The literal story of what happened on April 14, 1865, is familiar: Lincoln was killed by John Wilkes Booth, a lunatic enraged by the Union victory and the prospect of black citizenship. Yet who Booth really was—besides a killer—is less well known. The magnitude of his crime has obscured for generations a startling personal story that was integral to his motivation. My Thoughts Be Bloody, a sweeping family saga, revives an extraordinary figure whose name has been missing, until now, from the story of President Lincoln’s death. Edwin Booth, John Wilkes’s older brother by four years, was in his day the biggest star of the American stage. He won his celebrity at the precocious age of nineteen, before the Civil War began, when John Wilkes was a schoolboy. Without an account of Edwin Booth, author Nora Titone argues, the real story of Lincoln’s assassin has never been told. Using an array of private letters, diaries, and reminiscences of the Booth family, Titone has uncovered a hidden history that reveals the reasons why John Wilkes Booth became this country’s most notorious assassin. These ambitious brothers, born to theatrical parents, enacted a tale of mutual jealousy and resentment worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy. From childhood, the stage-struck brothers were rivals for the approval of their father, legendary British actor Junius Brutus Booth. After his death, Edwin and John Wilkes were locked in a fierce contest to claim his legacy of fame. This strange family history and powerful sibling rivalry were the crucibles of John Wilkes’s character, exacerbating his political passions and driving him into a life of conspiracy. To re-create the lost world of Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, this book takes readers on a panoramic tour of nineteenth-century America, from the streets of 1840s Baltimore to the gold fields of California, from the jungles of the Isthmus of Panama to the glittering mansions of Gilded Age New York. Edwin, ruthlessly competitive and gifted, did everything he could to lock his younger brother out of the theatrical game. As he came of age, John Wilkes found his plans for stardom thwarted by his older sibling’s meteoric rise. Their divergent paths—Edwin’s an upward race to riches and social prominence, and John’s a downward spiral into failure and obscurity—kept pace with the hardening of their opposite political views and their mutual dislike. The details of the conspiracy to kill Lincoln have been well documented elsewhere. My Thoughts Be Bloody tells a new story, one that explains for the first time why Lincoln’s assassin decided to conspire against the president in the first place, and sets that decision in the context of a bitterly divided family—and nation. By the end of this riveting journey, readers will see Abraham Lincoln’s death less as the result of the war between the North and South and more as the climax of a dark struggle between two brothers who never wore the uniform of soldiers, except on stage.

    Produced with the Smithsonian Institution and released in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the start of the war, "The Civil War" is the definitive visual history to one of the most defining moments in our country's history.Comprehensive timelines, revealing first-person accounts by soldiers and civilians, key political and military leaders, as well as examinations of broader topics, such as transportation, the economy, and the treatment of wounded soldiers, make "The Civil War" a must-have for anyone interested in the history of the Civil War.

    The Complete Civil War collects every article written about the war from 1861 to 1865, plus select pieces before and after the war and is filled with the action, politics, and personal stories of this monumental event. From the first shot fired at Fort Sumter to the surrender at Appomattox, and from the Battle of Antietam to the Battle of Atlanta, as well as articles on slavery, states rights, the role of women, and profiles of noted heroes such as Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, the era comes alive through these daily first-hand accounts. More than 600 of the most crucial and interesting articles in the book? Typeset and designed for easy reading Commentary by Editors and Civil War scholars Harold Holzer and Craig Symonds More than 104,000 additional articles on the DVD-ROM? every article the Times published during the war. A detailed chronology highlights articles and events of interest that can be found on the disk. Strikingly designed and illustrated with hundreds of maps, historical photographs, and engravings, this book is a treasure for Civil War and history buffs everywhere."This is a fascinating and riveting look at the most important event in American history as seen through the eyes of an institution that was emerging as the most important newspaper in American history.   In these pages, the Civil War seems new and fresh, unfolding day after anxious day, as the fate of the republic hangs in the balance." --  Ken Burns"Serious historians and casual readers alike will find this extraordinary collection of 600 articles and editorials about the Civil War published in The New York Times before and during the war of great value and interest . . . enough to keep the most assiduous student busy for the next four years of the war's sesquicentennial observations." --  James McPherson"This fascinating work catapults readers back in time, allowing us to live through the Civil War as daily readers of The New York Times, worrying about the outcome of battles, wondering about our generals, debating what to do about slavery, hearing the words that Lincoln spoke, feeling passionate about our politics.  Symonds and Holzer have found an ingenious new way to experience the most dramatic event in our nation's history." -- Doris Kearns Goodwin "Harold Holzer and Craig Symonds have included not only every pertinent article from the pages of The Times, but enhanced and illuminated them with editorial commentary that adds context and perspective, making the articles more informative and useful here than they were in the original issues.  Nowhere else can readers of today get such an understanding of how readers of 1861-1865 learned of and understood their war." -- William C Davis The DVD runs on Windows 2000/XP or Mac OS X 10.3 or later.

