholars in the field, answers that question. Placing the Address in complete historical and cultural context and approaching it from a number of fresh perspectives, the volume first identifies how Lincoln was influenced by great thinkers on his own path toward literary and oratory genius. Among others, Nicholas P. Cole draws parallels between the Address and classical texts of Antiquity and John Stauffer considers Lincoln's knowledge of the King James Bible and Shakespeare. The second half of the collection then examines the many ways in which the Gettysburg Address has been interpreted, perceived, and utilized in the past 150 years. Since 1863, African Americans, immigrants, women, gay rights activists, and international figures have invoked the speech's language and righteous sentiments on their respective paths toward freedom and equality. Essays include Louis P. Masur on the role the Address played in eventual emancipation; Jean H. Baker on the speech's importance to the women's rights movement; and Don H. Doyle on the Address's international legacy. Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg in a defining moment for America, but as the essays in this collection attest, his message is universal and timeless. This work brings together the foremost experts in the field to illuminate the many ways in which that message continues to endure.

    By the outset of the Civil War, citizen-officers had fallen under sharp criticism from career military leaders who decried their lack of discipline and efficiency in battle. Andrew S. Bledsoe's Citizen--Officers explores the role of the volunteer officer corps during the Civil War and the unique leadership challenges they faced when military necessity clashed with the antebellum democratic values of volunteer soldiers.Bledsoe's innovative evaluation of the lives and experiences of nearly 2,600 Union and Confederate company-grade junior officers from every theater of operations across four years of war reveals the intense pressures placed on these young leaders. Despite their inexperience and sometimes haphazard training in formal military maneuvers and leadership, citizen-officers frequently faced their first battles already in command of a company. These intense and costly encounters forced the independent, civic-minded volunteer soldiers to recognize the need for military hierarchy and to accept their place within it. Thus concepts of American citizenship, republican traditions in American life, and the brutality of combat shaped, and were in turn shaped by, the attitudes and actions of citizen-officers.Through an analysis of wartime writings, post-war reminiscences, company and regimental papers, census records, and demographic data, Citizen--Officers illuminates the centrality of the volunteer officer to the Civil War and to evolving narratives of American identity and military service.

    Yet in little more than a century, history has largely forgotten Jones's considerable accomplishments in the Civil War and the Gilded Age that followed. In this masterful biography, Mark H. Dunkelman resurrects Jones's story and restores him to his rightful standing as an exceptional military officer and influential politician of nineteenth-century America.Patrick Henry Jones (1830-1900), a poor Irish immigrant, began his career in journalism before gaining admittance to the New York bar. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, Jones volunteered for service in the Union Army. He rose steadily through the ranks of the 37th New York, became general of the 154th New York, and eventually attained the rank of brigadier general. Jones was one of only twelve native Irishmen ever to attain that rank in the federal forces.When the war ended, Jones's reputation as a military hero gave him an entry into politics under the mentorship of editor Horace Greeley and politician Reuben E. Fenton. He served in both elective and appointed offices in the state of New York, navigating the corruptions, scandals, and political upheavals of the Golden Age. Ultimately, his entanglement with one of the most sensational crimes of his era-a high-profile grave-robbing from the cemetery of St. Mark's Church-tainted his name and ruined his once-respectable career.In the first full-length biographical account of this important figure, Patrick Henry Jones tells the quintessentially American story of an immigrant who overcame both his humble origins and the rampant xenophobia of mid-nineteenth-century America to achieve a level of prominence equaled by few of his peers.

    Overlooking the mouth of the Savannah River and the Atlantic Ocean, Fort Pulaski is named in honor of Gen. Casimir Pulaski, Revolutionary War hero and father of the US Cavalry, which endured some of the most damaging artillery combat in early American warfare. In addition to its unfortunate notoriety for serving as the first fort where a rifled cannon was successfully tested in combat against masonry forts, it played a part in other significant events, including a baseball game during the Civil War where one of the first photographs of the sport was taken with the newly invented camera. Ultimately, the fort was considered important enough to be preserved and designated a national monument.

