Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West


William L. Shea - 1992
    This study of the battle is based on research in archives from Connecticut to California and includes a pioneering study of the terrain of the sprawling battlefield, as well as an examination of soldiers' personal experiences, the use of Native American troops, and the role of Pea Ridge in regional folklore.

Sherman: A Soldier's Life


Lee B. Kennett - 2001
    Others are often summed up in a few words: the stubborn, taciturn Grant; the gentlemanly, gifted Lee; the stomping, cursing Sheridan; and the flamboyant, boyish Stuart. But the enigmatic Sherman still manages to elude us. Probably no other figure of his day divides historians so deeply-leading some to praise him as a genius, others to condemn him as a savage.Now, in Sherman, Lee Kennett offers a brilliant new interpretation of the general's life and career, one that embraces his erratic, contradictory nature. Here we see the making of a true soldier, beginning with a colorful view of Sherman's rich family tradition, his formative years at West Point, and the critical period leading up to the Civil War, during which Sherman served in the small frustrated peacetime army and saw service in the South and California, and in the Mexican War Trying to advance himself, Sherman resigned from the army and he soon began to distinguish hiniself as a general known for his tenacity, vision, and mercurial temper. Throughout the spirited Battles of Bull Run and Shiloh, the siege of Vicksburg, and ultimately the famous march to the sea through Georgia, no one displayed the same intensity as did Sherman.From the heights of success to the depths of his own depression, Sherman managed to forge on after the war with barely a moment of slowing down. Born to fight, he was also born to lead and to provoke, traits he showed by serving as commanding general of the army, cutting a wide swath through the western frontier, and finally writing his classic -- and highly controversial -- memoirs. Eventually Sherman would die famous, well-to-do, and revered -- but also deeply misunderstood.By drawing on previously unexploited materials and maintaining a sharp, lively narrative, Lee Kennett presents a rich, authoritative portrait of Sherman, the man and the soldier, who emerges from this work more human and more fascinating than ever before.

General A.P. Hill: The Story of a Confederate Warrior


James I. Robertson Jr. - 1987
    Drawing extensively on newly unearthed documents, this work provides a gripping battle-by-battle assessment of Hill's role in Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and other battles. 8 pages of photographs.

The True Story of Andersonville Prison: A Defense of Major Henry Wirz


James Madison Page - 1908
     Forty years later, in 1908, Page wrote this memoir to dispel the slanders told about Wirz. Page explains how the prison Wirz was in charge of was designed to hold, at most, 10,000 prisoners. The population quickly swelled to 30,000 prisoners, overwhelming the South's ability to feed, clothe and house the Andersonville prisoners. Over 13,000 POWs died out of 45,000 prisoners due to disease and diet, and Page claims that Wirz was made a scapegoat to appease the wrath of the families of those who had died. ‘a good read and very different than what is force fed us’ - Civil War Talk James Madison Page was born on July 22, 1839 in Crawfordville, Pennsylvania. He served in the Union army as 2d Lieutenant of Company A, Sixth Michigan Cavalry. After participating in many skirmishes and battles, including Gettysburg, Page was captured on September 21, 1863 along the Rapidan in Virginia and spent the next thirteen months in Southern military prisons, seven of which were at Camp Sumter near Andersonville, Georgia. After the war, Page was supoenaed for the war crimes trial of Major Henry Wirz, the former commandant of the prison, but after being interviewed, the prosecution decided not to call him as a witness because his testimony undermined the predetermined guilt of the accused. Having been present at the prison in the summer of 1864, when the atrocities were said to have occurred, Page denied that any of the four murders charged to Wirz had happened, which denial was supported by the fact that the alleged deceased were never named. After being dissuaded by his sister from joining the ill-fated Indian foray in the West under the command of General George Custer, Page instead moved to the Montana Territory in 1866, where he worked as a Government surveyor. The town of Pageville in Madison County was named in his honor. Page spent his final years in Long Beach, California, where he died in 1924. The True Story of Andersonville Prison was first published in 1908.

