A Civil Engineer by profession, by war’s end Blackford had risen from a Lieutenant of Cavalry to Lieutenant Colonel of Engineers. His skills were valuable in both of these branches of the army, and as a result War Years is unusually filled with the day-to-day accomplishments of the Engineer Troops. From Jeb Stuart’s side, Blackford observed nearly all the operations of mounted troops from June, 1861, to the end of January, 1864, when he was transferred to other responsibilities. Brought into contact with a number of legendary figures, in April, 1865, Blackford was at Appomattox when General Lee surrendered. Alongside descriptions of battles, raids and sieges are the stories of army life — little details and incidents that walk hand-in-hand with soldiering — in a thrilling yet eye-opening memoir of the American Civil War. Lieut.-Colonel William Willis Blackford (1831-1905) was an officer in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. It was his mother who encouraged him to write down his experiences while they were still fresh in his mind, and War Years with Jeb Stuart was the result. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    This best-selling title, designed to be either the primary anthology or textbook for the course, covers the Civil War's entire chronological span with a series of documents and essays.

    On the third day of fierce fighting, Robert E. Lee’s attempt to invade the North came to a head in Pickett’s Charge. The infantry assault, consisting of nine brigades of soldiers in a line that stretched for over a mile, resulted in casualties of over 50 percent for the Confederates and a huge psychological blow to Southern morale.Pickett’s Charge is a detailed analysis of one of the most iconic and defining events in American history. This book presents a much-needed fresh look, including the unvarnished truths and ugly realities, about the unforgettable story. With the luxury of hindsight, historians have long denounced the folly of Lee’s attack, but this work reveals the tactical brilliance of a master plan that went awry. Special emphasis is placed on the common soldiers on both sides, especially the non-Virginia attackers outside of Pickett’s Virginia Division. These fighters’ moments of cowardice, failure, and triumph are explored using their own words from primary and unpublished sources. Without romance and glorification, the complexities and contradictions of the dramatic story of Pickett's Charge have been revealed in full to reveal this most pivotal moment in the nation’s life. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    He was even with Longstreet at the Battle of Wilderness when Longstreet was struck down by a bullet coming from their own men.As Longstreet’s right hand man through the war until 1864 Moxley Sorrel was put into contact with some of the most remarkable figures of the Confederate army, and they are all vividly portrayed within his memoirs.At Petersburg, during the Battle of Hatcher’s Run, he was wounded and feared mortally so, eventually he recovered but his military career ended here.The historian Douglas Southall Freeman wrote that Moxely Sorrel’s Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer contains “a hundred touches of humor and revealing strokes of swift characterisation.”Once the war ended Moxley Sorrel returned to the south where he entered business. His Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer was published in 1905. He died in 1901 in Roanoke, Virginia.

    Utley interprets this conflict from a dual perspective: re-creating events from the Indian viewpoint while also providing an objective appraisal of why the nineteenth-century white man acted as he did. This even-handed approach to a tragic period of American history results in a memorable study of impressive scope and penetrating insight.

    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.

    George Armstrong Custer that radically changes our view of the man and his turbulent times.In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person—capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (he was court-martialed twice in six years). The key to understanding Custer, Stiles writes, is keeping in mind that he lived on a frontier in time. In the Civil War, the West, and many areas overlooked in previous biographies, Custer helped to create modern America, but he could never adapt to it. He freed countless slaves yet rejected new civil rights laws. He proved his heroism but missed the dark reality of war for so many others. A talented combat leader, he struggled as a manager in the West. He tried to make a fortune on Wall Street yet never connected with the new corporate economy. Native Americans fascinated him, but he could not see them as fully human. A popular writer, he remained apart from Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and other rising intellectuals. During Custer’s lifetime, Americans saw their world remade. His admirers saw him as the embodiment of the nation’s gallant youth, of all that they were losing; his detractors despised him for resisting a more complex and promising future. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation in Custer’s tumultuous marriage to his highly educated wife, Libbie; their complicated relationship with Eliza Brown, the forceful black woman who ran their household; as well as his battles and expeditions. It casts surprising new light on a near-mythic American figure, a man both widely known and little understood.

    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.

