Search results for ""Savas Beatie""

Even before the guns fell silent at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee was preparing for the arduous task of getting his defeated army back safely into Virginia. It was an enormous, complex, and exceedingly dangerous undertaking, told here in exciting fashion by Bradley M. Gottfried and Linda I. Gottfried in Race to the Potomac: Lee and Meade after Gettysburg, July 4-14, 1863, the latest Emerging Civil War series entry.General Lee’s first major decision was the assembly of two wagon trains, one to transport the wounded and the other to deliver the tons of supplies acquired by the army as it roamed across Pennsylvania and Maryland on the way to Gettysburg. Once the wagons trains were set, he mapped out routes for his infantry and artillery on different roads to speed the journey and protect his command.Unsure of his opponent’s next move, George Meade, the victor of Gettysburg, dispatched Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s VI Corps on a reconnaissance-in-force. The thrust found the Confederate infantry in full retreat; Meade finally had the confirmation he needed that Lee was heading back to Virginia. Meade decided to launch a pursuit along different routes hoping to catch his beaten enemy without unduly exposing his own troops to a devastating counterattack or ambush.Union cavalry moved out after the vulnerable Confederate wagon trains, and the encounters that followed, including several engagements with Jeb Stuart’s horsemen, resulted in the loss of hundreds of vehicles and the capture of large numbers of wounded and tons of valuable supplies. The majority of Lee’s wagons reached Williamsport, Maryland, only to find the pontoon bridge gone—cut loose by Union troops in the area.Lee’s army reached Hagerstown, Maryland, largely unscathed and began building a strong defensive line while a pontoon bridge was built across the Potomac at Falling Waters.Meade refused to rush headlong against attack Lee’s new position, and the Confederates began crossing the river on the night of July 13-14. The last of Lee’s troops crossed on the morning of the 14th, thus ending the high-stakes drama of the “race to the Potomac.”

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At least 10,000 Union and Confederates soldiers lost their lives as a result of the Battle of Gettysburg. Visitors and readers quickly learn that the former were eventually interred in the national cemetery. What happened to the Confederate dead? Their journey to a peaceful afterlife, explains historian Gregory Coco in Gettysburg’s Confederate Dead, was a much longer and lonely experience.This unique study is divided into two sections. Part I explains the riveting story of how a local physician made it his mission to identify as many of the Southern dead as possible to save them from oblivion. How he did so, and the heartbreaking details involved, is riveting. This section also sets forth how another Gettysburg doctor disinterred 3,320 sets of Confederate remains and shipped them South between 1871-1873, partially in an effort to keep them from being obliterated by area farmers. Part II is an 80-page alphabetical roster of 1,400 identified Confederates, including their initial and final grave locations, as well as their units, ages, and date of death. Finally, several appendices discuss Confederate casualties, the burial sites themselves, missing bodies, and other related interesting topics.This fascinating title on a macabre subject belongs in the library of every student of Gettysburg.

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June 1776: Just a month before America declared its independence from Great Britain, a British fleet of warships and thousands of British soldiers appeared off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. Following a brutal day-long battle, the most powerful navy in the world was bloodily repulsed by the Americans.In the spring of 1779, a British force brazenly marched up to Charleston from Savannah and tested the city’s defenses before falling back. Finally, in the spring of 1780, a massive British force returned to Charleston and laid siege to the city. This siege resulted in the worst defeat of the Revolutionary War for the Americans, as they lost the city and an entire army of nearly 6,000 men.After being conquered by the British, the citizens and soldiers suffered more than two years of occupation and imprisonment. However, the siege of Charleston marked the beginning of the end of the Revolutionary War. The fall of Charleston initiated a series of events that ultimately resulted with the American victory at Yorktown and the successful independence of the United States.Charleston, South Carolina is one of the most beautiful and historic cities in the United States. Numerous sites, battlefields, and buildings from the period of the Revolution still exist. In To the Last Extremity: The Battles for Charleston, historian Mark Maloy not only recounts the Revolutionary War history of Charleston, he takes you to the places where the history actually happened. He shows you where the outnumbered patriots beat back the most powerful navy in the world, where soldiers bravely defended the city in 1779 and 1780, and where thousands suffered under occupation. Through it all, brave patriots were willing to defend the city and their liberty “to the last extremity.”

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The second installment of Al Ovies’ The Boy Generals trilogy, George Custer, Wesley Merritt and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, from the Gettysburg Retreat through the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864, encompasses a period jammed with tumultuous events for the cavalry on and off the battlefield and a significant change of command at the top.Once below the Potomac River, the Union troopers raced down the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains but were unable to prevent General Lee’s wounded Army of Northern Virginia from reaching Culpeper. The balance of the 1863 was a series of maneuvers, raids, and fighting that witnessed the near-destruction of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade at Buckland Mills and the indecisive and frustrating efforts of the Bristoe Station and Mine Run campaigns. Alfred Pleasonton’s controversial command of the mounted arm ended abruptly, only to be replaced by the more controversial Philip H. Sheridan, whose combustible personality intensified the animosity burning between George Custer and Wesley Merritt.Victory and glory followed the Cavalry Corps during the early days of Overland campaign, particularly at Yellow Tavern, where Rebel cavalier Jeb Stuart was mortally wounded. The “spirited rivalry” between Custer and Merritt, in turn, took a turn for the worse. At Trevilian Station, the bitterness and rancor permeating their relationship broke into the open to include harsh official reports critical of the other’s actions. Merritt’s elevation to temporary command of the 1st Cavalry Division cemented their rancor.Just as their relationship worsened, so too did the tenor of the war darken as the sieges of Richmond and Petersburg ground on, and Confederate partisan Col. John S. Mosby intensified guerrilla operations that disrupted Union logistics in the Shenandoah Valley. When Gen. Ulysses Grant demanded that Sheridan escalate retribution, the cavalry commander delivered his infamous edict to “eat out Virginia clear and clean as far as they go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of the season will have to carry their provender with them.” Much of the gritty task fell on the shoulders of the boy generals.Adolfo Ovies’ well-researched and meticulously detailed account of the increasingly dysfunctional relationship between Custer and Merritt follows the same entertaining style in the first installment. The Boy Generals changes the way Civil War enthusiasts will understand and judge the actions of the Union’s bold riders.

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This groundbreaking study chronicles the final battles in Virginia including Appomattox Station and Appomattox Court House in April 1865. Author Chris Calkins, who recently retired as Chief of Interpretation at Petersburg National Battlefield, is widely recognized as the war’s foremost authority on Appomattox.No One Wants to be the Last to Die: The Battles of Appomattox, April 8-9, 1865 leads readers westward from the fall of Petersburg and Richmond through the final battles at Dinwiddie Court House, Five Forks, Sutherland Station, Namozine Church, Amelia Springs, High Bridge, Sailor’s Creek, Cumberland Church, and finally, Appomattox Station and Appomattox Court House. Calkins, whose knowledge of the sources and the countryside through which this drama unfolds, is unsurpassed, has completely revised and updated this edition of his earlier work published decades ago as part of the H. E. Howard Virginia Battles and Leaders Series. Readers will welcome its return to print.

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Ulysses S. Grant stood at the center of the American Civil Ware maelstrom. The Ohio nature answered his nation’s call to service and finished the war as a lieutenant general in command of the U. S. Army. Three years later he ascended to the presidency in an attempt to better secure the peace he had helped win on the battlefield. Despite his major achievements in war and peace, political and sectional enemies battered his reputation. For nearly a century his military and political career remained deeply misunderstood.Since the Civil War centennial, however, Grant’s reputation has blossomed into a full renaissance. His military record garners new respect and, more recently, an appreciation for his political career—particularly his strong advocacy for civil rights—is quickly catching up. Throughout these decades his personal memoirs, marking him as a significant American “Man of Letters,” have never gone out of print.Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of a man whose towering impact on American history has often been overshadowed and in many cases, ignored. This collection of essays by some of today’s leading Grant scholars offers fresh perspectives on Grant’s military career and presidency, as well as underexplored personal topics such as his faith and his family life.Proceeds from this volume will go to support the Ulysses S. Grant Association and the Grant Monument Association.