    Marking the sesquicentennial of this epic struggle for America's soul, which began in 1861, For Us the Living features stunning paintings by acclaimed Civil War artist Mort Künstler paired with stirring text by Pulitzer Prize-nominated author James I. Robertson, Jr.No other Civil War book equals this breathtaking volume, which brings the crisis to life through eyewitness accounts and dramatic art. Robertson insightfully describes key events in each year of the conflict, weaving his words together with those of the people who lived through it-and Künstler's masterful paintings illuminate it all.For Us the Living will give readers the sense of being there at this critical moment in American history.

    Marshall traces the development of a Confederate identity in Kentucky between 1865 and 1925, belying the fact that Kentucky never left the Union. After the Civil War, the people of Kentucky appeared to forget their Union loyalties and embraced the Democratic politics, racial violence, and Jim Crow laws associated with former Confederate states. Marshall looks beyond postwar political and economic factors to the longer-term commemorations of the Civil War by which Kentuckians fixed the state's remembrance of the conflict for the following sixty years.

    In this beautiful book, over 180 stereo photographs come alive and readers wearing the enclosed 3-D glasses will feel as if they can step into the Lincoln presidency. Civil War photography experts Bob Zeller and John J. Richter have exploited the full potential of the Library of Congress's remarkable 3-D negative collection, while also tapping into exclusive private collections for rare images, some never previously published. With a prologue by renowned Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, Lincoln in 3-D provides a unique window into a time long past.

    Approximately eleven thousand Georgians were killed and the state suffered more than one hundred thousand in total casualties. Georgia was extremely influential in this nation’s most tragic conflict, and the war touched every corner of the state. Based on a comprehensive survey of sites identified by the Georgia Civil War Commission in 2000, Crossroads of Conflict covers 350 historic sites in detail, bringing the experience of the war to life. Written by Georgia Civil War Commission staff members Barry L. Brown and Gordon R. Elwell, this full-color edition of Crossroads of Conflict is an updated and significantly expanded version of the guide released by the state of Georgia in 1994. Crossroads of Conflict is arranged geographically, separating the state into nine distinct regions. Beginning in northeast Georgia, sites are followed west to east, north to south. Detailed maps of each region are supplemented by inset maps of urban areas. For each site, the guide provides a detailed history, driving directions, online resources, and GPS coordinates. Color photographs and period images document the locations, which include battlefields (major and minor), POW camps, hospitals, houses, buildings, bridges, cemeteries, and monuments. The war experiences of all Georgians, not just soldiers, are addressed within the guide’s informative text, and a detailed chronology is included.

