'Just the thing for US Civil War buffs: snappily written, informative and entertaining. A cracking read.' Saul David, bestselling author and historian This attractively packaged gift book offers a highly illustrated introduction to some of the U.S. Civil War's most famous and important battles, from the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861 to the Battle of Appomatox Court House in 1865. The U.S. Civil War was the most cataclysmic military struggle of the late 19th century, and in four bloody years of fighting from 1861 to 1865 over 620,000 American soldiers and sailors lost their lives in more than 8,000 battles, engagements and skirmishes. U.S. Civil War Battle by Battle tells the story of 30 of the most significant of these battles. These include some of the most famous clashes, such as the battles of Gettysburg and Fredericksburg, which resonate through American military history, but also the less well known, such as the battles of Brandy Station and Cedar Creek. This highly illustrated introduction, packed full of colour artwork, covers every theatre of the war and details infantry, cavalry, artillery and seaborne units from both the Union and the Confederate forces to give a true sense of the scale of the War between the States.

The USS Saginaw was a Civil War gunboat that served in Pacific and Asian waters between 1860 and 1870. During this decade, the crew witnessed the trade disruptions of the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, the transportation of Confederate sailors to Central America, the French intervention in Mexico, and the growing presence of American naval forces in Hawaii.In 1870, the ship sank at one of the world's most remote coral reefs; her crew was rescued sixty-eight days later after a dramatic open-boat voyage. More than 130 years later, Hans Van Tilburg led the team that discovered and recorded the Saginaw's remains near the Kure Atoll reef. Van Tilburg's narrative provides fresh insights and a vivid retelling of a classic naval shipwreck. He provides a fascinating perspective on the watershed events in history that reshaped the Pacific during these years. And the tale of archaeological search and discovery reveals that adventure is still to be found on the high seas.

In September 1862 the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac conducted one of the truly great campaigns of the Civil War. At South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, and Antietam, North and South clashed in engagements whose magnitude and importance would earn this campaign a distinguished place in American military history. The siege of Harpers Ferry produced the largest surrender of U.S. troops in the nation's history until World War II, while the day-long battle at Antietam on September 17 still holds the distinction of being the single bloodiest day of combat in American history.
This invaluable book provides a clear, convenient, stop-by-stop guide to the sites in Maryland and West Virginia associated with the Antietam campaign, including excursions to Harpers Ferry and South Mountain. Thorough descriptions and analyses, augmented with vignettes and numerous maps, convey the mechanics as well as the human experience of the campaign, making this book the perfect companion for both serious students of the Civil War and casual visitors to its battlefields.

The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice-and reparations Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position. By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her case: in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. Wood's son later became a prominent Chicago lawyer, and she went on to live until 1912. McDaniel's book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all,Sweet Taste of Libertyis a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place.

In the 1840s, engineers blasted through 175 feet of earth and bedrock at Allatoona Pass, Georgia, to allow passage of the Western & Atlantic Railroad. Little more than twenty years later, both the Union and Confederate armies fortified the hills and ridges surrounding the gorge to deny the other passage during the Civil War. In October 1864, the two sides met in a fierce struggle to control the iron lifeline between the North and the recently captured city of Atlanta. Though small compared to other battles of the war, this division-sized fight produced casualty rates on par with or surpassing some of the most famous clashes. Join author Brad Butkovich as he explores the controversy, innovative weapons and unwavering bravery that make the Battle of Allatoona Pass one of the war's most unique and savage battles.

The author, Valgene Dunham, has done an incredible job researching the material included in this work. There are quite a few photos, and it was not only interesting, but somehow ethereal to see what the land looked like during this historical period. I thought the photos added a lot to the book, allowing the reader to glimpse the world William Whitlock speaks of through his correspondence.