    On the ridge five companies of United States cavalry - 262 soldiers, comprising officers and troopers - fought desperately but hopelessly. When the guns fell silent, no soldier - including their commanding officer, Lt Col. George Armstrong Custer - had survived. Custer's Last Stand is among the most enduring events in American history - 130 years after the fact, books continue to be written and people continue to argue about even the most basic details surrounding the Little Bighorn. Evan S. Connell, whom Joyce Carol Oates has described as 'one of our most interesting and intelligent American writers', wrote what continues to be the most reliable - and compulsively readable - account of the subject. Connell makes good use of his research and novelist's eye for story and detail to re-create the heroism, foolishness and savagery of this crucial chapter in the history of the West.

    A vivid and eloquent book." --Stephen W. Sears, author of Gettysburg"Little Round Top has become iconic in Civil War literature and American memory. In the emotional recollection of our great war, if there was one speck on the landscape that decided a battle and the future of a nation, then surely this was it. The story of the July 2, 1863 struggle for that hill outside Gettysburg goes deeper into our consciousness than that, however. The men who fought for it then and there believed it to be decisive, and that is why they died for it. Glenn W. LaFantasie's Twilight at Little Round Top addresses that epic struggle, how those warriors felt then and later, and their physical and emotional attachment to a piece of ground that linked them forever with their nation's fate. This is military and social history at its finest." --W.C. Davis, author of Lincoln's Men and An Honorable Defeat"Few military episodes of the Civil War have attracted as much attention as the struggle for Little Round Top on the second day of Gettysburg. This judicious and engaging book navigates confidently through a welter of contradictory testimony to present a splendid account of the action. It also places events on Little Round Top, which often are exaggerated, within the broader sweep of the battle. All readers interested in the battle of Gettysburg will read this book with enjoyment and profit." --Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War"In his beautifully written narrative, Glenn LaFantasie tells the story of the battle for Little Round Top from the perspective of the soldiers who fought and died in July 1863. Using well-chosen quotes from a wide variety of battle participants, TWILIGHT puts the reader in the midst of the fight--firing from behind boulders with members of the 4th Alabama, running up the hillside into battle with the men of the 140th New York, and watching in horror as far too many men die. This book offers an elegy to the courage of those men, a meditation on the meaning of war, and a cautionary tale about the sacrifices nations ask of their soldiers and the causes for which those sacrifices are needed." --Amy Kinsel, Winnrer of the 1993 Allan Nevins Prize for From These Honored Dead: Gettysburg in American Culture

    Robert E. Lee surrendered to his Northern counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, at the Appomattox Court House. But the Civil War was far from over. Determined to keep Confederate dreams of secession alive, President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet fled the burning capital city. With Union troops in pursuit, the fugitives rallied loyalists across the South and made plans to escape to Cuba. In the aftermath of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, a $100,000 bounty was placed on Davis’s head. Finally captured in Irwinville, Georgia, the former US senator and secretary of war became a prisoner of the American government. The harsh treatment he received would inflame tensions between North and South for years to come. Meticulously researched and brilliantly told, The Long Surrender brings these dramatic events to vivid, unforgettable life and paints a fascinating portrait of Davis, one of history’s most enigmatic figures. By shining a light on this forgotten chapter of the Civil War, bestselling author Burke Davis examines the lasting impact of America’s bloodiest conflict on the national character.

    Through the years historians have placed him at both ends of the spectrum: some have portrayed him as a hero, others have judged him incompetent.In Jefferson Davis and His Generals, Steven Woodworth shows that both extremes are accurate--Davis was both heroic and incompetent. Yet neither viewpoint reveals the whole truth about this complicated figure. Woodworth's portrait of Davis reveals an experienced, talented, and courageous leader who, nevertheless, undermined the Confederacy's cause in the trans-Appalachian west, where the South lost the war.At the war's outbreak, few Southerners seemed better qualified for the post of commander-in-chief. Davis had graduated from West Point, commanded a combat regiment in the Mexican War (which neither Lee nor Grant could boast), and performed admirably as U.S. Senator and Secretary of War. Despite his credentials, Woodworth argues, Davis proved too indecisive and inconsistent as commander-in-chief to lead his new nation to victory.As Woodworth shows, however, Davis does not bear the sole responsibility for the South's defeat. A substantial part of that burden rests with Davis's western generals. Bragg, Beauregard, Van Dorn, Pemberton, Polk, Buckner, Hood, Forrest, Morgan, and the Johnstons (Albert and Joseph) were a proud, contentious, and uneven lot. Few could be classed with the likes of a Lee or a Jackson in the east. Woodworth assesses their relations with Davis, as well as their leadership on and off the battlefields at Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Atlanta, to demonstrate their complicity in the Confederacy's demise.Extensive research in the marvelously rich holdings of the Jefferson Davis Association at Rice University enriches Woodworth's study. He provides superb analyses of western military operations, as well as some stranger-than-fiction tales: Van Dorn's shocking death, John Hood and Sally Preston's bizarre romance, Gideon Pillow's undignified antics, and Franklin Cheatham's drunken battlefield behavior. Most important, he has avoided the twin temptations to glorify or castigate Davis and thus restored balance to the evaluation of his leadership during the Civil War."A long-awaited work on an important topic--a counterpart for T. Harry Williams's celebrated Lincoln and His Generals. Experts in the field will have to take Woodworth into account. He writes well--in a good, clear style that should appeal to a wide audience. I found many passages to be pure pleasure to read. . . . The really exciting thing, though, is his insightful series of conclusions."--Herman Hattaway, author of How the North Won."Highly readable, stimulating, and at times even provocative. This fast-paced and compelling narrative provides a very effective overview of Confederate command problems in the West."--Albert Castel, author of General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West.