    Even in the midst of the war's shocking violence, the intensity of the prisoners' suffering and the brutal manner of their deaths provoked outrage, and both the Lincoln and Davis administrations manipulated the prison controversy to serve the exigencies of war. As both sides distributed propaganda designed to convince citizens of each section of the relative virtue of their own prison system--in contrast to the cruel inhumanity of the opponent--they etched hardened and divisive memories of the prison controversy into the American psyche, memories that would prove difficult to uproot. In Haunted by Atrocity, Benjamin G. Cloyd deftly analyzes how Americans have remembered the military prisons of the Civil War from the war itself to the present, making a strong case for the continued importance of the great conflict in contemporary America.Throughout Reconstruction and well into the twentieth century, Cloyd shows, competing sectional memories of the prisons prolonged the process of national reconciliation. Events such as the trial and execution of CSA Captain Henry Wirz--commander of the notorious Andersonville prison--along with political campaigns, the publication of prison memoirs, and even the construction of monuments to the prison dead all revived the painful accusations of deliberate cruelty. As northerners, white southerners, and African Americans contested the meaning of the war, these divisive memories tore at the scars of the conflict and ensured that the subject of Civil War prisons remained controversial.By the 1920s, the death of the Civil War generation removed much of the emotional connection to the war, and the devastation of the first two world wars provided new contexts in which to reassess the meaning of atrocity. As a result, Cloyd explains, a more objective opinion of Civil War prisons emerged--one that condemned both the Union and the Confederacy for their callous handling of captives while it deemed the mistreatment of prisoners an inevitable consequence of modern war. But, Cloyd argues, these seductive arguments also deflected a closer examination of the precise responsibility for the tragedy of Civil War prisons and allowed Americans to believe in a comforting but ahistorical memory of the controversy. Both the recasting of the town of Andersonville as a Civil War village in the 1970s and the 1998 opening of the National Prisoner of War Museum at Andersonville National Historic Site reveal the continued American preference for myth over history--a preference, Cloyd asserts, that inhibits a candid assessment of the evils committed during the Civil War.The first study of Civil War memory to focus exclusively on the military prison camps, Haunted by Atrocity offers a cautionary tale of how Americans, for generations, have unconsciously constructed their recollections of painful events in ways that protect cherished ideals of myth, meaning, identity, and, ultimately, a deeply rooted faith in American exceptionalism.

    He was very human. His diary and letters are a unique and personal view of regimental politics, camp life, battles, and the land in which he traveled. His papers create snapshots of historical events from one man’s perspective.

    But if we are ever to learn the full and honest truth about the conflict, then exposed they must be.In Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner! award-winning historian and author Colonel Lochlainn Seabrook sets the record straight in this easy-to-read, well documented handbook that confronts the North's many falsehoods about the American Civil War - important facts the anti-South Movement has been supressing for 150 years! Divided into convenient chapters, such as "Cause of the War," "Secession," "Slavery," "The Abolition Movement," "Jefferson Davis," "Abraham Lincoln," "The Emancipation Proclamation," "The Union and Blacks," "Yankee War Crimes," "Prisons," and "The Confederate Flag" (among many others), this bestselling expos� of Yankee anti-South propaganda has the power to heal hearts and change minds. For in reeducating the world about Lincoln's War it will give Northerners a better understanding of the conflict itself, while making Southerners, of all races and political persuasions, proud to be Southern.Read the politically incorrect, international blockbuster that everyone's talking about - the book that totally blows the lid off Yankee mythology - and learn the Truth for yourself, from Dixie's perspective. You will never completely understand the conflict until you do. Contains over 1,000 endnotes and a 700-book bibliography, and is endorsed by Dixie Outfitters, the Southern National Congress, League of the South, and numerous other pro-South organizations and individuals - and even by many Yankees. The Foreword is by noted African-American educator and Sons of Confederate Veterans member Nelson W. Winbush, M.Ed., the grandson of Private Louis Napoleon Nelson, just one of the hundreds of thousands of black Confederate soldiers who fought for the South.Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner! has become required reading in homes and schools all over the world and is available in paperback, hardcover, and large print. Blurbs are by Thomas Moore (Chairman, Southern National Congress), Ronny Mangrum (Adjutant, Roderick, Forrest's War Horse Camp 2072, Sons of Confederate Veterans), Timothy D. Manning (Executive Director, The Southern Partisan Reader), J. T. Thompson (Executive Director, Lotz House Museum, Franklin, TN), Scott Bowden (nine-time award-winning historian and author), and Barbara Marthal, B.A., M.Ed., (African-American educator, lecturer, and Civil War reenactor).Neo-Victorian Civil War scholar Lochlainn Seabrook, a descendant of the families of Alexander H. Stephens, John S. Mosby, Edmund W. Rucker, and William Giles Harding, is the most prolific and popular pro-South writer in the world today. Known by literary critics as the "new Shelby Foote" and by his fans as the "Voice of the Traditional South," he is a recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal and the author of over 50 books that have introduced hundreds of thousands to the truth about the War for Southern Independence. A 7th generation Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage and the 6th great-grandson of the Earl of Oxford, Colonel Seabrook has a 40-year background in American and Southern history, and is the author of the runaway bestseller Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!

