Meade guided his forces to victory in the Civil War's most pivotal battle. Commentators often dismiss Meade when discussing the great leaders of the Civil War. But in this long-anticipated book, Kent Masterson Brown draws on an expansive archive to reappraise Meade's leadership during the Battle of Gettysburg. Using Meade's published and unpublished papers alongside diaries, letters, and memoirs of fellow officers and enlisted men, Brown highlights how Meade's rapid advance of the army to Gettysburg on July 1, his tactical control and coordination of the army in the desperate fighting on July 2, and his determination to hold his positions on July 3 insured victory.Brown argues that supply deficiencies, brought about by the army's unexpected need to advance to Gettysburg, were crippling. In spite of that, Meade pursued Lee's retreating army rapidly, and his decision not to blindly attack Lee's formidable defenses near Williamsport on July 13 was entirely correct in spite of subsequent harsh criticism. Combining compelling narrative with incisive analysis, this finely rendered work of military history deepens our understanding of the Army of the Potomac as well as the machinations of the Gettysburg Campaign, restoring Meade to his rightful place in the Gettysburg narrative.

    The entire South—its people, culture, history, customs, both past and present—has been and continues to be lied about and demonized by the unholy trinity of the American establishment: Academia, Hollywood, and the Media. In the midst of the anti-South hysteria currently infecting the American psyche—the banning of flags, charges of hate and “racism,” the removal and attempted removal of Confederate monuments, the renaming of schools, vandalism of monuments and property displaying the Confederate Battle Flag, and even physical assaults, albeit rarely at present, on people who display the symbols of the South — Shotwell Publishing offers this unapologetic, unreconstructed, pro-South book with the hope that it will reach those who are left that are not afraid to question the sanity of this cultural purge and the veracity of its narrative concerning the South.

    Like William Clarke Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, Samuel Hildebrand was a proud Missouri bushwhacker. In this long out of print book, Hildebrand describes raids and executions his band of men carried out. He remained at the end of the war and unreconstructed rebel and fervent racist. Like many of his southern brethren who fought, he never owned slaves but kept a captured black man with him after the war. This self-serving but fascinating account is a valuable addition to the canon of Civil War literature. In it, Hildebrand claims that others have tried to tell his story but have gotten it wrong, so he has a notarized statement by prominent men included as verification of authenticity. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time ever, this long-out-of-print book is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE or download a sample.

    From his legendary bayonet charge down the slopes of Little Round Top hill during the Battle of Gettysburg, to the startling calling of Union troops to salute as the defeated Confederate Army surrendered to him at Appomattox, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain redefined the scale of greatness in this country. Wounded six times in battle, twice assumed to be a fatality, the volunteer officer from Maine continued to lead gallantly until the final shot was fired during the Civil War. Valor's Measure tells the death-defying tale of this Medal of Honor hero and captures his spirit as no autobiography can.

     Since its debut, The New York Times' acclaimed web journal entitled 'Disunion' has published hundreds of original articles and won multiple awards, including "Best History Website" from the New Media Institute and the History News Network. Following the chronology of the secession crisis and the Civil War, the contributors to Disunion, who include modern scholars, journalists, historians, and Civil War buffs, offer contemporary commentary and assessment of the Civil War as it unfolded chronologically. Now, this commentary has been gathered together and organized in one volume. In The New York Times: Disunion, historian Ted Widmer has curated more than 100 articles that span events beginning with Lincoln's presidential victory through the Emancipation Proclamation. Topics include everything from Walt Whitman's wartime diary to the bloody guerrilla campaigns in Missouri and Kansas. Esteemed contributors include William Freehling, Adam Goodheart, and Edward Ayers, among others. The book also compiles new essays that have not been published on the Disunion site by well-known historians such as David Blight, Gary Gallagher, and Drew Gilpin Faust. Topics include the perspective of African-American slaves and freed men on the war, the secession crisis in the Upper South, the war in the West (that is, past the Appalachians), the war in Texas, the international context, and Civil War-era cartography. Portraits, contemporary etchings, and detailed maps round out the book.

    Haskell is one of the most moving, and honest accounts of battle ever written. Gettysburg: A Lovely Summer Morning is a compilation of vintage civil war photos, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and a letter written by Franklin Aretas Haskell, Aide-de-camp to General John Gibbon. Haskell's letter was first published in 1898 as a book entitled The Battle of Gettysburg. Haskell wrote the letter to his brother shortly after his participation in the Battle of Gettysburg. He did not intend for it to be published commercially.

    Though Lincoln has been criticized by many historians for failing to appreciate the severity of the secession crisis that greeted his victory, Harold Holzer shows that the presidentelect waged a shrewd and complex campaign to prevent the expansion of slavery while vainly trying to limit secession to a few Deep South states.During this most dangerous White House transition in American history, the country had two presidents: one powerless (the president-elect, possessing no constitutional authority), the other paralyzed (the incumbent who refused to act). Through limited, brilliantly timed and crafted public statements, determined private letters, tough political pressure, and personal persuasion, Lincoln guaranteed the integrity of the American political process of majority rule, sounded the death knell of slavery, and transformed not only his own image but that of the presidency, even while makinginevitable the war that would be necessary to make these achievements permanent.Lincoln President-Elect is the first book to concentrate on Lincoln's public stance and private agony during these months and on the momentous consequences when he first demonstrated his determination and leadership. Holzer recasts Lincoln from an isolated prairie politician yet to establish his greatness, to a skillful shaper of men and opinion and an immovable friend of freedom at a decisive moment when allegiance to the founding credo "all men are created equal" might well have been sacrificed.

