Defeat was looming for the South-as the Civil War wore on, paths to possible victory were fast disappearing. Dr. Luke Pryor Blackburn, a Confederate physician and expert in infectious diseases, had an idea that might turn the tide: he would risk his own life and career to bring a yellow fever epidemic to the North. To carry out his mission, he would need some accomplices. Tracing the plans and movements of the conspirators, this thoroughly researched history describes in detail the yellow fever plot of 1864.

One of the cruelest abuses of slavery in America was that slaves were forbidden to read and write. Consigned to illiteracy, they left no records of their thoughts and feelings apart from the few exceptional narratives of Frederick Douglass and others who escaped to the North-or so we have long believed. But as Christopher Hager reveals, a few enslaved African Americans managed to become literate in spite of all prohibitions, and during the halting years of emancipation thousands more seized the chance to learn. The letters and diaries of these novice writers, unpolished and hesitant yet rich with voice, show ordinary black men and women across the South using pen and paper to make sense of their experiences. Through an unprecedented gathering of these forgotten writings-from letters by individuals sold away from their families, to petitions from freedmen in the army to their new leaders, to a New Orleans man's transcription of the Constitution-Word by Word rewrites the history of emancipation. The idiosyncrasies of these untutored authors, Hager argues, reveal the enormous difficulty of straddling the border between slave and free. These unusual texts, composed by people with a unique perspective on the written word, force us to rethink the relationship between literacy and freedom. For African Americans at the end of slavery, learning to write could be liberating and empowering, but putting their hard-won skill to use often proved arduous and daunting-a portent of the tenuousness of the freedom to come.

Although the British government declared its neutrality during the American Civil War, London nevertheless became an important center of Confederate overseas operations. This work examines the extensive Confederate activities in London during the war, including diplomacy, propaganda, purchasing for the Army and Navy, spying, Cotton Loan, and various business associations; reflections of the Civil War in British art and literature; and the extent of British support for the South. Appendices cover London firms with Confederate links, pro-Confederate publications, Confederate music published in London, the Southern lobby in Parliament, the Southern Independence Association, and the British Jackson Monumental Fund. The work also includes a chronology of events and a gazetteer of Confederate sites in London.

Boston Congregationalist ministers Charles Chauncy (1705-1787) and Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766) were significant political as well as religious leaders in colonial and revolutionary New England. Scholars have often stressed their influence on major shifts in New England theology, and have also portrayed Mayhew as an influential preacher, whose works helped shape American revolutionary ideology, and Chauncy as an active leader of the patriot cause. Through a deeply contextualised re-examination of the two ministers as 'men of their times', Oakes offers a fresh, comparative interpretation of how their religious and political views changed and interacted over decades. The result is a thoroughly revised reading of Chauncy's and Mayhew's most innovative ideas. Conservative Revolutionaries unearths strongly traditionalist elements in their belief systems, focussing on their shared commitment to a dissenting worldview based on the ideals of their Protestant New England and British heritage. Oakes concludes with a provocative exploration of how their shifting theological and political positions may have helped redefine prevailing notions of human identity, capability, and destiny.

Many African Americans of the Civil War era felt a personal connection to Abraham Lincoln. For the first time in their lives, an occupant of the White House seemed concerned about the welfare of their race. Indeed, despite the tremendous injustice and discrimination that they faced, African Americans now had confidence to write to the president and to seek redress of their grievances. Their letters express the dilemmas, doubts, and dreams of both recently enslaved and free people in the throes of dramatic change. For many, writing Lincoln was a last resort. Yet their letters were often full of determination, making explicit claims to the rights of U.S. citizenship in a wide range of circumstances. This compelling collection presents more than 120 letters from African Americans to Lincoln, most of which have never before been published. They offer unflinching, intimate, and often heart-wrenching portraits of Black soldiers' and civilians' experiences in wartime. As readers continue to think critically about Lincoln's image as the "Great Emancipator," this book centers African Americans' own voices to explore how they felt about the president and how they understood the possibilities and limits of the power invested in the federal government.

During the 1850s, the Jacksonian party system broke down in the North and a new sectional party, the Republicans, succeeded the Whigs in the nation's two party system. Using demographic, voting, and other statistical analysis,as well as the more traditional methods and sources of political history, William Gienapp powerfully demonstrates that the organization of the Republican party was a difficult, complex, and lengthy process, and explains why, even after an inauspicious beginning, it ultimately became a potent political force.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian C. Vann Woodward and Chesnut's biographer Elisabeth Muhlenfeld present here the previously unpublished Civil War diaries of Mary Boykin Chesnut. The ideal diarist, Mary Chesnut was at the right place at the right time with the right connections. Daughter of one senator from South Carolina and wife of another, she had kin and friends all over the Confederacy and knew intimately its political and military leaders. At Montgomery when the new nation was founded, at Charleston when the war started, and at Richmond during many crises, she traveled extensively during the war. She watched a world "literally kicked to pieces" and left the most vivid account we have of the death throes of a society. The diaries, filled with personal revelations and indiscretions, are indispensable to an appreciation of our most famous Southern literary insight into the Civil War experience.