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By the spring of 1864, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia had become battle-hardened, battle-weary foes locked in an ongoing stalemate. With the presidential election looming in the fall, President Abraham Lincoln needed to break the deadlock and so brought to the east the unassuming "dust-covered man" who had strung together victory after victory in the west: Ulysses S. Grant."Well," said soldiers in the Army of the Potomac with a grudging respect for their Southern adversary, "Grant has never met Bobby Lee yet."Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant would come to symbolize the armies they led as the spring campaign got underway, and the clash that began in the Virginia Wilderness on May 5, 1864, turned into a long, desperate death-match that inexorably led to Appomattox Court House eleven months later.The war would come to an end, but at what cost along the way?Grant vs. Lee: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War recounts some of the most famous episodes and most compelling human dramas from the marquee match-up of the Civil War - not just the two most successful commanders produced by either side but the two largest and most fabled armies of the war.

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Although it was the Civil War’s second-largest battle, few books have been written about Chickamauga, and nothing like the thousands penned about the war’s largest and bloodiest battle at Gettysburg. You can count on two hands the number of authors who have tackled Chickamauga in any depth, and most of their works cover the entire battle. Left unmined and mostly forgotten are the experiences of specific brigades or regiments or state-affiliated troops. Scott Mingus’s and Joe Owen’s Unceasing Fury: Texans at the Battle of Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863, is the first full-length book to examine in detail the role of troops from the Lone Star State.Texas troops fought in almost every major sector of the sprawling Chickamauga battlefield - from the first attacks on September 18 on the bridges spanning the creek to the final attack on Snodgrass Hill on September 20, the third day of fighting. In between, Texas regiments launched attack after attack against Union lines at the Viniard farm, Poe Field, Kelly Field, and North Dyer Field. More than 4,400 Texans participated on foot and on horseback; one out of four fell there. Fortunately, many of the survivors left vivid descriptions of battle action, the anguish of losing friends, the pain and loneliness of being so far away from home, and their often-colorful opinions of their generals.The authors of this richly detailed study base their work on scores of personal accounts, memoirs, postwar newspaper articles, diaries, and other primary sources. Their meticulous work, which includes original maps, photos, and other illustrations, provides the first full exploration of the critical role Texas enlisted men and officers played in the three days of fighting near West Chickamauga Creek in September 1863. Unceasing Fury provides the Lone Star State soldiers with the recognition they have so long deserved.

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The important contributions of the Irish in winning the struggle against Mexico and establishing a new republic are noticeably absent from the Alamo and Texas Revolutionary historiography. Phillip Thomas Tucker breaks new ground by rectifying the oversight with The Alamo’s Forgotten Defenders: The Remarkable Story of the Irish During the Texas Revolution, now available in paperback.The Irish embraced a lengthy and distinguished Emerald Isle revolutionary tradition—a distinctive cultural, political, and military heritage reborn during the Texas uprising of 1835-1836. Unbeknownst to most readers, the Irish comprised the largest single immigrant group in Texas during that time, and were among the most vocal and passionate of liberty-loving revolutionaries in all Texas. The largely Ireland-born garrison of Goliad raised the first flag of Texas Independence months before the Alamo’s fall. More than a dozen natives of the Old Country fought and died at the Alamo, and the old Franciscan mission’s garrison primarily consisted of soldiers of Scotch-Irish descent. Irish Protestants and Catholics made invaluable and disproportionate contributions in the struggle for Texas Independence.Dr. Tucker utilized primary sources, including rare newspaper articles, journals, and diaries, together with quality secondary accounts, to paint the dramatic saga of the Irish in Texas. The result is a broad-based cultural, economic, social, political, and military history of the Texas Revolution from the perspective of its Irish participants. The Alamo’s Forgotten Defenders will stand as a long-overdue corrective to the outdated “standard” views of the story of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution that ignore the distinguished contributions of the Emerald Isle natives, or mention them only in passing.When read together with the many other outstanding histories available, The Alamo’s Forgotten Defenders fills the vacuum in the Alamo and Texas Revolutionary historiography.

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Back in print! A visual and narrative overview of the principal military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. Symonds narrates each battle in a clear, concise, and readable way. Accompanying two-color, full-page maps make everything easy to understand, and make this book an ideal classroom text, battlefield tour guide, or library reference.

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In October 1863, the Union Army of the Cumberland was besieged in Chattanooga, all but surrounded by familiar opponents: The Confederate Army of Tennessee. The Federals were surviving by the narrowest of margins, thanks only to a trickle of supplies painstakingly hauled over the sketchiest of mountain roads. Soon even those quarter-rations would not suffice. Disaster was in the offing. Yet those Confederates, once jubilant at having routed the Federals at Chickamauga and driven them back into the apparent trap of Chattanooga’s trenches, found their own circumstances increasingly difficult to bear. In the immediate aftermath of their victory, the South rejoiced; the Confederacy’s own disasters of the previous summer—Vicksburg and Gettysburg—were seemingly reversed. Then came stalemate in front of those same trenches. The Confederates held the high ground, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, but they could not completely seal off Chattanooga from the north. The Union responded. Reinforcements were on the way. A new man arrived to take command: Ulysses S. Grant. Confederate General Braxton Bragg, unwilling to launch a frontal attack on Chattanooga’s defenses, sought victory elsewhere, diverting troops to East Tennessee. Battle above the Clouds by David Powell recounts the first half of the campaign to lift the siege of Chattanooga, including the opening of the “cracker line,” the unusual night battle of Wauhatchie, and one of the most dramatic battles of the entire war: Lookout Mountain.

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John Bell Hood had done his job too well. In the fall of 1864, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee had harassed Federal forces in north Georgia so badly that the Union commander, William T. Sherman, decided to abandon his position. During his subsequent “March to the Sea,” Sherman’s men lived off the land and made Georgia howl. Rather than confront the larger Federal force directly, Hood chose instead to strike northward into Tennessee. There, he hoped to cripple the Federal supply infrastructure and the Federal forces that still remained there—the Army of the Cumberland under George Thomas. Hood hoped to defeat Thomas’s army in detail and force Sherman to come northward to the rescue. On November 30, in a small country town called Franklin, Hood caught part of Thomas’s army outside of its stronghold of Nashville. But what began as a promising opportunity for the outnumbered Confederate army soon turned grim. “I do not like the looks of this fight,” one of Hood’s subordinates said; “the enemy has an excellent position and is well fortified.” Hood was determined to root the Federals out. “Well,” said a Confederate officer, “if we are to die, let us die like men.” And thousands of them did. As wave after murderous wave crashed against the Federal fortifications, the Army of Tennessee shattered itself. It eventually found victory—but at a cost so bloody and so chilling, the name “Franklin” would ever after be synonymous with disaster. Historian William Lee White, whose devotion to the Army of Tennessee has taken him from the dense forests of northwest Georgia to the gates of Atlanta and back into Tennessee, now pens the penultimate chapter in the army’s storied history in Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864.

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Attack at daylight and whip them—that was the Confederate plan on the morning of April 6, 1862. The unsuspecting Union Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Major General Ulysses S. Grant, had gathered on the banks of its namesake river at a spot called Pittsburg Landing, ready to strike deep into the heart of Tennessee Confederates, commanded by General Albert Sidney Johnston. Johnston’s troops were reeling from setbacks earlier in the year and had decided to reverse their fortunes by taking the fight to the Federals. Johnston planned to attack them at daylight and drive them into the river. A brutal day of fighting ensued, unprecedented in its horror—the devil’s own day, one union officer admitted. Confederates needed just one final push. Grant did not sit and wait for that assault, though. He gathered reinforcements and planned a counteroffensive. On the morning of April 7, he intended to attack at daylight and whip them. The bloodshed that resulted from the twoday battle exceeded anything America had ever known in its history. Historian Greg Mertz grew up on the Shiloh battlefield, hiking its trails and exploring its fields. Attack at Daylight and Whip Them taps into five decades of intimate familiarity with a battle that rewrote America’s notions of war.

