Search results for ""Savas Beatie""

Authors J. David Petruzzi and Steven Stanley use clear and concise writing with original maps, modern and historic photographs, tables, charts, and artwork to narrate the history of the Gettysburg Campaign from the opening battle at Brandy Station in Virginia on June 6, 1863, to the escape of Gen. Robert E.

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It has been called Robert E. Lee’s supreme moment: riding into the Chancellorsville clearing...the mansion itself aflame in the background...his gunpowder-smeared soldiers crowding around him, hats off, cheering wildly. After one of the most audacious gambits of the war, Lee and his men had defeated a foe more than two and a half times their size. The Federal commander,“Fighting Joe” Hooker, had boasted days earlier that his plans were perfect—yet his army had crumbled, and Hooker himself had literally been knocked senseless. History would remember the battle of Chancellorsville as“Lee’s Greatest Victory.” But Confederate fortunes had reached their high tide. Never again would fortune favor Lee the way it did at Chancellorsville—even though the war continued another two years. That Furious Struggle: Chancellorsville and the High Tide of the Confederacy recounts the story of the Army of Northern Virginia’s last offensive battlefield victory—a tale of triumph and tragedy that includes the second-bloodiest day of the Civil War; the mortal wounding of one of the Confederacy’s greatest icons, Stonewall Jackson; and the bold leadership of the man known as“audacity itself.” Told in the highly readable style that has become the hallmark of the Emerging Civil War Series, That Furious Struggle contains more than a hundred and fifty modern and historical photos, outstanding maps, and an insider’s perspective of the battlefield as told by historians who intimately know the ground and the battle.

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Gettysburg for Kids and Grown-ups, Too! is a book like no other. It is a family-friendly story of the Battle of Gettysburg for everyone, no matter their age. Powerful modern images enhance an easy-to-read narrative. Fascinating sidebars create an engaging volume that is informative and entertaining but also sympathetic and reverent. Our familiar guides, Liam and Jaden, now joined by their teen brother Jesse, lead young readers and their families on a journey through the Gettysburg story that is immediate and alive.

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The stunning Northern victory at Shiloh in 1942 thrust Union commander Ulysses S. Grant into the national spotlight, claimed the life of Confederate commander Albert S. Johnston, and forever buried the notion that the Civil War would be a short conflict.Anxious to attack the enemy, Johnston began concentrating Southern forces at Corinth, a major railroad center just below the Tennessee border. His bold plan called for his Army of the Mississippi to march north and destroy General Grant’s Army of the Tennessee before it could link up with another Union army on the way to join him.On the morning of April 6, Johnston boasted to his subordinates, “Tonight we will water our horses in the Tennessee!” They nearly did so. Johnston’s sweeping attack hit the unsuspecting Federal camps at Pittsburg Landing and routed the enemy from position after position as they fell back toward the Tennessee River. Johnston’s sudden death in the Peach Orchard, however, coupled with stubborn Federal resistance, widespread confusion, and Grant’s dogged determination to hold the field, saved the Union army from destruction. The arrival of reinforcements that enabled to Grant to seize the initiative and surprise the Confederates led to one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war, with nearly 24,000 men killed, wounded, and missing.Cunningham, a young Ph.D. candidate, researched and wrote the book in 1966. Although unpublished, many Shiloh experts and park rangers considered it to be the best overall examination of the battle ever written. Civil War historians Joiner and Smith have resurrected Cunningham’s manuscript updating citations, original maps, a complete order of battle and table of losses. This book will be welcomed by everyone who enjoys battle history at its finest.

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At least 10,000 soldiers were killed or mortally wounded in the three-day Battle of Gettysburg. More than 5,000 of these deaths were suffered by Union officers and enlisted men. Author Greg Coco mined the sources to pull out eyewitness accounts to illustrate the last moments, hours, or days of 100 Federals who fell there, all meticulously detailed and substantiated by historian Greg Coco.

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Historian Greg Coco mined letter collections and diary entries to produce this small but fascinating anthology that demonstrates the humanity of the soldiers who marched to and fought through the great battle of Gettysburg.