Co-winner of the 2017 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Lincoln's White House is the first book devoted to capturing the look, feel, and smell of the executive mansion from Lincoln's inauguration in 1861 to his assassination in 1865. James Conroy brings to life the people who knew it, from servants to cabinet secretaries. We see the constant stream of visitors, from ordinary citizens to visiting dignitaries and diplomats. Conroy enables the reader to see how the Lincolns lived and how the administration conducted day-to-day business during four of the most tumultuous years in American history. Relying on fresh research and a character-driven narrative and drawing on untapped primary sources, he takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes tour that provides new insight into how Lincoln lived, led the government, conducted war, and ultimately, unified the country to build a better government of, by, and for the people.

Superior engineering skills among Union soldiers helped ensure victory in the Civil War. Engineering Victory brings a fresh approach to the question of why the North prevailed in the Civil War. Historian Thomas F. Army, Jr., identifies strength in engineering-not superior military strategy or industrial advantage-as the critical determining factor in the war's outcome. Army finds that Union soldiers were able to apply scientific ingenuity and innovation to complex problems in a way that Confederate soldiers simply could not match. Skilled Free State engineers who were trained during the antebellum period benefited from basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices, and a culture that encouraged learning and innovation. During the war, their rapid construction and repair of roads, railways, and bridges allowed Northern troops to pass quickly through the forbidding terrain of the South as retreating and maneuvering Confederates struggled to cut supply lines and stop the Yankees from pressing any advantage. By presenting detailed case studies from both theaters of the war, Army clearly demonstrates how the soldiers' education, training, and talents spelled the difference between success and failure, victory and defeat. He also reveals massive logistical operations as critical in determining the war's outcome.

Originally published in 2005. Throughout the fractious years of the mid-nineteenth century, Abraham Lincoln's speeches imparted reason and guidance to a troubled nation. Lincoln's words were never universally praised. But they resonated with fellow legislators and the public, especially when he spoke on such volatile subjects as mob rule, temperance, the Mexican War, slavery and its expansion, and the justice of a war for freedom and union. In this close examination, John Channing Briggs reveals how the process of studying, writing, and delivering speeches helped Lincoln develop the ideas with which he would so profoundly change history. Briggs follows Lincoln's thought process through a careful chronological reading of his oratory, ranging from Lincoln's 1838 speech to the Springfield Lyceum to his second inaugural address. Recalling David Herbert Donald's celebrated revisionist essays (Lincoln Reconsidered, 1947), Briggs's study provides students of Lincoln with new insight into his words, intentions, and image.

"Exceptionally good reading."--Reviews in American History

They began their existence as everyday objects, but in the hands of Bancroft Award-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, fourteen domestic items from preindustrial America–ranging from a linen tablecloth to an unfinished sock–relinquish their stories and offer profound insights into our history.
In an age when even meals are rarely made from scratch, homespun easily acquires the glow of nostalgia. The objects Ulrich investigates unravel those simplified illusions, revealing important clues to the culture and people who made them. Ulrich uses an Indian basket to explore the uneasy coexistence of native and colonial Americans. A piece of silk embroidery reveals racial and class distinctions, and two old spinning wheels illuminate the connections between colonial cloth-making and war. Pulling these divergent threads together, Ulrich demonstrates how early Americans made, used, sold, and saved textiles in order to assert their identities, shape relationships, and create history.

Insisting that politics and ideology must remain at the forefront of any examination of nineteenth-century America, Foner reasserts the centrality of the Civil War to the people of that period. The first section of this book deals with the causes of the sectional conflict; the second, with the antislavery movement; and a final group of essays treats land and labor after the war. Taken together, Foner's essays work towards reintegrating the social, political, and intellectual history of the nineteenth century.

This book is about previously unidentified people who became Abolitionists involved in the antislavery movement from about 1840 to 1860. Although arrests were made in surrounding counties, not one person was prosecuted for aiding a fugitive slave in DeKalb County. First, the area Congregational, Universalist, Presbyterian and Wesleyan Methodist churches all had compelling antislavery beliefs. Church members, county elected officials, and the Underground Railroad conductors and stationmasters were all one and the same. Additionally, DeKalb County had the highest concentration of subscriptions to the Chicago-based Western Citizen antislavery newspaper. It was an accepted local activity to help escaped slaves. An addendum to the book includes evidence and personal information for over 600 men and women, plus their families, who defied the prevailing Fugitive Slave Law, and helped the antislavery movement in this one Northern Illinois county. This book documents their strong religious motivations and chronicles their moves to seek political redress. Unique photos and illustrations add interest to the compelling story.