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I remember when I hit rock bottom. There I was with no make-up on, hadn't showered, eating raw cookie dough out of the tube, hitting on the toothless bagger at the commissary, and ordering jewelry off the TV. And that was just my first day!Now in paperback, Confessions of a Military Wife is an honest, witty, and often hilarious look at the life of the new generation military wife. Mollie Gross learned the hard way to laugh instead of cry at what she could not control as a military spouse-and as she quickly discovered, nearly everything was out of her control!A standup comedienne, public speaker, and wife of a Marine Corps officer, Mollie explores everything about the "issued" spouse, from deployment and the stress of having a husband in a combat zone, to the realization that marriage changes when your husband returns home from war. Nothing is taboo or out-of-bounds in Confessions, including the "parties" military wives throw for themselves before hubby returns. (You'll have to read the book to find out about those!)More than one million American servicemen have deployed to war over the last few years, which means the lives and lifestyles of military wives are now front and center in the public's curiosity. How do they live? What is their day-to-day life like? How do they interact? How do they deal with weeks and months of separation? The answers will surprise (and in some cases, shock) you. Confessions teaches all women, whether civilian or military, that they can learn to find the funny side of anything by embracing the situation and changing their perspective. And now they can do so with humor and levity, and a little wisdom.Evocative and provocative, Confessions of a Military Wife is a can't-put-down book that will leave you laughing and crying at the same time.

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The Sand Creek Battle, or Massacre, occurred on November 2930, 1864, a confrontation between Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians and Colorado volunteer soldiers. The affair was a tragic event in American history, and what occurred there continues to be hotly contested. Indeed, labeling it a “battle” or a “massacre” will likely start an argument before any discussion on the merits even begins. Even questions about who owns the story, and how it should be told, are up for debate.Many questions arise whenever Sand Creek is discussed: were the Indians peaceful? Did they hold white prisoners? Were they under army protection? Were excessive numbers of women and children killed, and were bodies mutilated? Did the Indians fly an American flag? Did the chiefs die stoically in front of their tipis? Were white scalps found in the village? Three hearings were conducted, and there seems to be an overabundance of evidence from which to answer these and other questions. Unfortunately, the evidence only muddies the issues.Awardwinning Indian Wars author Gregory Michno divides his study into three sections. The first, “In Blood,” details the events of November 29 and 30, 1864, in what is surely the most comprehensive account published to date. The second section, “In Court,” focuses on the three investigations into the affair, illustrates some of the biases involved, and presents some of the contradictory testimony. The third and final section, “The End of History,” shows the utter impossibility of sorting fact from fiction. Using Sand Creek as well as contemporary examples, Michno examines the evidence of eyewitnesses—all of whom were subject to false memories, implanted memories, leading questions, prejudice, selfinterest, motivated reasoning, social, cultural, and political mores, an overactive amygdala, and a brain that had a “mind” of its own—obstacles that make factual accuracy an illusion. Living in a postmodern world of relativism suggests that all history is subject to the fancies and foibles of individual bias. The example of Sand Creek illustrates why we may be witnessing “the end of history.”Studying Sand Creek exposes our prejudices because facts will not change our minds—we invent them in our memories, we are poor eyewitnesses, we follow the leader, we are slaves to our preconceptions, and assuredly we never let truth get in the way of what we already think, feel, or even hope. We do not believe what we see; instead, we see what we believe.Michno’s extensive research includes primary and select secondary studies, including recollections, archival accounts, newspapers, diaries, and other original records. The Three Battles of Sand Creek will take its place as the definitive account of this previously misunderstood, and tragic, event.

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May 1863. The Civil War was in its third spring, and Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas Jonathan Jackson stood at the peak of his fame. He had arisen from obscurity to become “Old Stonewall,” adored across the South and feared and respected throughout the North. On the night of May 2, however, just hours after Jackson executed the most audacious manoeuvre of his career and delivered a crushing blow against an unsuspecting Union army at Chancellorsville, disaster struck. The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson recounts the events of that fateful night—considered one of the most pivotal moments of the war—and the tense vigil that ensued as Jackson struggled with a foe even he could not defeat. From Guinea Station, where Jackson crosses the river to rest under the shade of the trees, the story follows Jackson’s funeral and burial, the strange story of his amputated arm, and the creation and restoration of the building where he died (now known as the Stonewall Jackson Shrine). This newly revised and expanded second edition features more than 50 pages of fresh material, including almost 200 illustrations, maps, and eye-catching photos. New appendices allow readers to walk in Jackson’s pre-war footsteps through his adopted hometown of Lexington, Virginia; consider the ways Jackson’s memory has been preserved through monuments, memorials, and myths; and explore the misconceptions behind the Civil War’s great What-If:“What if Stonewall had survived his wounds?” With the engaging prose of master storytellers, Chris Mackowski and Kristopher White make The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson a must-read for Civil War novices and buffs alike.

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The 2d Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) was the first and only all-black Ranger unit in the history of the United States Army. Its ten-month lifespan included selection, training, and seven months of combat deployment in Korea, after which the unit was deactivated. Edward Posey’s magnificent new study, now available in paperback, is the first complete history of this elite, all-volunteer unit, whose members were drawn from the 3rd Battalion of the 505th Airborne Infantry Regiment and the 80th Airborne Anti-Aircraft Battalion.The event that propelled the 2d Rangers into the record books was their airborne assault near Munsan-Ni on March 23, 1951—the first in Ranger history. Once on the ground, Posey and his comrades attacked and captured Hill 151. The fighting—often conducted at very close quarters, and some of it with the bayonet and rifle butt—demonstrated the courage of these tough African American soldiers. Heavy fighting marked their months at the front, including a magnificent attack and defense of Hill 581 that May. Throughout their deployment in Korea, the 2d Rangers served with honour and achieved an outstanding combat record.Posey’s long overdue book (written with the help of other Rangers) is based upon the firsthand experiences of many members of the unit, official records, interviews with survivors, and other archival material. Stitched together, this information offers a rich and worthy addition to the growing literature on the Korean War by explaining the obstacles these patriotic African Americans faced, their sacrifices, and their courageous actions on the far side of the world.

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Artificial Intelligence meets Gettysburg. And it is a marvelous pairing.Author Patrick Brennan, a long-time student of the Civil War, published author, and an editorial advisor for The Civil War Monitor magazine, has teamed up with his technology-astute daughter Dylan Brennan to bring the largest Civil War battle to life in striking life-like colors in this remarkable two volume study.Rather than guess or dabble with the colors, as so many do these days, the Brennans used an artificial intelligence-based computerized color identifier to determine the precise color of uniforms, flesh, hair, equipment, terrain, houses, and much more. The result is a monumental full-color study of the important three-day battle that brings the men, the landscape, and the action into the 21st Century.The deep colorization of battle-related woodcuts, for example, reveals a plethora of details that have long passed unseen. The photos of the soldiers and their officers look as if they were taken yesterday.The use of this modern technology has also solved a couple lingering mysteries. It not only helped pinpoint the precise location of one of Gettysburg’s most famous “death” images, but determined that two of the seven “Union” dead depicted were in fact Confederates. As Pat Brennan explains, that may also be a “first” when it comes to Civil War photography: “It was long believed this was an image of seven dead Union soldiers. In fact, only five are Union men. The other two are Confederates. I am still researching the issue, but I believe this may be the only photo we have from the entire Civil War that portrays dead from both sides.”Gettysburg in Color: Vol. 1: Brandy Station to Little Round Top and Vol. 2: The Peach Orchard to Falling Waters, will be out in July 2022 and include nearly 300 photos, paintings, drawings, and woodcuts colorized utilizing the latest in color-recognition software, together with Brennan’s unique digital painting techniques, incredible 3-D maps, and his own extensive research.