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The November 1864 battle of Franklin left the Army of Tennessee stunned. In only a few hours, the army lost 6,000 men and a score of generals. Rather than pause, John Bell Hood marched his army north to Nashville. He had risked everything on a successful campaign and saw his offensive as the Confederacy’s last hope. There was no time to mourn.There was no question of attacking Nashville. Too many Federals occupied too many strong positions. But Hood knew he could force them to attack him and, in doing so, he could win a defensive victory that might rescue the Confederacy from the chasm of collapse.Unfortunately for Hood, he faced George Thomas. He was one of the Union’s best commanders, and he had planned and prepared his forces. But with battle imminent, the ground iced over, Thomas had to wait. An impatient Ulysses S. Grant nearly sacked him, but on December 15-16, Thomas struck and routed Hood’s army. He then chased him out of Tennessee and into Mississippi in a grueling winter campaign.After Nashville, the Army of Tennessee was never again a major fighting force. Combined with William Tecumseh Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas and Grant’s capture of Petersburg and Richmond, Nashville was the first peal in the long death knell of the Confederate States of America.In They Came Only to Die: The Battle of Nashville, historian Sean Michael Chick offers a fast-paced, well analyzed narrative of John Bell Hood’s final campaign, complete with the most accurate maps yet made of this crucial battle.

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The American Civil War left indelible marks on the country.In the century and a half since the war, Americans have remembered the war in different ways. Veterans placed monuments to commemorate their deeds on the battlefield. In doing so, they often set in stone and bronze specific images that may have conflicted with the factual historical record.Erecting monuments and memorials became a way to commemorate the past, but they also became important tools for remembering that past in particular ways. Monuments honor, but they also embody the very real tension between history and the way we remember that history – what we now today call “memory.”Civil War Monuments and Memory: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War explores some of the ways people monumented and memorialized the war – and how those markers have impacted our understanding of it. This collection of essays brings together the best scholarship from Emerging Civil War’s blog, symposia, and podcast – all of it revised and updated – coupled with original pieces, designed to shed new light and insight on the monuments and memorials that give us some of our most iconic and powerful connections to the battlefields and the men who fought there.

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"What If... ?" Every Civil War armchair general asks the question. Possibilities unfold. Disappointments vanish. Imaginations soar. More questions arise. Asking "What if..." is often more than an exercise in wishful fantasy. A serious inquiry sparks rigorous exploration, demands critical thinking, and unlocks important insights.The Great "What Ifs" of the American Civil War: Historians Tackle the Conflict’s Most Intriguing Possibilities is a collection of thirteen essays by the historians at Emerging Civil War, including a foreword by acclaimed alternate history writer Peter G. Tsouras.Each entry focuses on one of the most important events of the war and unpacks the options of the moment. To understand what happened, we must look at what could have happened, with the full multitude of choices before us and a clear and objective eye. "What if" is a tool for illumination.This is not a collection of alternate histories or counterfactual scenarios. Rather, it is an invitation to ask, to learn, and to wonder, "What if... ?"

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Gettysburg: Kids Who Did the Impossible! is a creative, visually-captivating experience for children, young historians, and Civil War enthusiasts alike. Gettysburg was one of the most important battles of the entire Civil War, and author Gregory Christianson brings it to life through breathtaking photographs, extraordinary watercolors, and exciting true-to-life stories. This is the perfect platform for “story guides” Liam and Jaden to celebrate Gettysburg’s young heroes—kids who defied age and inexperience to serve their town, country, and fellow human beings far beyond common valor. This remarkable and wholly unique presentation has something for everyone: single-page introductions for each day of the battle and lots of “have-to-know” facts, all wrapped in a photographic essay of the Gettysburg battlefield as you’ve never seen before.

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The stakes for George Gordon Meade could not have been higher. After his stunning victory at Gettysburg in July of 1863, the Union commander spent the following months trying to bring the Army of Northern Virginia to battle once more and finish the job. The Confederate army, robbed of much of its offensive strength, nevertheless parried Meade’s moves time after time. Although the armies remained in constant contact during those long months of cavalry clashes, quick maneuvers, and sudden skirmishes, Lee continued to frustrate Meade’s efforts. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Meade’s political enemies launched an all-out assault against his reputation and generalship. Even the very credibility of his victory at Gettysburg came under assault. Pressure mounted for the army commander to score a decisive victory and prove himself once more. Smaller victories, like those at Bristoe Station and Rappahannock Station, did little to quell the growing clamor—particularly because out west, in Chattanooga, another Union general, Ulysses S. Grant, was once again reversing Federal misfortunes. Meade needed a comparable victory in the east. And so, on Thanksgiving Day, 1863, the Army of the Potomac rumbled into motion once more, intent on trying again to bring about the great battle that would end the war. The Great Battle Never Fought: The Mine Run Campaign, November 26-December 2 1863 recounts the final chapter of the forgotten fall of 1863—when George Gordon Meade made one final attempt to save the Union and, in doing so, save himself.