    After the Civil War, the trickle of white settlers encroaching on tribal land in northern Texas suddenly turned inot a tidal wave. Within a few short years, the great buffalo herds, a source of food and clothing for the Indians from time immemorial, had been hunted to the verge of extinction in an orgy of greed and destruction. The Indians' cherished way of life was being stolen from them.Quanah Parker was the fiercest and bravest of the Comanches who fought desperately to preserve their culture. He led his warriors on daring and bloody raids against the white settlers and hunters. He resisted to the last, heading a band of Comanches, the Quahadas, after the majority of the tribe had acquiesced to resettlement on a reservation. But even the Comanches—legendary horsemen of the Plains who had held off Spanish and Mexican expansion for two centuries—could not turn back the massive influex of people and eaponry from the East.Faced with the bitter choice between extermination or compromise, Quanah stepped off the warpath and sat down at the bargaining table. With remarkable skill, the Comanche warrior adapted to the new challenges he faced, learning English and the art of diplomacy. Working to bridge two very different worlds, he fought endlessly to gain a better deal for his people. As the tribe's elder statesman, Quanah lobbied Congress in Washington, D.C., entertained President Teddy Roosevelt and other dignitaries at his home, invested in the railroad, and enjoyed the honor of having a Texas town named after him. The Last Comanche Chief is a moving portayal of this famed leader. His story is an inspiring and compelling chapter in the history of Native Americans and of the American West.

    Let us determine to die here and we will conquer. Rally behind them!” With these words Gen. B. E. Bee of the Confederates States Army inspired the famous nickname for Gen. T. J. Jackson, and his brigade, at the First Battle of Bull Run: Stonewall. Three months earlier the 2d, 4th, 5th and 27th Virginia Infantry Regiments had been brigaded together with the 33rd, in whose “A” Company John O. Casler was serving as a Private.However, their reputation came at a cost: if there was an extra hard duty, Jackson would send in his old brigade lest he be thought of as favouring them.Drawn from his diary at the time, Casler recounts his experiences in the ranks, from marches and looting to nail-biting escapades and the monotony of life as a prisoner of war. Instead of a history of the war, Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade is a remarkable account of men in war, graphically bringing to light the challenges they faced on a daily basis.Praise for Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade“…as illustrating the daily life of a soldier in the ranks it is one of the very best publications I have read. I found it a vivid reminder of the days gone by…” — E. M. Schutte, late Sergeant Company C, 13th Massachusetts.“Your style is clear and entertaining. It will do all the old boys of both sides good to read it.” — J. G. Winne, late 16th New York Horse Artillery.“This is to certify that John O. Casler belonged to Company A, 33d Virginian Infantry, Stonewall Brigade. John was a good soldier, always ready and willing to perform any duty assigned him.” — W. H. Powell, Captain Company A, 33d Virginian Infantry, Stonewall Brigade.John O. Casler (1838-1926) was an American soldier and author born in Frederick County, Virginia. While he had left the family home aged twenty one, when it seemed that war was imminent he returned and enlisted in the Confederate States Army in June 1861. Following the war he emigrated to Sherman, Texas. For details of other books published by Albion Press go to the website at www.albionpress.co.uk. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    Illustrated with 16 pages of photographs.