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July, 1862. General Robert E. Lee, now in command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, had driven back the massive Federal Army of the Potomac from the very gates of the Confederate capital. Richmond was safe – at least for the moment.But soon, new threats emerged against Lee’s army and the Confederate war effort in Virginia. Rumors swirled that a Federal command headed towards Fredericksburg, and a new Federal army, the Army of Virginia, under Maj. Gen. John Pope, was shifting operations towards Confederate communications and supply points.Pope had come from the west, where he had scored successes along the Mississippi River. He brought with him a harder philosophy of war, one that would put pressure not just on Lee’s army but on the population of Virginia itself.Not only alarmed but also offended by “such a miscreant as Pope,” Lee began moving his own forces. He intended to not just counter the new threat but to “suppress” it.In Never Such a Campaign: The Battle of Second Manassas, August 28-30, 1862, historians Robert Orrison and Dan Welch follow Lee and Pope as they converge on ground once-bloodied just thirteen months earlier. Since then the armies had grown in size and efficiency, and combat between them would dwarf that first battle. For the second summer in a row, forces would clash on the plains of Manassas, and the results would be far more terrible.

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The soldiers look serious and stern, staring back at us from their formal portraits. In fact, they were young men with individual personalities filled with the exuberance of youth, married to an often fun-loving attitude toward the tough military life in which they found themselves. These 120 stories by officers and privates delve into the playful side of Confederate service from enlisting, eating, and marching, to cooking, combat, and camp life. Fun, easy to read, and informative.

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On The Bloodstained Field presents nearly 300 compelling human-interest stories from the Battle of Gettysburg that are so fascinating that it is nearly impossible to stop reading. Did you know that a dog was probably one of the first casualties in the battle? Or that a “gentleman’s duel” took place during the fighting on July 2? Few know that a soldier committed suicide during the fighting, or that three brothers were killed by a single shell, and that a Gettysburg farmer lost several thousands of dollars in gold stolen by a Confederate general.On The Bloodstained Field is perfect for young students of the battle or veteran campaigners who want lighter fare – much of it they have never heard before.

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The diminutive Union XII Corps found significant success on the field at Antietam. Its soldiers swept through the East Woods and the Miller Cornfield, permanently clearing both of Confederates, repelled multiple Southern assaults against the Dunker Church plateau, and eventually secured a foothold beyond the Dunker Church in the West Woods. This important piece of high ground had been the Union objective all morning, and its occupation threatened the center and rear of Gen. Robert E. Lee's embattled Army of Northern Virginia. Federal leadership largely ignored this signal achievement and the opportunity it presented. The XII Corps' achievement is especially notable given its string of disappointments and hardships in the months leading up to Antietam. Cedar Mountain to Antietam: A Civil War Campaign History of the Union XII Corps, July – September 1862 by M. Chris Bryan is the story of the formation of this often luckless command as the II Corps in Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia on June 26, 1862. Bryan explains in meticulous detail how the corps came within a whisker of inflicting a crushing defeating against Maj. Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson at Cedar Mountain on August 9, suffered through the hardships of Pope's campaign before and after the Battle of Second Manassas, and its resurgence after entering Maryland and joining the reorganized Army of the Potomac. The men of this small corps, who would later wear a five-pointed star as their insignia, went on to earn a solid reputation in the Army of the Potomac at Antietam that would only grow during the battles of 1863.Bryan's study, a hybrid unit history and leadership and character assessment, puts the XII Corps' actions in proper context by providing significant and substantive treatment to its Confederate opponents. His unique study, based on extensive archival research, newspapers, and other important resources, is a compelling story of a little-studied yet consequential corps and fills a gaping historiographical gap that has longed needed to be filled.

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LeRoy Wiley Gresham was born in 1847 to an affluent slave-holding family in Macon, Georgia. After a horrific leg injury left him an invalid, the educated, inquisitive, perceptive, and exceptionally witty 12-year-old began keeping a diary in 1860--just as secession and the Civil War began tearing the country and his world apart. He continued to write even as his health deteriorated until both the war and his life ended in 1865. His unique manuscript of the demise of the Old South - lauded by the Library of Congress as one of its premier holdings - is now published in paperback here for the first time in The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865. LeRoy read books, devoured newspapers and magazines, listened to gossip, and discussed and debated important social and military issues with his parents and others. He wrote daily for five years, putting pen to paper with a vim and tongue-in-cheek vigor that impresses even now, more than 150 years later. His practical, philosophical, and occasionally Twain-like hilarious observations cover politics and the secession movement, the long and increasingly destructive Civil War, family pets, a wide variety of hobbies and interests, and what life was like at the center of a socially prominent wealthy family in the important Confederate manufacturing center of Macon. The young scribe often voiced concern about the family’s pair of plantations outside town, and recorded his interactions and relationships with “servants” Howard, Allen, Eveline, and others as he pondered the fate of human bondage and his family’s declining fortunes. Unbeknownst to LeRoy, he was chronicling his own slow and painful descent toward death in tandem with the demise of the Southern Confederacy. He recorded - often in horrific detail - an increasingly painful and debilitating disease that robbed him of his childhood. The teenager’s declining health is a consistent thread coursing through his fascinating journals. “I feel more discouraged [and] less hopeful about getting well than I ever did before,” he wrote on March 17, 1863. “I am weaker and more helpless than I ever was.” Morphine and a score of other “remedies” did little to ease his suffering. Abscesses developed; nagging coughs and pain consumed him. Alternating between bouts of euphoria and despondency, he often wrote, “Saw off my leg.” The award-winning The War Outside My Window, edited and annotated by Janet Croon with helpful footnotes and a detailed family biographical chart, captures the spirit and the character of a young privileged white teenager witnessing the demise of his world even as his own body slowly failed him. Just as Anne Frank has come down to us as the adolescent voice of World War II, LeRoy Gresham will now be remembered as the young voice of the Civil War South.

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Few students of the Civil War know that legendary historian Edwin C. Bearss produced a classic study on the little-known but significant Tupelo Campaign. The fighting in Mississippi has been overshadowed by Nathan Bedford Forrest’s more spectacular victory at Brice’s Crossroads a month earlier. Bearss performed the research and writing for the Department of the Interior in 1969, and only a handful of softcover copies were produced and circulated. It is published here for the first time, with the assistance of award-winning author David A. Powell, as Outwitting Forrest: The Tupelo Campaign in Mississippi, June 22 - July 23, 1864 .The engagement came about when Maj. Gen. A. J. Smith marched a Federal expeditionary force consisting of his 16th Army Corps into northern Mississippi in early July. The thrust forced a response, the largest of which was delivered by the combined Confederate cavalry commands of Stephen D. Lee (who was in general command) and Forrest.The tactical result was a Union defensive success. The larger Confederate strategic play, however—one that might have changed the course of the war in the Western Theater—would have been to unleash Forrest on a raid into Middle Tennessee to destroy the single line of railroad track feeding and suppling the Union armies of William T. Sherman in his ongoing operations around Atlanta. Instead, his men were contained with the Magnolia State, where his combat effectiveness was severely damaged.Editor Powell has left Bearss’ prose and notes intact, while adding additional sources and commentary of his own. The result is an exceptional study that has finally been made available to the general reading public as part of the Savas Beatie Battles & Leaders Series.