    While his presidency was tragically cut short by his assassination, Garfield's historic life covered some of the most consequential years of American history. From humble beginnings in Ohio, he rose to become a major general in the Union army. Garfield's military career took him to the backwoods of Kentucky, the fields of Shiloh and Chickamauga and ultimately to the halls of Congress. His service during the war helped to save the Union he would go on to lead as president. Join historian Daniel J. Vermilya to discover the little-known story of James Garfield's role in the Civil War.

    Explore the Confederate experience in South Carolina through a wide and fascinating array of primary historic resources, including letters, diaries, journals and more.

    

    Fourteen hours. Twelve thousand Union cavalrymen against 9,000 of their Confederate counterparts with three thousand Union infantry thrown in for good measure. Amidst the thunder of hooves and the clashing of sabers, they slugged it out across the hills and dales of Culpepper County, Virginia.And it escalated into the largest cavalry battle ever fought on the North American continent.Fleetwood Hill at Brandy Station was the site of four major cavalry battles during the course of the Civil War, but none was more important than the one fought on June 9, 1863. That clash turned out to be the opening engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign and the one-day delay it engendered may very well have impacted the outcome of the entire campaign.The tale includes a veritable who s-who of cavalry all-stars in the East: Jeb Stuart, Wade Hampton, John Buford, and George Armstrong Custer. Robert E. Lee, the great Confederate commander, saw his son, William H. F. Lee, being carried off the battlefield, severely wounded. Both sides suffered heavy losses.But for the Federal cavalry, the battle was also a watershed event. After Brandy Station, never again would they hear the mocking cry, Whoever saw a dead cavalryman? In Out Flew the Sabers: The Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863 The Opening Engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign, Civil War historians Eric J. Wittenberg and Daniel T. Davis have written the latest entry in Savas Beatie s critically acclaimed Emerging Civil War Series."

    In this illuminating collection, prominent historians of nineteenth-century America offer insightful overviews of the individuals, events, and issues that shaped the future of the United States in 1865.Following an introduction by renowned Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, nine new essays explore the end of the Civil War, Lincoln’s death, and the start of the tentative peace in 1865. Michael Vorenberg discusses how Lincoln shepherded through the House of Representatives the resolution sending the Thirteenth Amendment to the states for ratification, John F. Marszalek and Michael B. Ballard examine the partnership of Lincoln’s war management and General Ulysses S. Grant’s crucial last thrusts against Robert E. Lee, and Richard Striner recounts how Lincoln faced down Confederate emissaries who proposed immediate armistice if Lincoln were to reverse the Emancipation Proclamation. Ronald C. White Jr. offers a fresh look at Lincoln’s second inaugural address, and Richard Wightman Fox provides a vivid narrative of Lincoln’s dramatic walk through Richmond after the Confederates abandoned their capital.Turning to Lincoln’s assassination, Edward Steers Jr. relates the story of Booth’s organizational efforts that resulted in the events of that fateful day, and Frank J. Williams explains the conspirators’ trial and whether they should have faced military or civilian tribunals. Addressing the issue of black suffrage, Edna Greene Medford focuses on the African American experience in the final year of the war. Finally, Holzer explains the use of visual arts to preserve the life and legacy of the martyred president.Rounding out the volume are a chronology of national and international events during 1865, a close look at Lincoln’s activities and writings from January 1 through April 14, and other pertinent materials. This thoughtful collection provides an engaging evaluation of one of the most crucial years in America’s evolution.

