Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary Gallagher shows in this brilliant revisionist history, it is an anachronistic judgment. In a searing analysis of the Civil War North as revealed in contemporary letters, diaries, and documents, Gallagher demonstrates that what motivated the North to go to war and persist in an increasingly bloody effort was primarily preservation of the Union. Devotion to the Union bonded nineteenth-century Americans in the North and West against a slaveholding aristocracy in the South and a Europe that seemed destined for oligarchy. Northerners believed they were fighting to save the republic, and with it the world's best hope for democracy. As Gallagher recovers why and how the Civil War was fought, we gain a more honest understanding of why and how it was won.

    Pullen_s classic and highly acclaimed book tells how Chamberlain and his men fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville on their way to the pivotal battle of Gettysburg. There, on July 2, 1863, at Little Round Top, they heroically saved the left flank of the Union battle line. The Twentieth Maine_s remarkable story ends with the surrender of Lee_s troops at Appomattox. Considered by Civil War historians to be one of the best regimental histories ever written, this beloved standard of American history is now available in a new Stackpole edition. Includes maps, photographs, and drawings from the original edition.

    But though the epic sieges of Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Berlin have all been explored in bestselling books, the one great American example has been treated only cursorily in more general histories. Marc Wortman remedies that conspicuous absence in grand fashion with The Bonfire, an absorbing narrative history told through the points of view of key participants both Confederate and Union.The Bonfire reveals an Atlanta of unexpected paradoxes: a new mercantile city dependent on the primitive institution of slavery; governed by a pro-Union mayor, James Calhoun, whose cousin was a famous defender of the South. When he surrendered the city to General Sherman after forty-four terrible days, Calhoun was accompanied by Bob Yancey, a black slave likely the son of Union advocate Daniel Webster. Atlanta was both the last of the medieval city sieges and the first modern urban devastation. From its ashes, a new South would arise.

    

    In Battle Tactics of the Civil War, Paddy Griffith argues that, far from being the first 'modern' war, it was the last 'Napoleonic' war, and that none of the innovations of industrialized warfare had any significant effect on the outcome.

    Famed Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson bring off an against-all-odds surprise victory, humiliating a Yankee force three times the size of their own, while the Northern army is torn by rivalries, anti-immigrant prejudice and selfish ambition. This historically accurate epic captures the high drama, human complexity and existential threat that nearly tore the United States in two, featuring a broad range of fascinating—and real—characters, in blue and gray, who sum to an untold story about a battle that has attained mythic proportions. And, in the end, the Confederate triumph proved a Pyrrhic victory, since it lured Lee to embark on what would become the war's turning point—the Gettysburg Campaign (featured in Cain At Gettysburg).

    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.

    Opposed to secession and a friend to Union and Confederate commanders alike, he did not want a war. After Union soldiers seized and murdered his sons, placing their decapitated heads on the gateposts of his estate, Hinson could remain indifferent no longer. He commissioned a special rifle for long-range accuracy, he took to the woods, and he set out for revenge. This remarkable biography presents the story of Jack Hinson, a lone Confederate sniper who, at the age of 57, waged a personal war on Grant's army and navy. The result of 15 years of scholarship, this meticulously researched and beautifully written work is the only account of Hinson's life ever recorded and involves an unbelievable cast of characters, including the Earp brothers, Jesse James, and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

    A profile of the iconic Civil War general explores the paradoxes attributed to his character to discuss such topics as his achievements as a military strategist, his contributions to the Transcontinental Railroad, and his tempestuous family relationships.

    This book contends that Gettysburg was a crucial Union victory, primarily because of the effective leadership of Union forces—not, as has often been said, only because the North was the beneficiary of Lee's mistakes. Scrupulously documented and rich in fascinating detail, The Gettysburg Campaign stands as one of the landmark works in the history of the Civil War.

    Henry Kyd Douglas devoted himself to the Southern cause, fighting its battles and enduring its defeats, and during and shortly after the Civil War, Douglas set down his experiences of great men and great days. In simple, resonant prose written wholly firsthand from notes and diaries made on the battlefield, he covered the full emotional spectrum of a soldier's life. I Rode with Stonewall is one of the most remarkable stories to come out of any war.

    McClellan.

    Provides a chronicle of the nine final days of the Civil War, and a portrait of Grant, Lee, Lincoln, and the war's other notable personalities as they play out the end-game to America's bloodiest war.

     Yet, despite these humble origins he would go on to become one of the most innovative cavalry leaders America has ever seen.His enemies respected him and his Southern compatriots admired him. Both General Johnston and General Sherman agreed that he was “the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.” While Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, in their postwar memoirs, stated that the tide of the war might have been changed had the Confederate high command better used Forrest’s talents.John A. Wyeth’s brilliant biography of Forrest fully captures this fascinating general and his actions throughout the war. From his brilliant campaigns at Fort Donelson, Shiloh and Brice’s Crossroads to his more controversial moments, for example at the Battle of Fort Pillow where many Union prisoners were slaughtered, Wyeth examines every part of Forrest’s career in precise detail.

    history. With vivid and breathtaking detail, Lee and His Men at Gettysburg is both a historical work and an honorary ode to the almost fifty thousand soldiers who died at the fields of Pennsylvania. Written with an emphasis on the Confederate forces, the book captures the brilliance and frustration of a general forced to contend with overwhelming odds and in-competent subordinates. Dowdey not only presents the facts of war, but brings to life the cast of characters that defined this singular moment in American history.