In Lincoln's Sanctuary, historian Matthew Pinsker offers a fascinating portrait of Lincoln's stay in this cottage and tells the story of the president's remarkable growth as a national leader and a private man. Lincoln lived at the Soldiers' Home for a quarter of his presidency, and for nearly half of the critical year of 1862, but most Americans (including many scholars) have not heard of the place. Indeed, this is the first volume to specifically connect this early summer White House to key wartime developments, including the Emancipation Proclamation, the firing of McClellan, the evolution of Lincoln's Father Abraham image, the election of 1864, and the assassination conspiracy. Through a series of striking vignettes, the reader discovers a more accessible Lincoln, demonstrating what one visitor to the Soldiers' Home described as his remarkable elasticity of spirits. At his secluded cottage, the president complained to his closest aides, recited poetry to his friends, reconnected with his wife and family, conducted secret meetings with his political enemies, and narrowly avoided assassination attempts. Perhaps most important, he forged key friendships that helped renew his flagging spirits. The cottage became a refuge from the pressures of the White House, a place of tranquility where Lincoln could refresh his mind. Based on research in rarely tapped sources, especially the letters and memoirs of people who lived or worked at the Soldiers' Home, Lincoln's Sanctuary offers the unexpected--a completely fresh view of Abraham Lincoln--through the window of a place that helped shape his presidency.

    Lee was one of the greatest generals to have ever lived. Although having fought for the slave-trading South during the American Civil War he was, and still is, regarded as a superb tactician and leader of men by both North and South. General Lee, written by his nephew and fellow soldier, Fitzhugh Lee, takes the reader to the heart of Lee’s life, from his family origins to his early career in the military as he became a military engineer and fought in the Mexican-American War. Through access to numerous unpublished letters and accounts Fitzhugh Lee provides fascinating insight into his uncle’s military genius throughout the American Civil War, from the Seven Days Battle to Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville to Gettysburg, right through until his eventual surrender to Grant in 1865. “General Lee remains a valuable book for students of Lee and his campaigns as well as those interested in southern efforts to write a military history of the Confederacy.” Gary W. Gallagher “Much solid narrative, interspersed with letters previously unpublished.” Douglas Southall Freeman Fitzhugh Lee was a Confederate cavalry general in the American Civil War and a United States Army general in the Spanish-American War. He also served as a diplomat for the United States and as the 40th Governor of Virginia. Along with General Lee which was published in 1894 he also wrote Cuba's Struggle Against Spain in 1899. He passed away in 1905.

    Lee had a heretofore undiscovered strategy at Gettysburg that, if successful, could have crushed the Union forces and changed the outcome of the war. The Battle of Gettysburg is the pivotal moment when the Union forces repelled perhaps America's greatest commander-the brilliant Robert E. Lee, who had already thrashed a long line of Federal opponents-just as he was poised at the back door of Washington, D.C. It is the moment in which the fortunes of Lee, Lincoln, the Confederacy, and the Union hung precariously in the balance. Conventional wisdom has held to date, almost without exception, that on the third day of the battle, Lee made one profoundly wrong decision. But how do we reconcile Lee the high-risk warrior with Lee the general who launched "Pickett's Charge," employing only a fifth of his total forces, across an open field, up a hill, against the heart of the Union defenses? Most history books have reported that Lee just had one very bad day. But there is much more to the story, which Tom Carhart addresses for the first time. With meticulous detail and startling clarity, Carhart revisits the historic battles Lee taught at West Point and believed were the essential lessons in the art of war-the victories of Napoleon at Austerlitz, Frederick the Great at Leuthen, and Hannibal at Cannae-and reveals what they can tell us about Lee's real strategy. What Carhart finds will thrill all students of history: Lee's plan for an electrifying rear assault by Jeb Stuart that, combined with the frontal assault, could have broken the Union forces in half. Only in the final hours of the battle was the attack reversed through the daring of an unproven young general-George Armstrong Custer. "Lost Triumph" will be one of the most captivating and controversial history books of the season.

     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.

    Marian cut herself off from her wealthy, conservative Irish Catholic family when she volunteered during the Spanish Civil War--an experience she has always kept to herself. Now in her nineties, she shares her Rhode Island cottage with her granddaughter Amelia, a young woman of good heart but only a vague notion of life's purpose. Their daily existence is intertwined with Marian's secret past: the blow to her youthful idealism when she witnessed the brutalities on both sides of Franco's war and the romance that left her trapped in Spain in perilous circumstances for nearly a decade. When Marian is diagnosed with cancer, she finally speaks about what happened to her during those years--personal and ethical challenges nearly unthinkable to Amelia's millennial generation, as well as the unexpected gifts of true love and true friendship. Marian's story compels Amelia to make her own journey to Spain, to reconcile her grandmother's past with her own uncertain future. With their exquisite female bond at its core, this novel, which explores how character is forged in a particular moment in history and passed down through the generations, is especially relevant in our own time. Its call to arms--a call to speak honestly about evil when it is before us, and equally about goodness--will linger long with its readers.