    Drawing from primary sources, reminiscences, memoirs, autobiographies, letters, newspaper, and periodicals, he clearly evokes the drama of a political reporter covering a national presidential campaign today. Photo insert.

    Alabama was the terror of the Atlantic Ocean. Built in secrecy in Liverpool, England, through the arrangement of Confederate agent Commander James Bulloch, it was built for the fledgling Confederate States Navy which was sorely in need of ships. Under the command of Raphael Semmes it would spend the next two years terrorising and attacking Union shipping to help the Confederacy break the stranglehold which it found itself in. Through these two years it completed seven highly successful expeditionary raids, and it had been at sea for 534 days out of 657, never visiting a single Confederate port. They boarded nearly 450 vessels, captured or burned 65 Union merchant ships, and took more than 2,000 prisoners without a single loss of life from either prisoners or their own crew. Fifth Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair, who served under Semmes on the Alabama for the entirety of its existence, documents a fascinating first-person account of life on board this Confederate raider. As they crisscrossed over the oceans Sinclair notes the ships they attacked, prisoners they took and various places they visited, from Brazil to South Africa. Powered by both sail and steam, the Alabama was one of the quickest ships of its era, reaching speeds of over 13 knots. But in the quest for speed there had been sacrifices, notably the lack of heavy armor-cladding and larger guns, which were to prove fatal during the Battle of Cherbourg in 1864 against the U.S.S. Kearsage. Two Years on the Alabama is an excellent account of naval operations of the confederacy during the American Civil War. It provides brilliant details into the revolutionary changes that were occurring in late-nineteenth century maritime developments. After the Alabama was sunk Sinclair was rescued by the English yacht Deerhound and taken to Southampton. He later served as an officer of the inactive cruiser CSS Rappahannock at Calais, France. Following the Civil War, he primarily lived in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was a merchant. In 1896 he published Two Years on the Alabama. Arthur Sinclair died in Baltimore in November 1925.

    In its entirety...you have the CSA "Confederate States of America" Constitution.This is a must read.....imagine a young country that just learned all the things wrong with their country and its government....then makes their own.The CSA was ahead of its time in many respects...(never mind the whole slavery thing)....If you are a History buff or just doing research...get this...read it....it is outstanding.

    Like Doris Kearns Goodwin’s monumental New York Times bestseller, Team of Rivals, Epstein’s Lincoln’s Men sheds a new light on the 16th U.S. president—his brilliance and vision in a time of national turmoil and Civil War—by focusing on his relationships with the men who worked closely by his side. USA Today writes, “This is not your typical work of history. Epstein, a poet, employs a dreamy, novelistic tone in describing these young men and their tormented boss.”

    But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked, who brought their own understanding of the war's causes, consequences, and meaning. In Appomattox, Varon deftly captures the events swirling around that well remembered-but not well understood-moment when the Civil War ended. She expertly depicts the final battles in Virginia, when Grant's troops surrounded Lee's half-starved army, the meeting of the generals at the McLean House, and the shocked reaction as news of the surrender spread like an electric charge throughout the nation. But as Varon shows, the ink had hardly dried before both sides launched a bitter debate over the meaning of the war. For Grant, and for most in the North, the Union victory was one of right over wrong, a vindication of free society; for many African Americans, the surrender marked the dawn of freedom itself. Lee, in contrast, believed that the Union victory was one of might over right: the vast impersonal Northern war machine had worn down a valorous and unbowed South. Lee was committed to peace, but committed, too, to the restoration of the South's political power within the Union and the perpetuation of white supremacy. Lee's vision of the war resonated broadly among Confederates and conservative northerners, and inspired Southern resistance to reconstruction. Did America's best days lie in the past or in the future? For Lee, it was the past, the era of the founding generation. For Grant, it was the future, represented by Northern moral and material progress. They held, in the end, two opposite views of the direction of the country-and of the meaning of the war that had changed that country forever.

    Was he the great emancipator or a racist? If he were alive today, could he get elected? Did he die rich? Did scientists raise Lincoln from the dead? From the seemingly lighthearted to the most serious Gerald Prokopowicz tackles each question with balance and authority, and weaves a complete, satisfying biography that will engage young and old, scholars and armchair historians alike.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    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.

    And no family better illustrates the personal toll the war took than Lincoln’s own.Mary Todd Lincoln was one of fourteen siblings who were split between the Confederacy and the Union.Three of her brothers fought, and two died, for the South. Several Todds—including Mary herself—bedeviled Lincoln’s administration with their scandalous behavior.Their struggles haunted the president and moved him to avoid tactics or rhetoric that would dehumanize or scapegoat the Confederates. By drawing on his own familial experience, Lincoln was able to articulate a humanistic, even charitable view of the enemy that seems surpassingly wise in our time, let alone his.In House of Abraham, the award-winning historian Stephen Berry fills a gap in Civil War history, showing how the war changed one family and how that family changed the course of the war.