Castilian Knight


Griff Hosker - 2019
    This is the story of a time when brother fought brother and Christian fought Christian. Power was all and Spain was riven by strife which was political, religious and familial! One man came from the harsh land of Castile to make one land and one state. Spain truly began with Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Campeador, El Cid. His story is told through the eyes of the warrior who spent his life at his side. William Redbeard came from humble origins but he was destined for greatness too as he walked in the seemingly endless shadow of El Cid. This first instalment in the Chronicles tells of Rodrigo’s rise to prominence when he became the champion of Prince Sancho of Castile. This is but the beginning of a tale which still stirs the blood a millennium after it began.

The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865


Mark Grimsley - 1995
    From an initial policy of deliberate restraint, extending even to the active protection of Southerners' property and constitutional rights, Union armies gradually adopted measures that were expressly intended to demoralize Southern civilians and to ruin the Confederate economy. Yet the ultimate hard war policy was far from the indiscriminate fury of legend. Union policy makers promoted a program of directed severity, and Professor Grimsley demonstrates how and why it worked. This volume fits into an emerging interpretation of the Civil War that questions its status as a total war and instead emphasizes the survival of political logic and control even in the midst of a sweeping struggle for the nation's future: the primary goal of the Federal government remained the restoration of the Union, not the devastation of the South. Intertwined with a political logic, and sometimes indistinguishable from it, was also a deep sense of moral justice--a belief that, whatever the claims of military necessity, the innocent deserved some pity, and that even the guilty should suffer in rough proportion to the extent of their sins. Through comparisons with earlier European wars and through the testimony of Union soldiers and Southern civilians alike, Grimsley shows that Union soldiers exercised restraint even as they made war against the Confederate civilian population.

Stonewall Jackson: A Biography


Donald A. Davis - 2007
    Lee, Stonewall Jackson assumed his nickname during the Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. It is said that The Army of Northern Virginia never fully recovered from the loss of Stonewall's leadership when he was accidentally shot by one of his own men and died in 1863. Davis highlights Stonewall Jackson as a general who emphasized the importance of reliable information and early preparedness (he so believed in information that he had a personal mapmaker with him at all times) and details Jackson's many lessons in strategy and leadership.

Heaven and Hell 1


John Jakes - 1993
    Like NORTH AND SOUTH and LOVE AND WAR, this novel blends historical detail and fiction."A superb storyteller and compelling writer. Not necessary to have read the first two books, for events and people are clearly defined, thus HEAVEN AND HELL stands on its own considerable merit." (Chattanooga News-Free Press)

A Southern Woman's Story


Phoebe Yates Pember - 1879
    She assumed the responsibility informally at the age of 39 and eventually over 15,000 patients came under her direct care during the war. Pember remained at Chimborazo until the Confederate surrender in April 1865. She published her memoir soon after the war, in March 1866, serialized in a Baltimore magazine called The Cosmopolite as "Reminiscences of A Southern Hospital. By Its Matron." The memoir would later be published in book form as A Southern Woman's Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, in 1879. The memoir, which details her daily life through anecdotes of the war years, remains one of the best sources for understanding the experiences and ideas of upper-class Southern Jewish women before and during the Civil War.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence


Clyde N. Wilson - 2016
    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.

Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War


William C. Davis - 1977
    The first major history ever written on the first battle of the Civil War, this narrative describes the chaotic fighting by courageous amateurs that nearly resulted in Confederate independence.

Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack


James L. Nelson - 2004
    After a year-long scramble to finish first, in a race filled with intrigue and second guessing, blundering and genius, the two ships -- the Monitor and the Merrimack -- after a four-hour battle, ended the three-thousand-year tradition of wooden men-of-war and ushered in "the reign of iron."In the first major work on the subject in thirty-five years, novelist, historian, and tall-ship sailor James L. Nelson, acclaimed author of the Brethren of the Coast trilogy, brilliantly recounts the story of these magnificent ships, the men who built and fought them, and the extraordinary battle that made them legend.