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“Character is destiny” wrote Greek Philosopher Heraclitus more than twenty-five centuries ago. Douglas Southall Freeman, the Army of Northern Virginia’s preeminent historian, echoed that view when he wrote, “Further study . . . may prove both more profitable and more interesting when it deals with men and morale than where it merely described in new terms the familiar strategy and battles.” Better than any historian of his age, Freeman appreciated the impact character played on Gen. Robert E. Lee’s judgment and actions. Indeed, the foundation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Lee biography is constructed around this theme. Most writers of military history stress strategy and tactics at the expense of the character of their subjects. Larry Tagg remedies that oversight with The Generals of Shiloh, a unique and invaluable study of the high-ranking combat officers whose conduct in April 1862 helped determine the success or failure of their respective armies, the fate of the war in the Western Theater and, in turn, the fate of the American union. Tagg’s new book, which is modeled after his bestselling The Generals of Gettysburg, presents detailed background information on each of his subjects, coupled with a thorough account of each man’s actions on the field of Shiloh and, if he survived that battle, his fate thereafter. Many of the great names tossed up by civil war are found here in this early battle, from U. S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Don Carlos Buell, to Albert S. Johnston, Braxton Bragg, and P. G. T. Beauregard. Many more men, whose names crossed the stage of furious combat only to disappear in the smoke on the far side, also populate these pages. Every one acted in his own unique fashion and in a manner worthy of study. This marriage of character (“the features and attributes of a man”) with his war record, offers new insights into how and why a particular soldier acted a certain way, in a certain situation, at a certain time. Nineteenth century combat was an unforgiving cauldron. In that hot fire some grew timid and listless, others demonstrated a tendency toward rashness, and the balance rose to the occasion and did their duty as they understood it. Each of their stories are found within these pages. The Generals of Shiloh will be hailed as both a wonderful read and an outstanding reference work for the general student and scholar alike.

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Twentyoneyearold Leonhard Rempe volunteered to serve Germany in 1914. By the time World War One ended, he had seen action on both major fronts, witnessed the war from the back of a horse and the cockpit of plane, and amassed one of the more unique records of anyone in the Kaiser’s army. From German Cavalry Officer to Reconnaissance Pilot is his remarkable story. Rempe initially served as a cavalryman in the 35th (1st West Prussian) Field Artillery of the XX ArmeeKorps, fighting in several bloody and significant battles against the Russians on the Eastern Front. In 1916, he exchanged his spurs for the cockpit and transferred to the Western front. Flying specially built planes for reconnaissance work was dangerous duty, but Rempe relished his time in the open cockpits, flying at altitudes high and low to provide detailed intelligence information for the German army. He met and knew many of the pilots who flew in both fighter and reconnaissance planes, including Manfred von Richthoven—the Red Baron. Unlike so many of his fellow pilots, Rempe survived several crashes, and was shot down over Reims, France, in March of 1918. At war’s end, Rempe returned to a defeated Germany in the midst of turmoil and revolution and served briefly in a Freikorps (Free Corps) regiment dedicated to preserving the new government in Weimar against German Communists. Seeking a new beginning, he arrived at Ellis Island in the spring of 1923 to start his life as an American. He brought with him flight reports, other miscellaneous documents, and scores of remarkable photographs documenting his wartime service, most of which are published here for the first time. During 1956, the last year of his life, Rempe penned a brief memoir of his World War One service which, together with the photographic record, forms the basis of From German Cavalry Officer to Reconnaissance Pilot. Using primary and secondary sources Dr. Paul Rempe provides insight into the grim realities of Leonhard’s war while his father’s own memoir recalls his special comradeship with his fellow soldiers and airmen. From German Cavalry Officer to Reconnaissance Pilot adds substantially to the growing literature of the First World War, and paints a unique and compelling portrait of a young German caught up in the deadly jaws of mass industrialized war.