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Thousands of books and articles examine nearly every aspect of the Civil War, but the important retreat of the armies from the Gettysburg battlefield to the Potomac River has been but little covered. Until now, no one had produced a critical analysis of the command decisions made during that fateful time based upon available intelligence. “Lee is Trapped and Must be Taken”: Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg, July 4 to July 14, 1863, by Thomas J. Ryan and Richard R. Schaus, now available in paperback, rectifies this oversight. This comprehensive day-by-day account, which begins after the end of the Gettysburg battle, examines how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac in response to President Abraham Lincoln’s mandate to bring about the “literal or substantial destruction” of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s defeated and retreating Army of Northern Virginia. As far as Lincoln was concerned, if Meade aggressively pursued and confronted Lee before he could escape across the flooded Potomac River, “the rebellion would be over.” The long and bloody three-day battle exhausted both armies. Both commanders faced the difficult tasks of rallying their troops for more marching and fighting. Lee had to keep his army organized and motivated enough to conduct an orderly withdrawal into Virginia. Meade faced the same organizational and motivational challenges with the added expectation of catching and defeating a still-dangerous enemy. Central to their decision-making was the information they received from their intelligence gathering resources about the movements, intentions, and capability of the enemy. The eleven-day period after Gettysburg was a battle of wits to determine which commander better understood the information he received and directed his army accordingly. Prepare for some surprising revelations. Ryan and Schaus rely on a host of primary sources to craft their study, including letters, memoirs, diaries, official reports, newspapers, and telegrams. The threading of these intelligence gems creates a gripping narrative with a significant amount of new information—which the authors use to offer their own direct and often damning conclusions. “Lee is Trapped and Must be Taken” is a sequel to Thomas Ryan’s Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign (Savas Beatie, 2015), the recipient of the Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award and Gettysburg Civil War Round Table Distinguished Book Award.

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The New Civil War Handbook: Facts and Photos from America’s Greatest Conflict is a complete up-to-date guide for American Civil War enthusiasts of all ages. Author Mark Hughes uses clear and concise writing, tables, charts, and more than 100 photographs to trace the history of the war from the beginning of the conflict through Reconstruction.Coverage includes battles and campaigns, the common soldier, technology, weapons, women and minorities at war, hospitals, prisons, generals, the naval war, artillery, and much more. In addition to these important areas, Hughes includes a fascinating section about the Civil War online, including popular blog sites and other Internet resources. Additional reference material in The New Civil War Handbook includes losses in battles, alternate names for battles, major causes of the deaths of Union soldiers (no data exists for Confederates), deaths in POW camps, and other rare information.Civil War buffs will find The New Civil War Handbook to be an invaluable quick reference guide, and one that makes an excellent addition for both the Civil War novice and the Civil War buff.About the Author: Mark Hughes is an electronics instructor widely recognized as the authority on Civil War cemeteries. He has written several books, including Bivouac of the Dead, The Unpublished Roll of Honor, and Confederate Cemeteries (2 vols.). An electronics instructor at Cleveland Community College, Mark, his wife Patty, and their daughter Anna Grace live on the family farm near Kings Mountain, NC.

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Today, Germantown is a busy neighborhood in Philadelphia. On October 4, 1777, it was a small village on the outskirts of the colonial capital that hosted one of the largest battles of the American Revolution. George Washington's attempt to recapture Philadelphia has been misunderstood and long overshadowed by the battles of Brandywine, Saratoga, and the difficult winter that followed at Valley Forge. Michael C. Harris, the award-winning author of Brandywine: A Military History of the Battle that Lost Philadelphia but Saved America, September 11, 1777 (2014), has produced the first full-length book on the Battle of Germantown, lifting the pivotal engagement out of its undeserved obscurity.General Sir William Howe launched his campaign to capture Philadelphia in late July 1777. His army sailed aboard a 265-ship armada from New York and six difficult weeks later landed near Elkton, Maryland, moved north into Pennsylvania, and defeated Washington's American army at Brandywine on September

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It was front-page news throughout the country - the largest gathering of Union and Confederate veterans ever held. “[It] will be talked about and written about as long as the American people boast of the dauntless courage of Gettysburg,” declared a woman who accompanied her father to the reunion. But as the years passed, the memorable event was all but forgotten. John Hopkins’s The World Will Never See the Like: The Gettysburg Reunion of 1913 goes a long way toward making sure the world will remember.The 1913 Gettysburg reunion is a story of 53,000 old comrades and former foes reunited, and of the tension, even half a century later, between competing narratives of reconciliation and remembrance. For seven days the old soldiers lived under canvas in the stifling heat on a 280-acre encampment run by the U.S. Army. They swapped stories, debated still-simmering controversies about the battle, and fed tall tales to gullible reporters. On July 3, the aging survivors of Pickett’s Division and the Philadelphia Brigade shook hands across the wall on Cemetery Ridge, in the reunion’s climactic photo op.Some of the battle’s leading personalities were in attendance including Union III Corps commander Dan Sickles, who at 92 was still eager to explain to anyone who would listen the indispensable role he had played in the Union victory. Also present was Helen Dortch Longstreet, the widow of Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, who devoted her life and considerable energies to defending the reputation of her general. Both wrote articles from the reunion that were syndicated in newspapers across the country. There was even a cameo appearance by a young and as yet unknown cavalry officer named George S. Patton Jr.Hopkins fills his marvelous account with detail from the letters, diaries, and published accounts of Union and Confederate veterans, the extensive archival records of the reunion’s organizers, and the daily stories filed by the scores of reporters who covered it.The World Will Never See the Like offers the first full story of this extraordinary event’s genesis and planning, the obstacles overcome on the way to making it a reality, its place in the larger narrative of sectional reunion and reconciliation, and the individual stories of the veterans who attended. Every reader interested in Gettysburg will find this a welcome addition to their library.

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Jackson, Mississippi, was the third Confederate state capital to fall to Union forces. When Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant captured the important rail junction in May 1863, however, he did so almost as an afterthought. Drawing on dozens of primary sources, contextualized by the latest scholarship on Grant’s Vicksburg campaign, The Battle of Jackson, Mississippi, May 14, 1863, offers the most comprehensive account ever published on the fall of the Magnolia State’s capital during Grant’s inexorable march on Vicksburg.General Grant had his eyes set not on Jackson but on Vicksburg, the “Gibraltar of the Confederacy,” the invaluable prize that had eluded him for the better part of a year. He finally marched south on the far side of the Mississippi River and crossed onto Mississippi soil to approach Vicksburg by land from the east. As he drove through the interior of the state, a chance encounter with Confederates at Raymond alerted him to a potential threat massing farther east in Jackson under the leadership of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, one of the Confederacy’s most respected field officers. Jackson was a vital transportation and communications hub and a major Confederate industrial center, and its fall removed vital logistical support for the Southern army holding Vicksburg.Grant turned on a dime and made for Jackson to confront the growing danger. He had no way of knowing that Johnston was already planning to abandon the vital state capital. The Southern general’s behavior has long puzzled historians, and some believe his stint in Jackson was the nadir of his long career.The loss of Jackson isolated Vicksburg and helped set up a major confrontation between Federal and Confederate forces a few days later at Champion Hill in one of the most decisive battles of the war. The capital’s fall demonstrated that Grant could march into Jefferson Davis’ home state and move about with impunity, and not even a war hero like Joe Johnston could stop him. Students of Vicksburg will welcome this outstanding addition to the campaign literature.

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All of middle Tennessee held its breath when the new year dawned in 1863.On the previous day, December 31 – the last day of 1862 – just outside Murfreesboro along Stones River, the Confederate Army of Tennessee had launched a morning attack that nearly bent the Federal Army of the Cumberland back upon itself.The two armies, nearly equal in size, had prepared identical attack plans, but the Confederates had struck first. Fighting throughout the day, amid the rocky outcroppings and cedar groves, proved desperate. Federals managed to hold on until dark, but as the last hours of the old year slipped away, the Army of the Cumberland faced possible annihilation.The armies rang in the New Year to the sounds of suffering on the battlefield, although the armies themselves remained largely still.Meanwhile, hundreds of miles to the east, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. He needed battlefield victories to bolster its authority, but thus far, those victories had eluded him. The stakes for the Army of the Cumberland, in the wake of other Federal failures were enormous.But the fighting along Stones River was not over. On January 2, Confederates launched another massive assault.In Force of a Cyclone: The Battle of Stones River, December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863, authors Caroline Davis and Bert Dunkerly explore a significant turning point of the Civil War – a battle that had the highest percentage of casualties on both sides. Lincoln himself often looked back on that fragile New Year’s Day and all that was at stake. “I can never forget whilst I remember anything,” he told Federal commander Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, “that about the end of last year and the beginning of this, you gave us a hard-earned victory, which, had there been a defeat instead the nation could scarcely have lived over.”