    Price’s invading army was like few others seen during the Civil War – an army of cavalry that lacked men, horses, weapons, and discipline. Its success depended entirely upon an uprising of pro-Confederate Missourians. When that uprising did not occur, Price’s rag-tag army marched through the state exacting revenge, seeking supplies and gathering conscripts. It was a march that took too long and allowed Union forces to converge and defeat Price in a series of battles that ran from Kansas City to the Arkansas border. Three months and 1,400 miles after it started, the longest sustained cavalry operation of the war ended in disaster. The Last Hurrah is the story of Price’s invasion from its politically-charged planning to its starving retreat. The Last Hurrah is also the story of what happened after the shooting stopped. Even as hundreds of Missourians followed Price out of the state and tried desperately to join his army, elements of the Union army visited retribution upon Confederate sympathizers and demonstrated little regard for the lives of the prisoners they had captured. Many more would suffer and die long after Sterling Price had fled Missouri.

    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.” – Abraham LincolnWithout question, the most famous battle of the American Civil War took place outside of the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which happened to be a transportation hub, serving as the center of a wheel with several roads leading out to other Pennsylvanian towns. From July 1-3, Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia tried everything in its power to decisively defeat George Meade’s Union Army of the Potomac, unleashing ferocious assaults that inflicted nearly 50,000 casualties in all. When a crowd came to Gettysburg in November 1863 to commemorate the battle fought there 4 months earlier and dedicate a new national cemetery, they came to hear a series of speeches about the Civil War and the events of that battle. Today it may seem obvious to invite the president to such an occasion, but Lincoln was initially an afterthought, and though he did come to deliver remarks, he was not in fact the keynote speaker. Instead, the man chosen to give the keynote speech was Edward Everett, a politician and educator from Massachusetts. Everett had already been a Congressman, the 15th Governor of Massachusetts, Minister to Great Britain, and Secretary of State, and by the Civil War, he was considered perhaps the greatest orator in the nation, making him a natural choice to be the featured speaker at the dedication ceremony.Everett is still known today for his oratory, but more for the fact that he spoke for over two hours at Gettysburg immediately before President Lincoln delivered his immortal two-minute Gettysburg Address. Everett would later say, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.” At the time, however, Lincoln and many others present at the event thought his speech fell flat and was ultimately a failure that would be consigned to the dustbin of history. Perhaps Lincoln’s most impressive feat is that he was able to convey so much with so few words; after Everett spoke for hours at Gettysburg, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address only took a few minutes, but in those few minutes, Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence. In the process, he redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union but as "a new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, ensure that democracy would remain a viable form of government, and would also create a unified nation in which states' rights were no longer dominant. 150 years later, Lincoln’s speech is still considered arguably the greatest in American history, yet the exact wording of the speech is disputed. The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address differ in a number of details and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech.

    Lucas over keeping her family safe.When her brother joins up with the northern troops fighting to keep Missouri in the Union, Em Gilmore’s left with the responsibility of keeping her family safe. Discovering a band of rebels camping nearby, she must get word to her brother and his handsome friend Lieutenant Lucas.Levi Lucas is torn between defending his nation and protecting Em from her foolish notions of invulnerability. Her stubbornness is bound to get her in trouble, and he can’t be there to rescue her when he’s in battle hundreds of miles away. If he survives whatever campaigns lay ahead, will she be there to welcome him home?