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The battle of Chickamauga brought an early fall to the Georgia countryside in 1863, where men fell like autumn leaves in some of the heaviest fighting of the war. The battlefield consisted of a nearly impenetrable, vine-choked forest around Chickamauga Creek. Unable to see beyond their immediate surroundings, officers found it impossible to exercise effective command, and the engagement deteriorated into what many participants later called a soldier's battle. The stakes were high: control of Chattanooga,the Gateway City to the Deep South. The two-day battle of Chickamauga was the only major victory of the war for the ill-starred Confederate Army of Tennessee, which managed to break through on the second day and drive the Union army off the field in a wild rout. The victory, however, left a legacy of dashed hopes for Braxton Bragg and his Confederate army. Ironically, Bragg won the costly victory but lost the city, while Union commander William Rosecrans lost the battle but somehow mana

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“I intend to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer,” Union commander Ulysses S. Grant wrote to Washington after he’d opened his Overland Campaign in the Spring of 1864. His resolve entirely changed the face of warfare. Promoted to command of all the Federal armies, the new lieutenant general chose to ride shotgun with the Army of the Potomac as it once again threw itself against the wily, audacious Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. But Grant did something no one else had done before: he threw his army at Lee, over and over again. At Spotsylvania Court House, the second phase of the campaign, the two armies shifted from stalemate in the Wilderness to slugfest in the mud. Most commonly known for the horrific twenty-two-hour hand-to-hand combat in the pouring rain at the Bloody Angle, the battle of Spotsylvania Court House actually stretched from May 8-21, 1864, fourteen long days of battle and maneuver. Grant, the irresistible force, hammering with his overwhelming numbers and unprecedented power, versus Lee, the immovable object, hunkered down behind the most formidable defensive works yet seen on the continent—Spotsylvania Court House represents a chess match of immeasurable stakes between two master opponents. This clash is detailed in A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 8-21,1864. As former battlefield guides at Spotsylvania Court House, authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White know the ground as intimately as anyone today. With the knowledge and insight that comes from that familiarity, coupled with their command of the fact, Mackowski and White weave together a gripping narrative of one of the war’s most consequential engagements. A Season of Slaughter is part of the new 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, illustrations, and maps.

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The first shot of the American Civil War was not fired on April 12, 1861, in Charleston, South Carolina, but instead came on October 16, 1859, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia - or so claimed former slave turned abolitionist Frederick Douglass.The shot came like a meteor in the dark.John Brown, the infamous fighter on the Kansas plains and detester of slavery, led a band of nineteen men on a desperate nighttime raid that targeted the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. There, they planned to begin a war to end slavery in the United States.But after 36 tumultuous hours, John Brown's Raid failed, and Brown himself became a prisoner of the state of Virginia.Brown's subsequent trial further divided north and south on the issue of slavery as Brown justified his violent actions to a national audience forced to choose sides. Ultimately, Southerners cheered Brown's death at the gallows while Northerners observed it with reverence. The nation's dividing line had been drawn.Herman Melville and Walt Whitman extolled Brown as a "meteor" of the war. Roughly one year after Brown and his men attacked slavery in Virginia, the nation split apart, fueled by Brown's fiery actions.John Brown's Raid tells the story of the first shots that led to disunion. Richly filled with maps and images, it includes a driving and walking tour of sites related to Brown's Raid so visitors today can walk in the footsteps of America's meteor.

