Originally published in 1948, this book tells the story of the three fateful days of Gettysburg in the words of the men and women who lived it. No mere chronicle of troop movements and military decisions, it is a path-breaking work in the reporting of Civil War history. Praised by "The New York Times Book Review" as "the very best collection of firsthand accounts, written by soldiers and civilians" of the battle of Gettysburg, this volume has been out of print for many years. Edited by Earl Schenk Miers (1910-1972), one of the pioneers in reviving popular interest in the American Civil War and in Lincoln, this new edition is enriched with a foreword by noted Civil War scholar James I. Robertson, Jr. For many years a favourite among Civil War buffs and enthusiasts, this edition is ideally suited for use in American history courses on the Civil War and military history and in American history survey courses.

Originally published in 1948, this book tells the story of the three fateful days of Gettysburg in the words of the men and women who lived it. No mere chronicle of troop movements and military decisions, it is a path-breaking work in the reporting of Civil War history. Praised by "The New York Times Book Review" as "the very best collection of firsthand accounts, written by soldiers and civilians" of the battle of Gettysburg, this volume has been out of print for many years. Edited by Earl Schenk Miers (1910-1972), one of the pioneers in reviving popular interest in the American Civil War and in Lincoln, this new edition is enriched with a foreword by noted Civil War scholar James I. Robertson, Jr. For many years a favourite among Civil War buffs and enthusiasts, this edition is ideally suited for use in American history courses on the Civil War and military history and in American history survey courses.

" While Father is Away reveals the intimate story of a British-American's role in the American Civil War. William Bradbury's letters home provide a rare window on the unique relationships among husband, wife, and children while a father was away at war. Yorkshire attorney turned Union volunteer soldier Bradbury became a "privileged private" with extraordinary access to powerful Union generals including Daniel Butterfield, future president Benjamin Harrison, and Clinton B. Fisk, the region's administrator for the Freedmen's Bureau during Reconstruction. The letters also provide an in-depth look at this driven land speculator and manager for the Atchison Topeka Santa Fe Railway. As a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Manchester Guardian, Bradbury was both eyewitness to and participant in the shaping of events in the world as it moved west.

J. Howard Wert was a recent college graduate when the armies of the North and South converged near his family's homestead just three miles outside Gettysburg in the summer of 1863. A militia member and anti-slavery supporter, Wert acted as a guide for Union General George Meade, helping position federal troops in the fields and hills around town. Perhaps more importantly, he collected and labeled artifacts from the battle, including a still-hot Confederate shell that almost hit him near Little Round Top. After the war, Wert resumed gathering relics of the three-day battle, many given to him by veterans of both sides, including weapons, clothing, letters, furniture, and even items related to Lincoln's Address. Now this amazing private collection can be appreciated through more than 120 color pictures and informative text about both the items and Wert's life.

The first graphic history to capture the full scope of the Civil War, gorgeously drawn and expertly told

The graphic novelist Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and the award-winning historian Ari Kelman team up to create a unique portrait of a brutal and defining event in American history: the Civil War. The result is "Battle Lines," a monumental graphic history--rendered in Fetter-Vorm's sweeping full-color panoramas, and grounded in Kelman's nuanced understanding of the period--offering a series of wholly new perspectives on the conflict that turned this nation against itself.
Each chapter in "Battle Lines "begins with an object; each object tells its own story. A tattered flag, lowered in defeat at Fort Sumter. A set of chains, locked to the ankles of a slave as he scrambles toward freedom. A bullet, launched from the bore of a terrifying new rifle. A brick, hurled from a crowd of ration-starved rioters. With these objects and others, both iconic and commonplace, "Battle Lines" traces a broad and ambitious narrative from the early rumblings of secession to the dark years of Reconstruction. Richly detailed and wildly inventive, its stories propel the reader to all manner of unlikely vantages as only the graphic form can: from the malaria-filled gut of a mosquito to the faded ink of a soldier's pen, and from the barren farms of the home front to the front lines of an infantry charge.
Beautiful, uncompromising, poignant, and utterly original, "Battle Lines" is a daring vision of the war that nearly tore America apart.