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William Royston Geise was a young Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1970s when he researched and wrote The Confederate Military Forces in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861-1865: A Study in Command in 1974. Although it remained unpublished, it was not wholly unknown. Deep-diving researchers were aware of Dr. Geise’s work and lamented the fact that it had never been published. In many respects, studies of the Trans-Mississippi Theater are only now catching up with Geise.This intriguing study traces the evolution of Confederate command and how it affected the shifting strategic situation and general course of the war. Dr. Geise accomplishes his task by coming at the question in a unique fashion. Military field operations are discussed as needed, but his emphasis is on the functioning of headquarters and staff – the central nervous system of any military command. This was especially so for the Trans-Mississippi.After July 1863, the only viable Confederate agency west of the great river was the headquarters at Shreveport. That hub of activity became the sole location to which all isolated players, civilians and military alike, could look for immediate overall leadership and a sense of Confederate solidarity. By filling these needs, the Trans-Mississippi Department assumed a unique and vital role among Confederate military departments and provided a focus for continued Confederate resistance west of the Mississippi River.The author’s work mining primary archival sources and published firsthand accounts, coupled with a smooth and clear writing style, helps explain why this remote department (referred to as “Kirby Smithdom” after Gen. Kirby Smith) failed to function efficiently, and how and why the war unfolded there as it did.Trans-Mississippi Theater historian and Ph.D. candidate Michael J. Forsyth (Col., U.S. Army, Ret.) has resurrected Dr. Geise’s smoothly written and deeply researched manuscript from its undeserved obscurity. This edition, with its original annotations and Forsyth’s updated citations and observations, is bolstered with original maps, photographs, and images. Students of the war in general, and the Trans-Mississippi Theater in particular, will delight in its long overdue publication.

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The small, curiously named village of Secessionville, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina was the site of an early war skirmish, the consequences of which might have been enormous had the outcome been different. It quickly would be forgotten, however, as the Seven Days battles, fought shortly afterward and far to the north, attracted the attention of Americans on both sides of the conflict.The battle at Secessionville was as bloody and hard fought as any similar sized encounter during the war. But it was poorly planned and poorly led by the Union commanders whose behavior did not do justice to the courage of their men. That courage was acknowledged by Confederate Lt. Iredell Jones who wrote, "let us never again disparage our enemy and call them cowards, for nothing was ever more glorious than their three charges in the face of a raking fire of grape and canister."For the Federals, the campaign on James Island was a joint Army-Navy operation which suffered from inter-service rivalries and no small amount of mutual contempt. Brig. Gen. David Hunter, the overall Union commander, lost interest in the campaign and turned effective control over to his subordinate Brig. Gen. Henry Benham whose ego and abrasive personality was a significant problem for the officers who served directly under him. On the Confederate side were men like John C. Pemberton, oddly enough a West Point classmate of Benham, who never gained the respect of his subordinates either. The civilian authorities diligently worked behind his back to have him relieved and replaced. He did, however, oversee the construction of a formidable line of defensive works which proved strong enough in the end to save Charleston for much of the war.In Six Miles from Charleston, Five Minutes to Hell, historian Jim Morgan examines the lead up to the James Island campaign as well as the skirmish itself on June 16, 1862 and its aftermath. By including several original sources not previously explored, he takes a fresh look at this small, but potentially game-changing fight, and shows that it was of much more than merely local interest at the time.

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Often relegated to a backseat by action in the Eastern Theater, the Western Theater is actually where the Federal armies won the Civil War.In the West, General Ulysses S. Grant strung together a series of victories that ultimately led him to oversee Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and, eventually, two terms in the White House. In the West, the fall of Atlanta secured Lincoln's reelection for his own second term. In the West, Federal armies split the Confederacy in two - and then split it in two again.In the West, Federal armies inexorably advanced, gobbling up huge swaths of territory in the face of ineffective Confederate opposition. By war's end, General William T. Sherman had marched the "Western Theater" all the way into central North Carolina.In the Eastern Theater, the principal armies fought largely within a 100-mile corridor between the capitals of Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, with a few ill-fated Confederate invasions north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The Western Theater, in contrast, included the entire area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, from Kentucky in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south - a vast geographic expanse that, even today, can be challenging to understand.The Western Theater of War: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War revisits some of the Civil War's most legendary battlefields: Shiloh, Chickamauga, Franklin, the March to the Sea, and more.

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Almost 8,000 dead dotted the fields of Gettysburg after the guns grew silent. The Confederate dead were hastily buried, but what of the Union dead? Several men hatched the idea of a new cemetery to bury and honor the Union soldiers just south of town. Their task was difficult to say the least. First, appropriate land needed to be identified and purchased. After the State of Pennsylvania purchased the 17 acres, a renowned landscape architect designed the layout of the cemetery. All was now ready for the bodies to be interred from their uneasy resting places around the battlefield, placed in coffins, marked with their names and units, and transported to the new cemetery to be permanently reinterred. More than 3,500 men were moved to the Soldiers National Cemetery. As these tasks gained momentum, so too did planning for the cemetery’s consecration or dedication. A committee of agents from each state who had lost men in battle worked out the logistics. Most of the program was easily decided. It would be composed of odes, singing, prayers, and remarks by the most renowned orator in the nation, Edward Everett. The committee argued over whether President Abraham Lincoln should be invited to the ceremony and, if so, his role in the program. The committee, divided by politics, decided on a middle ground, inviting the President to provide “a few appropriate remarks.” To the surprise of many, Lincoln accepted the invitation, for the most part crafted his remarks in the Executive Mansion, and headed to Gettysburg, arriving on the evening of November 18, 1863. The town was filled with thousands expecting to witness the “event of the century.” Lincoln completed his remarks and, the following day, mounted a horse to join the procession heading for the cemetery. The program was unremarkable, except for Lincoln’s remarks, whose reception was split along party lines. Lincoln Comes to Gettysburg: The Creation of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address by Bradley M. Gottfried and Linda I. Gottfried recounts the events surrounding the creation of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, its dedication, and concentrates on Lincoln’s visit to Gettysburg on November 18- 19, 1863.

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Colonel Elmer Ellsworth was the first Union officer killed in the American Civil War. When it happened, on May 24, 1861, the entire North was aghast. Ellsworth was a celebrity and had just finished traveling with his famed and entertaining U. S. Zouave Cadets drill team. They had performed at West Point, in New York City, and for President Buchanan before returning home to Chicago. Ellsworth then joined his friend and law mentor Abraham Lincoln in his quest for the presidency. When Lincoln put out the call for troops after Fort Sumter was fired upon, Ellsworth responded. Within days he was able to organize over a thousand New York firefighters into a regiment of volunteers. Was it youthful enthusiasm or a lack of formal training that resulted in his death? There is evidence on both sides. What is definite is that the Lincolns rushed to the Navy Yard to view the body of the young man they had loved as a son. Mary Lincoln insisted that he lie in state in the East Room of their home. The elite of New York brought flowers to the Astor House en memoriam. Six members of the 11th New York accompanied their commander’s coffin. When the young colonel’s remains were finally interred in the Hudson View Cemetery, the skies opened up. A late May afternoon thunderstorm broke out in the middle of the procession, referred to as “tears from God himself.” Only eight weeks later, the results of the battle of First Bull Run knocked Ellsworth out of the headlines. The trickle of blood had now become a torrent, not to end for four more years of war. Groeling’s well-written biography is grounded in years of examining archival resources, diaries, personal letters, newspapers, and other accounts. In the sixty intervening years since the last portrait of Ellsworth was written, new information has arisen that gives readers and historians a better understanding of the Ellsworth phenomenon. The author’s interwoven accounts of John Hay, George Nicolay, Abraham Lincoln, and the Lincoln family put Ellsworth clearly at the forefront of the excitement that led up to the election of a president. First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the North’s First Civil War Hero examines every facet of Ellsworth’s complex, fascinating life. It is the story of many young men who fought and died for the Union. Elmer, however, was the first and - according to those who remember him - perhaps the best.