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Fort Sumter. Charleston. April 1861. The bombardment and surrender of Sumter were only the beginning of the story.Both sides understood the military significance of the fort and the busy seaport, which played host to one of the longest and most complicated and fascinating campaigns of the entire Civil War. Richard Hatcher's Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War is the first modern monograph to document the role of both the fort and the city throughout the entire Civil War.After it was captured, Southern troops immediately occupied and improved Sumter's defenses. The U.S. blockaded Charleston Harbor and for two years the fort, with its 50 heavy guns and 500-man garrison, remained mostly untested. That changed in April 1863, when a powerful combined operation set its sights on the fort, Charleston, and its outer defenses. The result was 22-month land and sea siege, the longest of the Civil War. The widespread effort included ironclad attacks, land assaults, raiding parties, and siege operations. Some of the war's most famous events unfolded there under the direction of a host of colorful personalities, including the assault of African American troops against Battery Wagner (depicted in the movie Glory), the shelling of the city by the "Swamp Angel," and the beginning of submarine warfare when the H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic and was herself lost at sea.The destruction of Fort Sumter remained a key Federal objective throughout the siege. Despite repeated concentrated bombardments of the fort and the city, however, it never fell. The defiant fort, Charleston, and its meandering defensive line were evacuated in February 1865 once word arrived that Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had taken Columbia, South Carolina and was about to cut off the coastal city.Hatcher, the former historian at Fort Sumter, mined a host of primary sources to produce an in-depth and fascinating account of the intricacies, complexities, and importance of this campaign to the overall war effort.Nearly 18 months of shelling had rendered Fort Sumter almost unrecognizable, but the significance of its location remained. During the eight decades that followed, the United States invested millions of dollars and thousands of hours rebuilding and rearming the fort to face potential foreign threats in three different wars. By the end of World War II, sea and air power had been made Sumter obsolete, and the fort was transferred to the National Park Service. Thunder in the Harbor fills a large gap in the historiography of the war and underscores that there is still much to learn about our endlessly fascinating Civil War.

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Thirteen Months in Dixie, or, the Adventures of a Federal Prisoner in Texas, is a frolicking true tale of adventure, hardship, and heroism during the last days of the Civil War - in the protagonist's own words. And it is finally available to the general public after being hidden away for decades as a family heirloom.Oscar Federhen was a new recruit to the 13th Massachusetts Light Artillery when he shipped out to Louisiana in the spring of 1864 to participate in the Red River Campaign. Not long after his arrival at the front, a combination of ill-luck and bad timing led to his capture. Federhen was marched overland to Tyler, Texas, where he was held as a prisoner of war in Camp Ford, the largest POW camp west of the Mississippi River.Thirteen Months in Dixie recounts Federhen's often horrifying and sometimes thrilling ordeals as a starving prisoner. The captured artillerist tried to escape many times and faced sadistic guards and vicious hounds before making good his deadly effort. And his ordeal was just beginning. Making his way back to Union lines forced him to range cross-country through northeast Texas. He had to dodge regular Confederates, irregulars, and Comanches, but was captured a second time and escaped yet again, finally witnessing the collapse of Confederate army in the spring of 1865 in freedom.Jeaninne Honstein and Steven Knowlton have carefully transcribed and annotated this incredible manuscript to orient the reader to the places, people, and manners described within it. Prominent within its pages are numerous illustrations, including two from Federhen's own pen. Thirteen Months in Dixie is not only a gripping true story of courage, adventure, and devotion to duty, but a valuable primary source about the lives of Civil War prisoners and everyday Texans during the conflict.

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The Maps of Second Bull Run: An Atlas of the Second Bull Run/Manassas Campaign from the Formation of the Army of Virginia Through the Battle of Chantilly, June 26 September 1, 1862, continues Bradley M. Gottfried's efforts to study and illustrate the major campaigns of the Civil War's Eastern Theater. This is his tenth book in the ongoing Savas Beatie Military Atlas Series.President Abraham Lincoln's frustration with George B. McClellan's inability to defeat Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and capture Richmond dramatically increased after the unsuccessful Seven Days' Battles. The president combined three small armies into the new Army of Virginia and placed it under Maj. Gen. John Pope, who had overseen several successes in the Western Theater.Pope's growing aggressiveness, combined with McClellan's passive posture on the Peninsula, forced Lee to turn his attention toward the new threat from the north. Thomas Stonewall Jackson moved his wing of the Army of Northern Virginia

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The George Spangler Farm in Gettysburg is a place of reverence. Nurses held the hands of dying soldiers and prayed and spoke last words with them amid the blood, stench, and agony of two hospitals. Heroic surgeons resolutely worked around the clock to save lives. Author Ronald D. Kirkwood's best-selling Too Much for Human Endurance: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg established the military and medical importance of the Spangler farm and hospitals. Tell Mother Not to Worry: Soldier Stories From Gettysburg's George Spangler Farm is Ron's eagerly awaited sequel. Kirkwood researched thousands of pensions and military records, hospital files, letters, newspapers, and diaries of those present at the hospitals on Spangler land during and after the battle. The result is a deeper and richer understanding of what these men and women enduredsuffering that often lingered for the rest of their lives. Their injuries and deaths, Yankee and Rebel alike, carried with it