    However, as Guy R. Hasegawa reveals in this fascinating study, numerous chemical agents were proposed during the Civil War era. As combat commenced, Hasegawa shows, a few forward-thinking chemists recognized the advantages of weaponizing the noxious, sometimes deadly aspects of certain chemical concoctions. They and numerous ordinary citizens proposed a host of chemical weapons, from liquid chlorine in artillery shells to cayenne pepper solution sprayed from fire engines. In chilling detail, Hasegawa describes the potential weapons, the people behind the concepts, and the evolution of some chemical weapon concepts into armaments employed in future wars. As he explains, bureaucrats in the war departments of both armies either delayed or rejected outright most of these unusual weapons, viewing them as unneeded or unworkable. Nevertheless, many of the proposed armaments presaged the widespread use of chemical weapons in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Especially timely with today’s increased chemical threats from terrorists and the alleged use of chemical agents in the Syrian Civil War, Villainous Compounds: Chemical Weapons and the American Civil War expands the history of chemical warfare and exposes a disturbing new facet of the Civil War.  In chilling detail, Hasegawa describes the weapons proposed and prepared for use during the war and introduces the people behind the concepts. Although many of the ideas for chemical weapons had a historical precedent, most of the suggested agents were used in industry or medicine, and their toxicity was common knowledge. Proponents, including a surprisingly high number of civilian physicians, suggested a wide variety of potential chemical weapons—from liquid chlorine in artillery shells to cayenne pepper solution sprayed from fire engines. Some weapons advocates expressed ethical qualms, while others were silent on the matter or justified their suggestions as necessary under current circumstances.   As Hasegawa explains, bureaucrats in the war departments of both armies either delayed or rejected outright most of these unusual weapons, viewing them as unneeded or unworkable. Nevertheless, many of the proposed armaments presaged the widespread use of chemical weapons in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For example, while Civil War munitions technology was not advanced enough to deliver poison gas in artillery shells as some advocates suggested, the same idea saw extensive use during World War I. Similarly, forms of an ancient incendiary weapon, Greek fire, were used sparingly during the Civil War and appeared in later conflicts as napalm bombs and flamethrowers.   Especially timely with today’s increased chemical threats from terrorists and the alleged use of chemical agents in the Syrian Civil War, Villainous Compounds: Chemical Weapons and the American Civil War reveals the seldom-explored chemical side of Civil War armaments and illuminates an underappreciated stage in the origins of modern chemical warfare.

    An army expedition and Clara Barton identified the graves of the thirteen thousand who perished there and established the Andersonville National Cemetery. In the 1890s, veterans and the Woman’s Relief Corps, wanting to ensure the nation never forgot the tragedy, began preserving the site. The former prisoners expressed in granite their sorrow and gratitude to those who died or survived the prison camp. Join author and historian Stacy W. Reaves as she recounts the horrendous conditions of the prison and the tremendous efforts to memorialize the men within.

    Indeed, his love of jokes—hearing them, telling them, drawing morals from them—prompted critics to dub Lincoln “the National Joker.” The political cartoons and print satires that mocked Lincoln often trafficked in precisely the same images and terms Lincoln humorously used to characterize himself. In this intriguing study, Todd Nathan Thompson considers the politically productive tension between Lincoln’s use of satire and the satiric treatments of him in political cartoons, humor periodicals, joke books, and campaign literature. By fashioning a folksy, fallible persona, Thompson shows, Lincoln was able to use satire as a weapon without being severely wounded by it.   In his speeches, writings, and public persona, Lincoln combined modesty and attack, engaging in strategic self-deprecation while denouncing his opponents, their policies, and their arguments, thus refiguring satiric discourse as political discourse and vice versa. At the same time, he astutely deflected his opponents’ criticisms of him by embracing and sometimes preemptively initiating those criticisms. Thompson traces Lincoln’s comic sources and explains how, in reapplying others’ jokes and stories to political circumstances, he transformed humor into satire. Time and time again, Thompson shows, Lincoln engaged in self-mockery, turning negative assumptions or depictions of him—as ugly, cowardly, jocular, inexperienced—into positive traits that identified him as an everyman while attacking his opponents’ claims to greatness, heroism, and experience as aristocratic or demagogic. Thompson also considers how Lincoln took advantage of political cartoons and other media to help proliferate the particular Lincoln image of the “self-made man”; underscores exceptions to Lincoln’s ability to mitigate negative, satiric depictions of him; and closely examines political cartoons from both the 1860 and 1864 elections. Throughout, Thompson’s deft analysis brings to life Lincoln’s popular humor.

    More than three thousand men--white and black--from current-day Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties answered the call to preserve the Union. While Confederate ships lurked within eight miles of Montauk Point, camps in Mineola and Willets Point trained regiments. Local women raised thousands of dollars for Union hospitals, and Long Island companies manufactured uniforms, drums and medicines for the army. At the same time, a little-remembered draft riot occurred in Jamaica in 1863. Local authors Harrison Hunt and Bill Bleyer explore this fascinating story, from the 1860 presidential campaign that polarized the region to the wartime experiences of Long Islanders on the battlefield and at home.