    Gen. Peter Osterhaus served from the first clash in the western theater until the final surrender of the war. Osterhaus made a name for himself within the army as an energetic and resourceful commander who led his men from the front. He was one of the last surviving Union major general and military governor of Mississippi in the early days of Reconstruction.This first full-length study of the officer documents how, despite his meteoric military career, his accomplishments were underreported even in his own day and often misrepresented in the historical record. Mary Bobbitt Townsend corrects previous errors about his life and offers new insights into his contributions to major turning points in the war at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, as well as other battles.Townsend draws on battle reports not found in the Official Records, on personal papers, and on other nonpublished material to examine Osterhaus’s part in the major battles in the West as well as in minor engagements. She tells how he came into his own in the Vicksburg campaign and proved himself through skill with artillery, expertise in intelligence gathering, and taking the lead in hostile territory—blazing the trail down the west side of the river for the entire Union army and then covering Grant’s back for a month during the siege. At Chattanooga, Osterhaus helped Joe Hooker strategize the rout at Lookout Mountain; at Atlanta, he led the Fifteenth Corps, the largest of the four corps making Sherman's March to the Sea. Townsend also documents his contributions in the battles of Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, Arkansas Post, Port Gibson, Ringgold Gap, and Resaca and shows that he played a crucial role in Canby’s Mobile Bay operations at the end of the war.In addition to reporting Osterhaus’s wartime experiences, Townsend describes his experiences as a leader in the 1848–1849 Rebellion in his native Germany, his frustration during his term as Mississippi’s governor, and his stint as U.S. consul to France during the Franco-Prussian War.Osterhaus stood out from other volunteer officers in his understanding of tactics and logistics, even though his careful field preparation led to criticism by historians that he was unduly cautious in battle. Yankee Warhorse sets the record straight on this important Civil War general as it opens a new window on the war in the West.

    During the Civil War, the river also served as a vital artery for moving troops and supplies. In 1863 the battle to wrest control of the valley was, in effect, a battle for the state itself. In spite of its importance, however, this campaign is often overshadowed by the siege of Vicksburg. Now Mark K. Christ offers the first detailed military assessment of parallel events in Arkansas, describing their consequences for both Union and Confederate powers.Christ analyzes the campaign from military and political perspectives to show how events in 1863 affected the war on a larger scale. His lively narrative incorporates eyewitness accounts to tell how new Union strategy in the Trans-Mississippi theater enabled the capture of Little Rock, taking the state out of Confederate control for the rest of the war. He draws on rarely used primary sources to describe key engagements at the tactical level—particularly the battles at Arkansas Post, Helena, and Pine Bluff, which cumulatively marked a major turning point in the Trans-Mississippi.In addition to soldiers’ letters and diaries, Christ weaves civilian voices into the story—especially those of women who had to deal with their altered fortunes—and so fleshes out the human dimensions of the struggle. Extensively researched and compellingly told, Christ’s account demonstrates the war’s impact on Arkansas and fills a void in Civil War studies.