    This tightly plotted novel captures the single day when John Booth and his conspirators plot to kill President, VP, and Secretary of State; the Cabinet plans a post-war US; and the Lincolns dream about their future. It builds to the simultaneous and brutal attacks that left lives shattered and a nation paralyzed.

    . . . Deserves a place in the highest ranks of Civil War scholarship."--The Cleveland Plain DealerIn November 1860, telegraph lines carried the news that Abraham Lincoln had been elected president. Over the next five months the United States drifted, stumbled, and finally plunged into the most destructive war this country has ever faced. With a masterful eye for telling detail, Maury Klein provides fascinating new insights into the period from the election of Abraham Lincoln to the shelling of Fort Sumter.Klein brings the key players in the tragedy unforgettably to life: from the vacillating lame-duck President Buchanan, to the taciturn, elusive, and relatively unknown Abraham Lincoln; from Secretary of State Seward carrying on his own private negotiations with the South, to Major Robert Anderson sitting in his island fortress awaiting reinforcements. Never has this immensely significant moment in our national story been so intelligently of so spellbindingly related.

    In June of 1864, the Army of the Potomac attacked heavily entrenched Confederate forces outside of Richmond, hoping to break the strength of Robert E. Lee and take the capital. Facing almost certain death, Union soldiers pinned their names to their uniforms in the forlorn hope that their bodies would be identified and buried. Furgurson sheds new light on the personal conflicts that led to Grant’s worst defeat and argues that it was a watershed moment in the war. Offering a panorama rich in detail and revealing anecdotes that brings the dark days of the campaign to life, Not War But Murder is historical narrative as compelling as any novel.

    Buell examines three pairs of commanders from the North and South, who met each other in battle. Following each pair through the entire war, the author reveals the human dimensions of the drama and brings the battles to life. 38 b&w photos.From the Hardcover edition.

    Jakes, the author of over 60 books, including the eight-part Kent Family Chronicles, the North and South Trilogy, and innumerable short stories of the American West, returns to his well-trod Civil War stomping grounds in the engrossing On Secret Service. The story of a war within a war on various levels--the North v. the South, the Union's Pinkerton Detective Agency v. the Confederacy's agent provocateurs, youthful idealism v. youthful lust--On Secret Service chronicles the lives and times of four young Americans, from the war's early tremors in January 1861, through its bloody conclusion, Lincoln's assassination, and John Wilkes Booth's murder in May 1865. The main players are Lon Price, the ardent abolitionist and rising-star operative of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and Margaret Miller, the beautiful, initially vacuous daughter of the South whose chief concern is that the war be over quickly so as not to interfere with Washington's upcoming social season. After a chance encounter in a Washington park, they are as repulsed by each other's political views as they are drawn together by an undeniable physical chemistry. As hostilities increase, the Pinkertons are pledged to the service of the Union and Lon becomes, ipso facto, a charter member in the U.S. Secret Service. When Margaret's stridently pro-slavery father is gunned down by a Pinkerton operative at a clandestine "Secesh" meeting, Margaret throws off her socialite mantle and vows revenge. She pledges allegiance to the South's most notorious female spy, the wealthy, well-connected, and equally well-endowed Rose Greenhow. A parallel relationship develops between Margaret's unlikely best friend, the boyishly slight Hanna Siegel, a devout abolitionist who longs to prove herself on the battlefield, and the conflicted Captain Frederick Dasher, late of West Point, now of the First Virginia Cavalry, and protégé to Brigadier General "Jeb" Stuart. Played out before a scrim of battles, lives, fortunes, and reputations won and irreparably lost, Lon, Margaret, Hanna, and Fred cat-and-mouse their way through America's costliest war. While the respective outcomes are somewhat predictable, what is not predictable is the degree to which the reader is captivated by Jakes's encyclopedic command of historical fact and his unmatched storytelling. The mingling of well-drawn fictional characters with nicely fleshed-out historical figures raises to rare levels circumstances that would, in lesser hands, seem mere contrivances. --Michael Hudson

    Makes some startling revelations using photographic evidence.

    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.

    His old man was white-and a full Comanche Dog Soldier warrior. His grandfather was a Pehnane chief. The tribe knew he could be a name warrior-but it was up to him to prove it. Then one night in a thieves' den on the Mexican border he did-with his wits, with his courage-but mostly with a Bowie knife that could run clean through a man before he even knew the blood on the ground was his own...

    He did not claim he was God’s agent. Did he believe in God? Did he look for a sign when he was desperate? Did he follow the Divine Will? Many believers are not followers; many followers are not believers. Is he a believer or a follower or both?

    Ironically, while the great military exploits of General Stonewall Jackson are studied in military schools the world over and his iron will and stern self-discipline have become legendary, little is said about his remarkable marriage. The real Thomas J. Jackson was a humble Christian and loving husband and father. The tender and instructive letters he wrote to his wife Anna are a model of godly leadership and covenantal faithfulness. From their courtship to their final days together, trace the true story of this remarkable couple through the letters of General Jackson to his bride."