The Civil War: The Story of the War with Maps combines the colorful, detailed maps of an atlas with the vivid storytelling of the best narratives to piece together the nation-spanning jigsaw puzzle of the American Civil War. See the conflict develop from a few small armies into total war engulfing the whole South. The campaigns and battles are all here, with maps zooming in on the maneuvering and attacking armies: Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, Atlanta, and more. The nationwide perspective--absent from so many other books and shown here on full-page maps--connects these dots into a cohesive story of the entire war, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, from Pennsylvania to the Gulf of Mexico. Distilling events into their essentials, the text focuses on the military history of the conflict and its cast of colorful commanders--Lee, Grant, Sherman, McClellan, and Stonewall Jackson. Captures all the war's intensity and human drama, its epic sweep from Sumter to Appomattox. The result is a unique book that educates, enlightens, and entertains. An ideal introduction for newcomers, refresher for buffs, and companion to other books during the war's 150th anniversary and beyond

Some of the most dramatic and consequential events of the Civil War era took place in the South Carolina Lowcountry between Charleston and Savannah. From fire-eater Robert Barnwell Rhett's inflammatory 1844 speech in Bluffton calling for secession, to the last desperate attempts by Confederate forces to halt Sherman's juggernaut, the region was torn apart by war. This history tells the story through the experiences of two radically different military units-the Confederate Beaufort Volunteer Artillery and the U.S. 1st South Carolina Regiment, the first black Union regiment to fight in the war-both organized in Beaufort, the heart of the Lowcountry.

During the tense months leading up to the American Civil War, the cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point continued their education even as the nation threatened to dissolve around them. Students from both the North and South struggled to understand events such as John Brown's Raid, the secession of eleven states from the Union, and the attack on Fort Sumter. By graduation day, half the class of 1862 had resigned; only twenty-eight remained, and their class motto -- "Joined in common cause" -- had been severely tested. In For Brotherhood and Duty: The Civil War History of the West Point Class of 1862, Brian R. McEnany follows the cadets from their initiation, through coursework, and on to the battlefield, focusing on twelve Union and four Confederate soldiers. Drawing heavily on primary sources, McEnany presents a fascinating chronicle of the young classmates, who became allies and enemies during the largest conflict ever undertaken on American soil. Their vivid accounts provide new perspectives not only on legendary battles such as Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and the Overland and Atlanta campaigns, but also on lesser-known battles such as Port Hudson, Olustee, High Bridge, and Pleasant Hills. There are countless studies of West Point and its more famous graduates, but McEnany's groundbreaking book brings to life the struggles and contributions of its graduates as junior officers and in small units. Generously illustrated with more than one hundred photographs and maps, this enthralling collective biography illuminates the war's impact on a unique group of soldiers and the institution that shaped them.

Between 1854 and 1861, the struggle between pro-and anti-slavery factions over Kansas Territory captivated Americans nationwide and contributed directly to the Civil War. Combining political, social, and military history, Bleeding Kansas contextualizes and analyzes prewar and wartime clashes in Kansas and Missouri and traces how these conflicts have been remembered ever since. Michael E. Woods's compelling narrative of the Kansas-Missouri border struggle embraces the diverse perspectives of white northerners and southerners, women, Native Americans, and African Americans. This wide-ranging and engaging text is ideal for undergraduate courses on the Civil War era, westward expansion, Kansas and/or Missouri history, nineteenth-century US history, and other related subjects. Supported by primary source documents and a robust companion website, this text allows readers to engage with and draw their own conclusions about this contentious era in American History.

The Antebellum Press: Setting the Stage for Civil War reveals the critical role of journalism in the years leading up to America's deadliest conflict by exploring the events that foreshadowed and, in some ways, contributed directly to the outbreak of war. This collection of scholarly essays traces how the national press influenced and shaped America's path towards warfare. Major challenges faced by American newspapers prior to secession and war are explored, including: the economic development of the press; technology and its influence on the press; major editors and reporters (North and South) and the role of partisanship; and the central debate over slavery in the future of an expanding nation. A clear narrative of institutional, political, and cultural tensions between 1820 and 1861 is presented through the contributors' use of primary sources. In this way, the reader is offered contemporary perspectives that provide unique insights into which local or national issues were pivotal to the writers whose words informed and influenced the people of the time. As a scholarly work written by educators, this volume is an essential text for both upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates who study the American Civil War, journalism, print and media culture, and mass communication history.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was one of the most influential jurists of his time. From the antebellum era and the Civil War through the First World War and into the New Deal years, Holmes' long life and career as a Supreme Court Justice spanned an eventful period of American history, as the country went from an agrarian republic to an industrialized world power. In this concise, engaging book, Susan-Mary Grant puts Holmes' life in national context, exploring how he both shaped and reflected his changing country. She examines the impact of the Civil War on his life and his thinking, his role in key cases ranging from the issue of free speech in Schenck v. United States to the infamous ruling in favor of eugenics in Buck v. Bell, showing how behind Holmes' reputation as a liberal justice lay a more complex approach to law that did not neatly align with political divisions. Including a selection of key primary documents, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. introduces students of U.S., Civil War, and legal history to a game-changing figure and his times.