Lee's radical decision to divide his small army - a violation of basic military rules - sending Stonewall Jackson on his famous march around the Union army flank. Jackson's death - accidentally shot by one of his own soldiers - is one of the many fascinating stories included in this definitive account of the battle of Chancellorsville.

    Four years later, another flag was raised in its place while the city burned below. A thirteen-year-old girl compared the stars and stripes to "so many bloody gashes." This richly detailed, absorbing book brings to life the years in which Richmond was the symbol of Southern independence and the theater for a drama as splendid, sordid, and tragic as the war itself. Drawing on an array of archival sources, Ashes of Glory portrays Richmond's passion through the voices of soldiers and statesmen, preachers and prostitutes, slaves and slavers. Masterfully orchestrated and finely rendered, the result is a passionate and compelling work of social history."Furguson is a lively writer with an eye for the apt quotation and the telling incident...He brings to life a diverse cast of characters."--Newsday"Succeeds to a remarkable extent...Furguson brings war-torn Richmond to life."--Baltimore Sun

    He is one of the few writers of the era who actually fought in the war, who participated in its daily routines and experienced the senseless confusion, the terror, and the blood-letting of battle. As such, his crisply evocative first-hand accounts--both fictional and nonfictional--of life and death on the firing line set the standard for historical accuracy as well as dramatic power.William McCann has sifted through Ambrose Bierce's vast literary opus to present a collection of his most outstanding stories of the Civil War: seven selections from the author's memoirs and twenty works of fiction in all.From the minute-by-minute- heartbeat-by-heartbeat recreation of combat in "What I Saw of Shiloh" to the graphic realism and tragedy of such stories as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," Biere's craftsmanship--the intensity of his vision, the precision of his prose--is evident throughout.Whether you're a history enthusiast, Civil War buff, or simply a lover of good, tough, evocative writing, Ambrose Bierce's Civil War is your opportunity to discover some of the grittiest and most vivid depictions of battle on record. --jacket flapContains:On a mountain --What I saw of Shiloh --A little of Chickamauga --The crime at Pickett's Mill --Four days in Dixie --What occurred at Franklin --A bivouac of the dead ; A horseman in the sky --An occurrence at Owl Creek bridge --Chickamauga --A son of the gods --One of the missing --Killed at Resaca --The affair at Coulter's Notch --The coup de grace --Parker Adderson, philosopher --An affair of outposts --The story of a conscience --One kind of officer --One officer, one man --George Thurston --The mocking-bird --Three and one are one --A baffled ambuscade --Two military executions --A resumed identity --Jupiter Doke, brigadier-general.

    Mancini chronicles one of the harshest, most exploitative labor systems in American history. Devastated by war, bewildered by peace, and unprepared to confront the problems of prison management, Southern states sought to alleviate the need for cheap labor, a perceived rise in criminal behavior, and the bankruptcy of their state treasuries. Mancini describes the policy of leasing prisoners to individuals and corporations as one that, in addition to reducing prison populations and generating revenues, offered a means of racial subordination and labor discipline. He identifies commonalities that, despite the seemingly uneven enforcement of convict leasing across state lines, bound the South together for more than half a century in reliance on an institution of almost unrelieved brutality.He describes the prisoners' daily existence, profiles the individuals who leased convicts, and reveals both the inhumanity of the leasing laws and the centrality of race relations in the establishment and perpetuation of convict leasing.In considering the longevity of the practice, Mancini takes issue with the widespread notion that convict leasing was an aberration in a generally progressive history of criminal justice. In explaining its dramatic demise, Mancini contends that moral opposition was a distinctly minor force in the abolition of the practice and that only a combination of rising lease prices and years of economic decline forced an end to convict leasing in the South.