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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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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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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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The Gettysburg Campaign has been examined in minute detail from nearly every aspect but one; the key role played by Richard Ewell’s Second Corps during the final days in June. Scott Mingus’s Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Confederate Expedition to the Susquehanna River, June 1863 is the first in-depth study of these crucial summer days that not only shaped the course of the Gettysburg Campaign, but altered the course of our nation’s history. In two powerful columns, Ewell’s Corps swept toward the strategically important Susquehanna River and the Pennsylvania capital looming beyond. Fear coursed through the local populace while Washington and Harrisburg scrambled to meet the threat. One of Ewell’s columns included a veteran division under Jubal Early, whose objectives included the capture and ransom of towns and the destruction of railroad bridges and the Hanover Junction rail yard. Early’s most vital mission was the seizure of the Columbia Bridge, which spanned the Susquehanna River between Wrightsville and Columbia. To capture the longest covered bridge in the world would allow Early’s Division to cross into prosperous Lancaster County and move against the capital in Harrisburg from its relatively undefended rear. Along the way, one of Early’s brigades under John Gordon occupied Gettysburg and spilled the first blood there days before the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil began on July 1. Flames Beyond Gettysburg vividly narrates both sides of Ewell’s drama-filled expedition, including key Southern decisions, the response of the Pennsylvania militiamen and civilians who opposed the Confederates, and the burning of the Columbia Bridge. Based upon extensive primary source material and featuring original maps by cartographer Steven Stanley, the fast-paced and gracefully written Flames Beyond Gettysburg is a welcomed and important addition to the Gettysburg literature.

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Thousands of books and articles have been written about Gettysburg, but the operation remains one of the most complex and difficult to understand. Bradley Gottfried’s groundbreaking The Maps of Gettysburg: An Atlas of the Gettysburg Campaign, June 3 – July 13, 1863 is a unique and thorough study of this multifaceted campaign.The Maps of Gettysburg breaks down the entire operation into thirty map sets or “action-sections” enriched with 144 detailed, full-page colour maps comprising the entire campaign. These cartographic originals bore down to the regimental and battery level and include the march to and from the battlefield and virtually every significant event in between. At least two, and as many as twenty, maps accompany each map set. Keyed to each piece of cartography is a full facing page of detailed text describing the units, personalities, movements, and combat (including quotes from eyewitnesses) depicted on the accompanying map, all of which makes the Gettysburg story come alive.About the AuthorBradley M. Gottfried, Ph.D., is the President of the College of Southern Maryland. An avid Civil War historian, Dr. Gottfried is the author of five books.

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Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s deployment to East Tennessee promised a chance to shine. The commander of the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia had long been overshadowed by his commander, Robert E. Lee, and the now-martyred Second Corp commander, Stonewall Jackson. Lee had nonetheless leaned heavily on Longstreet, whom he called his “Old Warhorse.” Reassigned to the Western Theater because of sliding fortunes there, the Old Warhorse hoped to run free with—finally—an independent command of his own. This experience is depicted in A Fine Opportunity Lost: Longstreet’s East Tennessee Campaign, November 1863 – April 1864 by Ed Lowe (Col., Ret.)For his Union opponent, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, East Tennessee offered an opportunity for redemption. Burnside’s early war success had been overshadowed by his disastrous turn at the head of the Army of the Potomac, where he suffered a dramatically lopsided loss at the battle of Fredericksburg followed by the humiliation of “The Mud March.”Removed from army command and shuffled to a less prominent theater, Burnside suddenly found his quiet corner of the war getting noisy and worrisome. The mid-September loss by the Union Army of the Cumberland at the battle of Chickamauga left it besieged in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That, in turn, opened the door to Union-leaning East Tennessee and imperiled Burnside’s isolated force around Knoxville, the region’s most important city. A strong move by Confederates would create political turmoil for Federal forces and cut off Burnside’s ability to come to Chattanooga’s aid.Into that breach marched Longstreet, fresh off his tide-turning role in the Confederate victory at Chickamauga. The Old Warhorse finally had the independent command he had longed for and an opportunity to capitalize on the momentum he had helped create.Longstreet’s First Corps and Burnside’s IX Corps had shared battlefields at Second Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. Unexpectedly, these two old foes from the Eastern Theater now found themselves transplanted in the Western—familiar adversaries on unfamiliar ground. The fate of East Tennessee hung in the balance, and the reputations of the commanders would be won or lost.