In the wake of the firing on Fort Sumter, outraged Northerners looked forward to a quick and decisive victory over the Confederate rebels. But after the First Battle of Bull Run it became clear to supporters of the Union that the Civil War would be prolonged and deadly. How Northern society mobilized to fight this first great modern war is the subject of J. Matthew Gallman's perceptive history. Drawing on a wide range of up-to-date scholarship and addressing the issues from a fresh perspective, his book fills a surprising void in Civil War literature. Gallman's focus is on continuity and change what traditions the North relied on in preparing for war, and what adjustments it made in its behavior and institutions. From his analysis it seems clear that the Civil War was not the great watershed in political, economic, and social development that is often supposed. Gallman's investigation of the status of women and blacks, for example, shows that wartime gains, if significant for a few, were on the whole decidedly modest. And while "total war" came to the battlefield in a frightening manner, its impact on the Northern home front was far less certain. American Ways Series."

William J. Bolton's Civil War journal is especially valuable since he served throughout most of the Civil War, steadily rising through the ranks from captain to colonel with the 51st Pennsylvania. Bolton's commander throughout most of the war was John F. Hartranft, an influential figure who later became governor of Pennsylvania. William J. Bolton was lucky to have his brother John serving in the same unit, so he could draw on his recollections for the two periods when he himself was out of action due to wounds.The 51st Pennsylvania was largely drawn from Norristown, Pennsylvania, a prosperous county seat. The 51st served throughout the war in the IX Corps under Ambrose Burnside, and thus was involved in a wide variety of actions in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and Mississippi.Bolton was wounded twice during the war, at Antietam and Petersburg, and experienced all levels of command and virtually every type of combat and campaign situation. Bolton reworked his Civil War journal some time after the war, drawing on the "Official Records" and other sources to supplement his own experiences. Dr. Richard Sauer is extremely knowledgeable about Civil War sources, and clearly indicates where Bolton drew on other sources or where his recollections or information were in error in this carefully edited work.

In recent years, the intersection of religion and the American Civil War has been the focus of a growing area of scholarship. However, primary sources on this subject are housed in many different archives and libraries scattered across the U.S., and are often difficult to find. The Routledge Sourcebook of Religion and the American Civil War collects these sources into a single convenient volume, the most comprehensive collection of primary source material on religion and the Civil War ever brought together. With chapters organized both chronologically and thematically, and highlighting the experiences of soldiers, women, African Americans, chaplains, clergy, and civilians, this sourcebook provides a rich array of resources for scholars and students that highlights how religion was woven throughout the events of the war. Sources collected here include: * Sermons * Song lyrics * Newspaper articles * Letters * Diary entries * Poetry * Excerpts from books and memoirs * Artwork and photographs Introductions by the editor accompany each chapter and individual document, contextualizing the sources and showing how they relate to the overall picture of religion and the war. Beginning students of American history and seasoned scholars of the Civil War alike will greatly benefit from having easy access to the full texts of original documents that illustrate the vital role of religion in the country's most critical conflict.

Fifty-three fascinating tales introduce readers to the people, places, and events that shaped a nation and changed the world. Indexed and illustrated.

Truth's landmark slave narrative chronicles her experiences as a slave in upstate New York and her transformation into an extraordinary abolitionist, feminist, orator, and preacher. Based on the complete 1884 edition, this volume includes the "Book of Life," a collection of letters and sketches about Truth's life written subsequent to the original 1850 publication of the Narrative, and "A Memorial Chapter," a sentimental account of her death.

In the summer of 1864, the American Civil War had been dragging on for over three years with no end in sight. Things had not gone well for the Union, and the public blamed the president for the stalemate against the Confederacy and for the appalling numbers of killed and wounded. Lincoln was thoroughly convinced that without a favorable change in the trajectory of the war he would have no chance of winning a second term against former Union general George B. McClellan, whom he had previously dismissed as commander of the Army of the Potomac. This vivid, engrossing account of a critical year in American history examines the events of 1864, when the course of American history might have taken a radically different direction. It's no exaggeration to say that if McClellan had won the election, everything would have been different-McClellan and the Democrats planned to end the war immediately, grant the South its independence, and let the Confederacy keep its slaves. What were the crucial factors that in the end swung public sentiment in favor of Lincoln? Johnson focuses on the battlefield campaigns of Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. While Grant was waging a war of attrition with superior manpower against the quick and elusive rebel forces under General Robert E. Lee, Sherman was fighting a protracted battle in Georgia against Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston. But then the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, made a tactical error that would change the whole course of the war. This lively narrative, full of intriguing historical facts, brings to life an important series of episodes in our nation's history. History and Civil War buffs will not want to put down this real-life page-turner.