    Their reminiscences provide a fascinating and harrowing account of the battle as they fought the Army of the Potomac. Speeches were given in the decades after the battle during the annual reunions of Hood's Brigade Association and the dedication of the Hood's Brigade Monument that took place on 26-27 October 1910 at the state capital in Austin, Texas. These accounts describe their actions at Devil's Den, Little Round Top and other areas during the battle. For the first time ever, their experiences are compiled in Texans at Gettysburg: Blood and Glory with Hood's Texas Brigade.

    Grant at Fort Donelson"It was not possible for brave men to endure more." – General Lew WallaceWhile the Lincoln Administration and most Northerners were preoccupied with trying to capture Richmond in the summer of 1861, it would be the little known Ulysses S. Grant who delivered the Union’s first major victories, over a thousand miles away from Washington. Grant’s new commission led to his command of the District of Southeast Missouri, headquartered at Cairo, after he was appointed by “The Pathfinder”, John C. Fremont, a national celebrity who had run for President in 1856. Fremont was one of many political generals that Lincoln was saddled with, and his political prominence ensured he was given a prominent command as commander of the Department of the West early in the war before running so afoul of the Lincoln Administration that he was court-martialed. In January of 1862, Grant persuaded General Henry “Old Brains” Halleck to allow his men to launch a campaign on the Tennessee River. As soon as Halleck acquiesced, Grant moved against Fort Henry, in close coordination with the naval command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote. The combination of infantry and naval bombardment helped force the capitulation of Fort Henry on February 6, 1862, and the surrender of Fort Henry was followed immediately by an attack on Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, which earned Grant his famous nickname “Unconditional Surrender”. Grant’s forces enveloped the Confederate garrison at Fort Donelson, which included Confederate generals Simon Buckner, John Floyd, and Gideon Pillow. In one of the most bungled operations of the war, the Confederate generals tried and failed to open an escape route by attacking Grant’s forces on February 15. Although the initial assault was successful, General Pillow inexplicably chose to have his men pull back into their trenches, ostensibly so they could take more supplies before their escape. Instead, they simply lost all the ground they had taken, and the garrison was cut off yet again.During the early morning hours of February 16, the garrison’s generals held one of the Civil War’s most famous councils of war. Over the protestations of cavalry officer Nathan Bedford Forrest, who insisted the garrison could escape, the three generals agreed to surrender their army, but none of them wanted to be the fall guy. General Floyd was worried that the Union might try him for treason if he was taken captive, so he turned command of the garrison over to General Pillow and escaped with two of his regiments. Pillow had the same concern and turned command over to General Buckner before escaping alone by boat. With no attempt to conceal his anger at the cowardice displayed by his commanding officers, Forrest announced, "I did not come here to surrender my command!" He then proceeded to round up his own men and rallied hundreds of men before leading them on a daring and dramatic escape under the cover of darkness through the icy waters of Lick Creek to escape the siege and avoid capture. Despite all of these successful escapes, General Buckner decided to surrender to Grant, and when asked for terms of surrender, Grant replied, “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender.” In addition to giving him a famous sobriquet, Grant’s campaign was the first major success for the Union, which had already lost the disastrous First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 and was reorganizi

    This book explores how nature—disease, climate, flora and fauna, and other factors—affected the war and also how the war shaped Americans’ perceptions, understanding, and use of nature. The contributors use a wide range of approaches that serve as a valuable template for future environmental histories of the conflict.In his introduction, Brian Allen Drake describes the sparse body of environmental history literature related to the Civil War and lays out a blueprint for the theoretical basis of each essay. Kenneth W. Noe emphasizes climate and its effects on agricultural output and the battlefield; Timothy Silver explores the role of disease among troops and animals; Megan Kate Nelson examines aridity and Union defeat in 1861 New Mexico; Kathryn Shively Meier investigates soldiers’ responses to disease in the Peninsula Campaign; Aaron Sachs, John C. Inscoe, and Lisa M. Brady examine philosophical and ideological perspectives on nature before, during, and after the war; Drew Swanson discusses the war’s role in production and landscape change in piedmont tobacco country; Mart A. Stewart muses on the importance of environmental knowledge and experience for soldiers, civilians, and slaves; Timothy Johnson elucidates the ecological underpinnings of debt peonage during Reconstruction; finally, Paul S. Sutter speculates on the future of Civil War environmental studies. The Blue, the Gray, and the Green provides a provocative environmental commentary that enriches our understanding of the Civil War.