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In the popular memory, the end of the Civil War arrived at Appomattox with handshakes and amicable banter between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant - an honorable ceremony amongst noble warriors. And so it has been remembered to this day. But the war was not over. A larger and arguably more important surrender had yet to take place in North Carolina. This story occupies but little space in the vast annals of Civil War literature. As author Ernest A. Dollar Jr. ably explains in Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in the Civil War’s Final Campaign in North Carolina, the lens of modern science may reveal why. This war’s final campaign in North Carolina began on April 10, 1865, a day after Appomattox. More than 120,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were still in the field bringing war with them as they moved across North Carolina’s heartland. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was still out to destroy the South’s ability and moral stamina to make war. His unstoppable Union troops faced Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s demoralized but still dangerous Confederate Army of Tennessee. Thousands of paroled Rebels, desperate, distraught, and destitute, added to the chaos by streaming into the state from Virginia. Grief-stricken civilians struggling to survive in a collapsing world were caught in the middle. The collision of these groups formed a perfect storm long ignored by those wielding pens. Hearts Torn Asunder explores the psychological experience of these soldiers and civilians during the chaotic closing weeks of the war. Their letters, diaries, and accounts reveal just how deeply the killing, suffering, and loss had hurt and impacted these people by the spring of 1865. The author deftly recounts the experience of men, women, and children who endured intense emotional, physical, and moral stress during the war’s dramatic climax. Their emotional, irrational, and often uncontrollable reactions mirror symptoms associated with trauma victims today, all of which combined to shape memory of the war’s end. Once the armies left North Carolina after the surrender, their stories faded with each passing decade, neither side looked back and believed there was much that was honorable to celebrate. Hearts Torn Asunder recounts at a very personal level what happened during those closing days that made a memory so painful that few wanted to celebrate, but none could forget.

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The Dunker Church is one of the most iconic structures of the American Civil War. Surprisingly, few people know much if anything about its fascinating story or the role it played within the community of Sharpsburg and its importance during and after the Battle of Antietam. September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam by Alann D. Schmidt and Terry W. Barkley rectifies this oversight in the first book-length study of its kind. On September 17, 1862, two mighty armies grappled across the rolling hills, fields, and woodlots surrounding Sharpsburg, Maryland. The combat left more than 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, or captured, repulsed Lee’s invading Virginia army, and paved the way for the Emancipation Proclamation. Ironically, in the epicenter of that bloodiest day in American history stood a small whitewashed building dedicated to peace, equality, and the brotherhood of man. The German Baptist Brethren, or Dunkers (Dunkards) as they were colloquially known, built the Mumma Church of the Manor congregation in 1853 just nine years before Antietam. In addition to being a house of worship with important ties to the local community, the history of the Dunker Church is interwoven with such notable figures as Stonewall Jackson, Clara Barton, Abraham Lincoln, and even Mark Twain. The structure was heavily damaged during the battle, housed torn bodies as a hospital in its aftermath, and suffered a complete collapse before undergoing the long and arduous process of being rebuilt. Schmidt’s and Barkley’s impressive September Mourn is based upon years of meticulous research from both a Church of the Brethren (Dunkers) and a National Park Service perspective. The authors establish the importance of the structure to Sharpsburg and its citizens, its role during the battle and its aftermath, and how it helped establish tourism and education for future generations of Americans. The Dunker Church can finally take its place alongside the Alamo and Shiloh churches as one of the most notable houses of worship in American military history. September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam is a must-read for anyone interested in the full story of the monumental battle and the community who lived through it.

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“May God forgive me for the order,” Confederate Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge remarked as he ordered young cadets from Virginia Military Institute into the battle lines at New Market, just days after calling them from their academic studies to assist in a crucial defense.Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley had seen years of fighting. In the spring of 1864, Union Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel prepared to lead a new invasion force into the Valley, operating on the far right flank of Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign. Breckinridge scrambled to organize the Confederate defense.When the opposing divisions clashed near the small crossroads town of New Market on May 15, 1864, new legends of courage were born. Local civilians witnessed the combat unfold in their streets, churchyards, and fields and aided the fallen. The young cadets rushed into the battle when ordered—an opportunity for an hour of glory and tragedy. A Union soldier saved the national colors and a comrade, later receiving a Medal of Honor.The battle of New Market, though a smaller conflict in the grand scheme of that blood-soaked summer, came at a crucial moment in the Union’s offensive movements that spring and also became the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The results in the muddy fields reverberated across the North and South, altering campaign plans—as well as the lives of those who witnessed or fought. Some never left the fields alive; others retreated with excuses or shame. Some survived, haunted or glorified by their deeds.In Call Out the Cadets, Sarah Kay Bierle traces the history of this important, yet smaller battle. While covering the military aspects of the battle, the book also follows the history of individuals whose lives or military careers were changed because of the fight.New Market shined for its accounts of youth in battle, immigrant generals, and a desperate, muddy fight. Youth and veterans, generals and privates, farmers and teachers—all were called into the conflict or its aftermath of the battle, an event that changed a community, a military institute, and the very fate of the Shenandoah Valley.

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A Civil War Captain and His Lady is a true “Cold Mountain” love story from the Northern perspective. More than 150 years ago, 27-year-old Irish immigrant Josiah Moore met 19-year-old Jennie Lindsay, a member of one of Peoria, Illinois’s most prominent families. The Civil War had just begun, Josiah was the captain of the 17th Illinois Infantry, and his war would be a long and bloody one. Their courtship and romance, which came to light in a rare and unpublished series of letters, forms the basis of Gene Barr’s A Civil War Captain and His Lady: Love, Courtship, and Combat from Fort Donelson through the Vicksburg Campaign. The story of Josiah, Jennie, the men of the 17th and their families tracks the toll on our nation during the war and allows us to explore the often difficult recovery after the last gun sounded in 1865. Josiah’s and Jennie’s letters shed significant light on the important role played by a soldier’s sweetheart on the home front, and a warrior’s observations from the war front. Josiah’s letters offer a deeply personal glimpse into army life, how he dealt with the loss of many close to him, and the effects of war on a man’s physical, spiritual, and moral well-being. Jennie’s letters show a young woman mature beyond her age dealing with the difficulties on the home front while her brother and her new love struggle through the travails of war. Her encouragement to keep his faith in God strong and remain morally upright gave Josiah the strength to lead his men through the horrors of the Civil War. Politics also thread their way through the letters and include the evolution of Jennie’s father’s view of the conflict. A leader in the Peoria community and former member of the Illinois state house, he engages in his own political wars when he shifts his affiliation from the Whig Party to the new Republican Party, and is finally elected to the Illinois Senate as a Peace Democrat and becomes one of the state’s more notorious Copperheads. In addition to this deeply moving and often riveting correspondence, Barr includes additional previously unpublished material on the 17th Illinois and the war’s Western Theater, including Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and the lesser known Meridian Campaign—actions that have historically received much less attention than similar battles in the Eastern Theater. The result is a rich, complete, and satisfying story of love, danger, politics, and warfare, and it is one you won’t soon forget.