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Fifteen years have passed since the publication of the last biography of Jeb Stuart. Several appeared during the last century lauding his contributions to Confederate fortunes in the Eastern Theater. Each follows a familiar tradition established by hero-worshipping subordinates portraying its subject as a model of chivalric conduct with a romantic's outlook on life and a sense of fair dealing and goodwill, even toward his enemy. J. E. B. Stuart: The Soldier and the Man, by award-winning author Edward Longacre, is the first balanced, detailed, and thoroughly scrutinized study of the life and service of the Civil War's most famous cavalryman. Long known to scholars and history buffs alike as The Beau Sabreur of the Confederacy, James Ewell Brown Stuart of Virginia was possessed of many gifts, personally and professionally, and led the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry to the all-but-complete satisfaction of his superiors. Stuart, insisted Robert E. Lee, never brought me a piece of fa

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On July 1, 1863, Brigadier General Lysander Cutler commanded the first Union infantry to relieve Brigadier General John Buford’s hard-pressed cavalry on the western outskirts of Gettysburg. The brigade’s stubborn defense along McPherson’s Ridge and the arrival of the famous Iron Brigade stopped the Confederate advance on the town and set the tone for the three-day battle. All of this is laid out in “The Bullets Flew Like Hail:” Cutler’s Brigade at Gettysburg, from McPherson’s Ridge to Culp’s Hill by James L. McLean, Jr.Early in the fight, two of the brigade’s regiments, the 14th Brooklyn and the 95th New York, along with the Iron Brigade’s 6th Wisconsin, participated in one of the most famous assaults of the war. The three regiments simultaneously charged across open ground, repulsed the attack of Brigadier General Joseph Davis’s Rebel brigade, and captured a large number of Mississippi and North Carolina troops protected by an unfinished railroad cut.By the end of July 1, Cutler’s brigade had fought against Confederate brigades led by James Archer, Joseph Davis, Alfred Iverson, Junius Daniels, and Alfred Scales. The brigade was one of the last to leave the field of battle and successfully reformed on Cemetery Hill.On July 2 the brigade was sent to Culp’s Hill. During the evening of July 2 and the early morning hours of July 3, Cutler’s men assisted Brigadier General George Greene’s 12th Corps brigade in repulsing spirited Southern attacks against the Union right flank. In doing so, Cutler’s veterans held the distinction of being among the few Union troops who fought all three days of the battle.The performance of the brigade at Gettysburg came at a great cost. In the battle, only five Union and Confederate brigades sustained 1,000 or more casualties. Cutler’s brigade was one of them. This brigade deserves to be recognized for its heroic performance throughout the fight. Accompanying the text in “The Bullets Flew Like Hail” are 39 detailed maps depicting troop movements throughout each phase of the battle. A photographic supplement provides a look at the battlefield’s terrain and the major personalities discussed within the book.

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Irvin McDowell was a prominent figure during the early months of the Civil War. The West Point graduate was a dutiful, dependable, and diligent military officer. With so much at stake in 1861, he was called upon to lead the Union’s most prominent Eastern army. Pressed by the media and President Abraham Lincoln to move into Virginia and defeat the gathering Confederate forces, McDowell led his neophyte army to the plains of Manassas and was soundly defeated after a long day of hard fighting. Thereafter, he held a large independent command in northern Virginia during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign and served in the Army of Virginia under Gen. John Pope during the disastrous Second Manassas Campaign.Despite his significant contributions, a lack of primary materials (and few personal papers) made it seemingly impossible to pen his biography. Authors Frank Simione Jr. and Gene Schmiel used available sources to create a reliable synthesis of the man and his career in Searching for Irvin McDowell: The Civil War’s Forgotten General. Unless or until his private papers surface, it will stand as the best treatment of McDowell.

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