    Whitman eventually served as a volunteer "hospital missionary," making more than six hundred hospital visits and serving over eighty thousand sick and wounded soldiers in the next three years. With the 1865 publication of Drum-Taps, Whitman became poet laureate of the Civil War, aligning his legacy with that of Abraham Lincoln. He remained in Washington until 1873 as a federal clerk, engaging in a dazzling literary circle and fostering his longest romantic relationship, with Peter Doyle. Author Garrett Peck details the definitive account of Walt Whitman's decade in the nation's capital.

    Based on more than 500 original sources discovered at the Library of Congress, The 116 delves into the lives of these 116 men and their charismatic leader—Kansas "free state" advocate and lawyer Jim Lane. It paints a provocative portrait of the 'civil war' between Free-State and Pro-Slavery forces that tore Missouri and the Kansas Territory apart in the 1850s, and gives a vivid picture of the legal battles pertaining to the protection and abolition of slavery that riled Congress on both a federal and state level, eventually leading to the eruption of war in 1861.

    It is almost four years since King Charles I was executed. While Parliament dithers and Oliver Cromwell’s impatience mounts, an armed avenger stalks the streets and a series of murders threatens the highest echelons of government.At the core of the mystery is Thomas Darke. He may be a colonel in Parliament’s victorious army, but his one obsession is with a crime: the assassination of Colonel Rainsborough, the army’s foremost radical. He may work as a waterman on the Thames, but his secret activities touch the realms of power, where royalist still contends against parliamentarian and where John Thurloe, Cromwell’s spymaster, strives to lay hands on the fatal avenger. Darke may even tempt the heart of the beautiful Alice Hull—but can she give herself to a man whom death seems to pursue like a familiar?This taut tale of revenge explores new aspects of two shocking events during the struggle for democracy in England: the assassination of Colonel Rainsborough in 1648, and the invasion of the House of Commons on 20 April 1653, when Parliament was dissolved in a military coup.Above all it is an ingenious ghost story, following a driven, vengeful spirit through the intimate and vivid lives of the people of London as he discovers, paradoxically, what it is to be human.Have the cavaliers underestimated Darke’s determination to avenge the crime he witnessed all those years ago?Farewell, Cavaliers is the sequel to The Winter Prince and is the second thrilling installment of the Terror and Awe: England’s Revolution series. Praise for Cheryl Sawyer 'Cheryl Sawyer weaves an excellent story and creates fabulous characters that stay with you long after you finish the book.' Historical Novel Society Praise for The Winter Prince ‘Hardcore history buffs will appreciate the fly-on-the-turret view of the dramas besieging the British royal court in 1642, when the country is rocked by civil war.’ Publishers Weekly ‘The depiction of Rupert as a commander is both vivid and convincing. I was particularly impressed by the description of the battles of Newark and Marston Moor … seen as they might have appeared to Rupert at the time, in a spectacular manner.’ Sir Frank Kitson (former Commander-in-Chief, UK Land Forces)‘Politics and passion, duty and desire provide the key ingredients in The Winter Prince, as Sawyer deftly matches her expertly crafted, history-rich plot with a wonderfully intriguing heroine and bittersweet romance.’ Booklist, American Library Association New Zealander Cheryl Sawyer has two master's degrees, with honors in French and English literature, and her career has included teaching, publishing, and writing. She has traveled to all the countries where her novels are set, and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. Author website: cherylhingley.com Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.