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George Patton is renowned for his daring tank thrusts and rapid movement, but the many rivers and obstacles his Third Army encountered crossing Europe required engineers spearheading his advance. A Combat Engineer with Patton’s Army is the untold story of Frank Lembo, one of Patton’s men who helped move the American command in the battle of Argentan in the Normandy Campaign, in the high-speed pursuit of the German Wehrmacht eastward across France, and in the brutal battles waged during the Battle of the Bulge and during the final combats along the borders of the collapsing Reich. Throughout his time in Europe Lembo maintained a running commentary of his experiences with Betty Craig, his fiancé and future wife. This extensive correspondence provides a unique eyewitness view of the life and work of a combat engineer under wartime conditions. As a squad (and later platoon) leader, Frank and his comrades cleared mines, conducted reconnaissance behind enemy lines, built bridges, and performed other tasks necessary to support the movement of the 317th, 318th, and 319th Infantry Regiments of the Blue Ridge Division—Patton’s workhorses, if not his glamour boys. Frank wrote about the deadly river crossings at the Moselle, Seille, and Sauer, all under enemy fire, and of the frustrating pauses when supplies were diverted. He participated in the mid-December sprint to Luxembourg and the relief provided at Bastogne during the Bulge, the liberation of concentration camps once Third Army had charged into Germany, and of their occupation duty in Bavaria. Frank’s letters go beyond his direct combat experiences to include the camaraderie among the GIs, living conditions, weather, and the hijinks that helped keep the constant threat of death at bay. His letters also worked to reassure Betty with hopeful dreams for their future together. Including dozens of previously unpublished photographs, A Combat Engineer with Patton’s Army: The Fight Across Europe with the 80th “Blue Ridge” Division in World War II offers the rare perspective of what day-to-day warfare at the ground-level looked like in the European Theater through the eyes of one of the men spearheading the advance.

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In 2014, Eric J. Wittenberg published “The Devil’s to Pay”: John Buford at Gettysburg. A History and Walking Tour, an award-winning study of Union cavalry delaying actions at Gettysburg. Fast-forward four years to 2018 and Wittenberg’s latest release, a companion Western Theater study entitled Holding the Line on the River of Death: Union Mounted Forces at Chickamauga, September 18, 1863. This volume focuses on the two important delaying actions conducted by mounted Union soldiers at Reed’s and Alexander’s bridges on the first day of Chickamauga. A cavalry brigade under Col. Robert H. G. Minty and Col. John T. Wilder’s legendary “Lightning Brigade” of mounted infantry made stout stands at a pair of chokepoints crossing Chickamauga Creek. Minty’s small cavalry brigade held off nearly ten times its number on September 18 by designing and implementing a textbook example of a delaying action. Their dramatic and outstanding efforts threw Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s entire battle plan off its timetable by delaying his army’s advance for an entire day. That delay cost Bragg’s army the initiative at Chickamauga. Wittenberg brings his expertise with Civil War cavalry operations to bear with vivid and insightful descriptions of the fighting and places the actions in their full and proper historic context. This thoroughly researched and well-written book includes three appendices—two orders of battle and a discussion of the historic context of some of the tactics employed by the Union mounted force on September 18, and an epilogue on how the War Department and National Park Service have remembered these events. It also includes a detailed walking and driving tour complete with the GPS coordinates, a trademark of Wittenberg’s recent works. Complete with more than 60 photos and 15 maps by master cartographer Mark Anderson Moore, Holding the Line on the River of Death: Union Mounted Forces at Chickamauga, September 18, 1863 will be a welcome addition to the burgeoning Chickamauga historiography.

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September 17, 1862—one of the most consequential days in the history of the United States—was a moment in time when the future of the country could have veered in two starkly different directions. Confederates under General Robert E. Lee had embarked upon an invasion of Maryland, threatening to achieve a victory on Union soil that could potentially end the Civil War in Southern Independence. Lee’s opponent, Major General George McClellan, led the Army of the Potomac to stop Lee’s campaign. In Washington D.C., President Lincoln eagerly awaited news from the field, knowing that the future of freedom for millions was at stake. Lincoln had resolved that, should Union forces win in Maryland, he would issue his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. All this hung in the balance on September 17: the day of the battle of Antietam. The fighting near Sharpsburg, Maryland, would change the course of American history, but in the process, it became the costliest day this nation has ever known, with more than 23,000 men falling as casualties. Join historian Daniel J. Vermilya to learn more about America’s bloodiest day, and how it changed the United States forever in That Field of Blood.

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In early July 1864, a quickly patched together force of outnumbered Union soldiers under the command of Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace prepared for a last-ditch defense along the banks of the Monocacy River. Behind them, barely fifty miles away, lay the capital of the United States, open to attack.Facing Wallace’s men were Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Confederates. In just over a month, they had cleared the Shenandoah Valley of Union soldiers and crossed the Potomac River, invading the north for the third time in the war. The veterans in Early’s force could almost imagine their flags flying above the White House. A Confederate victory near Washington could be all the pro-peace platforms in the north needed to defeat Abraham Lincoln in the upcoming election.Then came Monocacy. Over the course of the day, Union and Confederate soldiers attacked and counter-attacked, filling the fields just south of Frederick, Maryland, with the dead and wounded. By the end of the day, Wallace’s men fell into retreat, but they had done their job: they had slowed Jubal Early. The fighting at Monocacy soon became known as the “Battle that Saved Washington.”Determined to Stand and Fight by Ryan T. Quint tells the story of that pivotal day and an even more pivotal campaign that went right to the gates of Washington, D.C. Readers can enjoy the narrative and then easily follow along on a nine-stop driving tour around the battlefield and into the streets of historic Frederick. Another fascinating title from the award-winning Emerging Civil War Series.

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Soldiers called it one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom”—the Wilderness of Virginia, seventy square miles of dense, secondgrowth forest known as “the dark, close wood.”“A more unpromising theatre of war was never seen,” said another.Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror.Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Immovable object intercepted irresistible force—and the Wilderness burst into flame.With the forest itself burning around them, men died by the thousands. The armies bloodied each other without mercy and, at times, without any semblance of order. The brush grew so dense, and the smoke hung so thick, men could not see who stood next to them—or in front of them. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said.It was, said another, “hell itself.”Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive.For more than a decade, Chris Mackowski has guided visitors across the battlefields of the Overland Campaign. Now in Hell Itself he invites readers of the Emerging Civil War Series to join him in the Wilderness—one of the most storied battlefields of the entire Civil War.

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The study of the Civil War in the Western Theater is more popular now than ever before, and the center of that interest is the months-long Vicksburg Campaign, which is the subject of National Park Historian Terrence J. Winschel’s book Triumph & Defeat: The Vicksburg Campaign, Vol 2, now in paperback. Following up on the popular success of his earlier book of the same name, Winschel offers ten new chapters of insights into what has been declared by many to have been the most decisive campaign of the Civil War. Designed to appeal to both general readers and serious students, Winschel’s essays cover a wide range of topics. Winschel’s chapters include detailed coverage of military operations, naval engagements, leading personalities, and even an essay about a specific family (the Lords) caught up in the nightmarish 47-day siege that nearly cost them their lives. Smoothly written and deeply researched, these fresh chapters offer balanced and comprehensive analysis written with the authority that only someone who has served as Vicksburg’s Chief Historian since 1978 can produce. Bolstered by photographs, illustrations, and numerous outstanding original maps, this second volume in the Triumph& Defeat series will stand as a lasting contribution to the study of the Civil War. Author Terry Winschel, chief historian at Vicksburg National Military Park, weaves a professional lifetime of personal experience and scholarship into this remarkable study. His chapters cover every major aspect of what many consider to have been the decisive military achievement of the war--the capture of“The Gibraltar of the Confederacy.”

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The clash of armies in the American Civil War left hundreds of thousands of men dead, wounded, or permanently damaged. Skirmishes and battles could result in casualty numbers as low as one or two and as high as tens of thousands. The carnage of the battlefield left a lasting impression on those who experienced or viewed it, but in most cases the armies quickly moved on to meet again at another time and place. When the dust settled and the living armies moved on, what happened to the dead left behind?Unlike battle narratives, The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead picks up the story as the battle ends. The burial of the dead was an overwhelming experience for the armies or communities forced to clean up after the destruction of battle. In the short-term action, bodies were hastily buried to avoid the stench and the horrific health concerns of massive death; in the long-term, families struggled to reclaim loved ones and properly reinter them in established cemeteries.Visitors to a battlefield often wonder what happened to the dead once the battle was over. In this easy-to-read overview that will complement any Civil War library, author Kathleen Thompson provides a look at the aftermath of battle and the process of burying the Civil War dead.The Aftermath of Battle is part of the Emerging Civil War Series offering compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War’s most important stories. The masterful storytelling is richly enhanced with hundreds of photos and illustrations.

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