The long and turning path to the abolition of American slavery has often been attributed to the equivocations and inconsistencies of antislavery leaders, including Lincoln himself. But James Oakes's brilliant history of Lincoln's antislavery strategies reveals a striking consistency and commitment extending over many years. The linchpin of antislavery for Lincoln was the Constitution of the United States. Lincoln adopted the antislavery view that the Constitution made freedom the rule in the United States, slavery the exception. Where federal power prevailed, so did freedom. Where state power prevailed, that state determined the status of slavery, and the federal government could not interfere. It would take state action to achieve the final abolition of American slavery. With this understanding, Lincoln and his antislavery allies used every tool available to undermine the institution. Wherever the Constitution empowered direct federal action-in the western territories, in the District of Columbia, over the slave trade-they intervened. As a congressman in 1849 Lincoln sponsored a bill to abolish slavery in Washington, DC. He reentered politics in 1854 to oppose what he considered the unconstitutional opening of the territories to slavery by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He attempted to persuade states to abolish slavery by supporting gradual abolition with compensation for slaveholders and the colonization of free Blacks abroad. President Lincoln took full advantage of the antislavery options opened by the Civil War. Enslaved people who escaped to Union lines were declared free. The Emancipation Proclamation, a military order of the president, undermined slavery across the South. It led to abolition by six slave states, which then joined the coalition to affect what Lincoln called the "King's cure": state ratification of the constitutional amendment that in 1865 finally abolished slavery.

Drawing upon original sources and published material, A Distant War Comes Home is a fascinating survey of the many individual stories that linked Maine with the war hundreds of miles away.

The American Civil War (1861-65) was the bloodiest war of the nineteenth century and its impact continues to be felt today. It, and its origins have been studied more intensively than any other period in American history, yet it remains profoundly controversial. Brian Holden Reid's formidable volume is a major contribution to this ongoing historical debate. Based on a wealth of primary research, it examines every aspect of the origins of the conflict and addresses key questions such as was it an avoidable tragedy, or a necessary catharsis for a divided nation? How far was slavery the central issue? Why should the conflict have errupted into violence and why did it not escalate into world war?

Born into a Sephardic Jewish immigrant family, Dr. Issachar Zacharie was the preeminent foot doctor for the American political elite before and during the Civil War. An expert in pain management, Zacharie treated the likes of Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, General George McClelland and most notably, President Abraham Lincoln. As Zacharie's professional and personal relationship with Lincoln deepened, the President began to entrust the doctor with political missions. Throughout Lincoln's presidency, Zacharie traveled to southern cities like New Orleans and Richmond in efforts to ally with some of the Confederacy's most influential Jewish citizens. This biography explores Dr. Zacharie's life, from his birth in Chatham, England, through his medical practice, espionage career and eventual political campaigning for President Lincoln.

During the Civil War, scoundrels from both the Union and Confederate sides were able to execute illicit, but ingenious, schemes to acquire Texas cotton. Texas was the only Confederate state that bordered a neutral country, it was never forcibly conquered, and its coast was impossible to effectively blockade. Using little known contemporary sources, this story reveals how charlatans exploited these conditions to run the blockade, import machinery and weapons, and defraud the state's most prominent political, military and civilian leaders in the process. Best known for his role in the romantic entanglements of his co-conspirator William Sprague, Harris Hoyt stands out due to his sharp intellect and fascinating character. Hoyt was able to draw most of Abraham Lincoln's inner circle into his web of deceit and even influenced the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. This is the first account to expose the depth and breadth of the many Texas cotton trading scams and the sheer audacity of the shadowy men who profited from them, but managed to escape the gallows.