The Iron Brigade: A Military History


Alan T. Nolan - 1961
    Originally called the "Black Hat Brigade" because soldiers wore the army's regular dress black hat instead of the more typical blue cap, the Iron Brigade was the only all-Western brigade in the Eastern armies of the Union. The brigade was initially made up of the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin and the 19th Indiana Volunteers; later it was reinforced by the 24th Michigan Volunteers. Battery B of the 4th U.S. Artillery, consisting in large part of infantry detached from the brigade, was closely associated with it. It was at Brawner Farm in Northern Virginia, on August 28, 1862 that the brigade saw its first significant action. From that time forward - at Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg - the Western soldiers earned and justified the proud name Iron Brigade. And when the war was over, the records showed that it led all Federal brigades in percentage of deaths in battle. The North might well have lost the battle of Gettysburg if not for the Iron Brigade's famous stand. Nolan also includes in his account observations on some of the major figures of the War - such as Abraham Lincoln and Generals Grant, McClellan, Hancock, and Doubleday - as they were viewed by members of the Iron Brigade. Read this book and you will understand what one officer meant when he wrote: .".. the great Western or Iron Brigade... looking like giants with their tall black hats... and giants they were, in action."

Controversies & Commanders: Dispatches from the Army of the Potomac


Stephen W. Sears - 1999
      From an award-winning military historian and the bestselling author of Gettysburg, this is a wide-ranging collection of essays about the Army of the Potomac, delving into such topics as Professor Lowe’s reconnaissance balloons; the court-martial of Fitz John Porter; the Lost Order at Antietam; press coverage of the war; the looting of Fredericksburg; the Mud March; the roles of volunteers, conscripts, bounty jumpers, and foreign soldiers; the notorious Gen. Dan Sickles, who shot his wife’s lover outside the White House; and two generals who were much maligned: McClellan (justifiably) and Hooker (not so justifiably).   This lively book follows the Army of the Potomac throughout the war, from 1861 to 1865, painting a remarkable portrait of the key incidents and personalities that influenced the course of our nation’s greatest cataclysm.

The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865


Eliza Frances Andrews - 1908
     Eliza Frances Andrews, more commonly known as Fanny, was born in 1840 to world of pre-Civil War southern privilege; her father was a prominent judge in the region who owned two hundred slaves and a cotton plantation. Georgia’s secession from the Union provoked many disagreements within Fanny’s family, as it did with many others across the South. Her father firmly opposed secession, fearing it would be lead to the destruction of their way of life, while Fanny and the rest of family supported the Rebel cause, indeed three of her brothers went on to fight for the Confederacy. Fanny did not record the first three years of the conflict, but as she began to be increasingly surrounded by death and destruction she decided to begin records the events that she witnessed. John Inscoe, editor of the New Georgia Encyclopedia, found the book particularly notable for the account of Sherman’s devastating March to the Sea and “her harrowing retreat from her home in Washington; as [Sherman’s] Union forces approached, she moved across ravaged areas to find refuge at her sister’s plantation in the southwestern part of the state.” Fanny describes in brilliant detail the collapse of the traditional agrarian world of the South and how members of the old ruling class were forced to become refugees in their own state. “a rich source of insight into the southern home front of the Civil War.” Kim Kleinman, A Journal of the History of Science Society “Andrews was a product of the Old South but a woman who became self-sufficient and independent as her world changed.” Charlotte A. Ford, The Georgia Historical Quarterly “With an insider’s view, she proved a talented writer and astute observer. … The diary is filled with Andrews’s fiery, spirited persona” Saporta Report Eliza Frances Andrews was a popular Southern writer of the Gilded Age. Andrews's published works, notably her Wartime Journal of a Georgia Girl along with her novels and numerous articles, give a glimpse into bitterness, dissatisfaction, and confusion in the post-Civil War South. The War-Time Journal of a Georgian Girl, 1864-1865 was first published in 1908 and she passed away in 1931.