    . . massively researched . . . those seeking a richly detailed journal of the cavalry's role in one of the war's crucial campaigns will find this book irreplaceable." --Blue & Gray Magazine "This volume is meticulously detailed and comes to some convincing conclusions." --The Journal of American History "A vivid account of the campaign that helped decide the outcome of the Civil War. . . . A rich narrative that will delight students of the Civil War."--Kirkus Reviews Attempting a quick, decisive victory in the 1864 struggle for Atlanta, William Tecumseh Sherman's cavalry wreaked havoc in the countryside around the city. This book, based largely upon previously unpublished materials, tells the story of Sherman's raids. Through exhaustive research, David Evans has been able to recreate a vivid, captivating, and meticulously detailed image of the day-by-day life of the Yankee horse soldier.

    Vivid descriptions of conditions at Andersonville include the rise of the prison police force and the execution of "raiders." Saved by being assigned to the dispensary, Hyde was given the chance to observe arid record the medical care, death, and burying of many of his colleagues as well as life in the Confederacy around him.

    Author Pat Brennan's skilful pen strokes brush away the obscuring shadows in Secessionville: Assault on Charleston, the first full-length treatment of this important and long-neglected early-war battle.

    Previously understood only as a rear guard action on the way to Richmond and overshadowed by the events of the Seven Days, it was in fact a savage two days' engagement which at its height involved more than 20,000 troops in combat. This is the first full length book to treat the battle in all its strategic importance. The authors draw heavily on original sources to reconstruct the action and to highlight the stories of military and civilian participants in the battle and its aftermath. That original material offers new insights into events associated with the Battle of Williamsburg. An extensive appendix describes the location of the battlefield and includes descriptions of key sites which still exist.

    Griffin left Edgefield, South Carolina and rode off to Virginia to take up duty with the Confederate Army in a style that befitted a Southern gentleman: on a fine-blooded horse, with two slaves to wait on him, two trunks, and his favorite hunting dog. He was thirty-five years old, a wealthy planter, and the owner of sixty-one slaves when he joined Wade Hampton's elite Legion as a major of cavalry. He left behind seven children, the eldest only twelve, and a wife who was eight and a half months pregnant. As a field officer in a prestigious unit, the opportunities for fame and glory seemed limitless. Griffin, however, performed no daring acts, nor did he inspire great loyalty in his men. Instead, he unknowingly provided a unique and invaluable portrait of the Confederate officers who formed the core of Southern political, military, and business leadership. In A Gentleman and an Officer, Judith N. McArthur and Orville Vernon Burton have collected eighty of Griffin's letters written at the Virginia front, and during later postings on the South Carolina coast, to his wife Leila Burt Griffin. Extraordinary in their breadth and volume, the letters encompass Griffin's entire Civil War service, detailing living conditions and military maneuvers, the jockeying for position among officers, and the different ways officers and enlisted men interacted during the Civil War. Unlike the reminiscences and biographies of high-ranking, well-known Confederate officers or studies and edited collections of letters of members of the rank and file, this collection sheds light on the life of a middle officer--a life turned upside down by extreme military hardship and complicated further by the continuing need for reassurance about personal valor and status common to men of the southern gentry. In these letters, Griffin describes secret troop movements in various military actions such as the Hampton Legion's role in the Peninsula Campaign (details that would certainly have been censored in more recent wars). Here he relates the march from Manassas to Fredricksburg, the siege of Yorktown and the retreat to Richmond, and the fighting at Eltham's landing and Seven Pines, where Griffin commanded the legion after Hampton was wounded. Throughout, as Griffin recounts these most extraordinary of times, he illuminates the most ordinary of day-to-day issues. One might expect to find a Confederate officer meditating on slavery, emancipation, or Lincoln. Instead, we are confronted by simple humanity and simple concerns, from the weather to gossip. Monumental historical events intruded on Griffin's life and sent him off to war, but his heartfelt considerations were about his family, his community, and his own personal pride. Ultimately, Griffin's letters present the Civil War as the refinery, the ordeal by fire, that tested and verified--or modified--Southern upperclass values.With a fascinating combination of military and social history, A Gentleman and an Officer moves from the beginning of the Civil War at Fort Sumter through the end of the war and Reconstruction, vividly illustrating how the issues of the Civil War were at once devastatingly national and revealingly local.