The American Civil War caused upheaval and massive private bereavement, but the years 1861-1865 also defined a great nation. This book provides a concise introduction to events from the secession to the end of the war. It focuses on the military progress of the war Union and Confederate politics social change - particularly the emancipation of North American slaves The social history associated with the war is dealt with alongside the familiar military and political events. This inclusive approach allows the reader to consider equally the history of men and women, blacks and whites in the conflict. It deals with both the Union and the Confederacy, integrating the latest literature on the war and society into a clear account. The book concludes with an assessment of emancipation, the rebuilding of the economy, and the war's consequences. An array of primary documents supports the text, together with a chronology, glossary and Who's Who guide to key figures.

Lincoln Mediated provides new information about a historical figure everyone thinks they know. It describes how Abraham Lincoln worked with the press throughout his political career, beginning with his service in Congress in the late 1840s, and detailing how his ties to newspapers in Illinois, New York, and Washington played a central role in the success of his presidency. Gregory A. Borchard and David W. Bulla study how Lincoln used the press to deliver his written and spoken messages, how editors reacted to the president, and how Lincoln responded to their criticism. Reviewing his public persona through the lens of international media and visually based sources, a fascinating profile emerges. The authors cite the papers of Lincoln, the letters of influential figures, and content from leading newspapers. The book also features nineteenth-century illustrations and photographs. Lincoln Mediated ties the president's story directly to the press, illuminating his role as a writer and as a participant in making the news. Lincoln's legacy cannot be understood without understanding the role the press played in helping shape how he was viewed. As the authors show, Lincoln was a man, not just a political figure. Lincoln Mediated is a worthy addition to Transaction's Journalism series.

Drawing on six years of research, this book covers the military service and postwar lives of notable Confederate veterans who moved into Northern California at the end the Civil War. Biographies of hundreds of former rebels are provided, from the oldest brother of the Clanton Gang to the son of a President to plantation owners, dirt farmers, criminals and everything in between.

The Nashville Campaign, culminating with the last major battle of the Civil War, is one of the most compelling and controversial campaigns of the conflict. The campaign pitted the young and energetic James Harrison Wilson and his Union cavalry against the cunning and experienced Nathan Bedford Forrest with his Confederate cavalry. This book is an analysis of contributions made by the two opposing cavalry forces and provides new insights and details into the actions of the cavalry during the battle. This campaign highlighted important changes in cavalry tactics and never in the Civil War was there closer support by the cavalry for infantry actions than for the Union forces in the Battle of Nashville. The retreat by Cheatham's corps and the Battle of the Barricade receive a more in-depth discussion than in previous works on this battle. The importance of this campaign cannot be overstated as a different outcome of this battle could have altered history. The Nashville Campaign reflected the stark realities of the war across the country in December 1864 and would mark an important part of the death knell for the Confederacy.

James Tanner may be the most famous person in nineteenth-century America that no one has heard of. During his service in the Union army, he lost the lower third of both his legs and afterward had to reinvent himself. After a brush with fame as the stenographer taking down testimony a few feet away from the dying President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, Tanner eventually became one of the best-known men in Gilded Age America. He was a highly placed Republican operative, a popular Grand Army of the Republic speaker, an entrepreneur, and a celebrity. He earned fame and at least temporary fortune as "Corporal Tanner," but most Americans would simply have known him as "The Corporal." Yet virtually no one--not even historians of the Civil War and Gilded Age-- knows him today.

"America's Corporal" rectifies this startling gap in our understanding of the decades that followed the Civil War. Drawing on a variety of primary sources including memoirs, lectures, newspapers, pension files, veterans' organization records, poetry, and political cartoons, James Marten brings Tanner's life and character into focus and shows what it meant to be a veteran-- especially a disabled veteran--in an era that at first worshipped the saviors of the Union but then found ambiguity in their political power and insistence on collecting ever-larger pensions. This biography serves as an examination of the dynamics of disability, the culture and politics of the Gilded Age, and the aftereffects of the Civil War, including the philosophical and psychological changes that it prompted.

The book explores the sometimes corrupt, often gridlocked, but always entertaining politics of the era, from Tanner's days as tax collector in Brooklyn through his short-lived appointment as commissioner of pensions (one of the biggest jobs in the federal government of the 1880s). Marten provides a vivid case study of a classic Gilded Age entrepreneur who could never make enough money. "America's Corporal" is a reflection on the creation of celebrity--and of its ultimate failure to preserve the memory of a man who represented so many of the experiences and assumptions of the Gilded Age.

Published with the generous support of the Amanda and Greg Gregory Family Fund