In his Second Inaugural Address, delivered as the nation was in the throes of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that both sides "read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." He wasn't speaking metaphorically: the Bible was frequently wielded as a weapon in support of both North and South. As James P. Byrd reveals in this insightful narrative, no book was more important to the Civil War than the Bible. From Massachusetts to Mississippi and beyond, the Bible was the nation's most read and respected book. It presented a drama of salvation and damnation, of providence and judgment, of sacred history and sacrifice. When Americans argued over the issues that divided them - slavery, secession, patriotism, authority, white supremacy, and violence - the Bible was the book they most often invoked. Soldiers fought the Civil War with Bibles in hand, and both sides called the war just and sacred. In scripture, both Union and Confederate soldiers found inspiration for dying-and for killing-on a scale never before seen in the nation's history. With approximately 750,000 fatalities, the Civil War was the deadliest of the nation's wars, leading many to turn to the Bible not just to fight but to deal with its inevitable trauma. A fascinating overview of religious and military conflict, A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood draws on an astonishing array of sources to demonstrate the many ways that Americans enlisted the Bible in the nation's bloodiest, and arguably most biblically-saturated conflict.

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.

Priscilla Joyner was born into the world of slavery in 1858. Her life story, which she recounted in an oral history decades later, captures the complexity of emancipation. Based on interviews that Joyner and formerly enslaved people had with the Depression-era Federal Writers Project, historian Carole Emberton draws a portrait of the steps they took in order to feel free, something no legal mandate could instill. Joyner's life exemplifies the deeply personal, highly emotional nature of freedom and the decisions people made, from the seemingly mundane to the formidable: what to wear, where to live, what work to do and who to love. Joyner's story reveals the many paths forged by freedmen and freedwomen to find joy and belonging during Reconstruction, despite the long shadow slavery cast on their lives.

In September 1868, the remains of Jacob and Nancy Jane Young were found lying near the banks of Indiana's White River. It was a gruesome scene. Part of Jacob's face had been blown off, apparently by the shotgun that lay a few feet away. Spiders and black beetles crawled over his wound. Smoke rose from his wife's smoldering body, which was so badly burned that her intestines were exposed, the flesh on her thighs gone, and the bones partially reduced to powder. Suspicion for both deaths turned to Nancy Clem, a housewife who was also one of Mr. Young's former business partners. In The Notorious Mrs. Clem, Wendy Gamber chronicles the life and times of this charming and persuasive Gilded Age confidence woman, who became famous not only as an accused murderess but also as an itinerant peddler of patent medicine and the supposed originator of the Ponzi scheme. Clem's story is a shocking tale of friendship and betrayal, crime and punishment, courtroom drama and partisan politicking, get-rich-quick schemes and shady business deals. It also raises fascinating questions about women's place in an evolving urban economy. As they argued over Clem's guilt or innocence, lawyers, jurors, and ordinary citizens pondered competing ideas about gender, money, and marriage. Was Clem on trial because she allegedly murdered her business partner? Or was she on trial because she engaged in business? Along the way, Gamber introduces a host of equally compelling characters, from prosecuting attorney and future U.S. president Benjamin Harrison to folksy defense lawyer John Hanna, daring detective Peter Wilkins, pioneering "lady news writer" Laura Ream, and female-remedy manufacturer Michael Slavin. Based on extensive sources, including newspapers, trial documents, and local histories, this gripping account of a seemingly typical woman who achieved extraordinary notoriety will appeal to true crime lovers and historians alike.

When O'Neill first moved to Alabama, as a white Northerner, he felt somewhat removed from the racism Confederate monuments represented. Then one day in Selma, he stumbled across a group of citizens protecting a monument to Forrest, the officer who became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and whom William Tecumseh Sherman referred to as "that devil." O'Neill sets off to visit other disputed memorials to Forrest across the South, talking with men and women who believe they are protecting their heritage, and those who have a different view of the man's poisonous history. O'Neill's reporting and thoughtful, deeply personal analysis make it clear that white supremacy is not a regional affliction but is in fact coded into the DNA of the entire country. Down Along with That Devil's Bones presents an important and eye-opening account of how we got from Appomattox to Charlottesville, and where, if we can truly understand and transcend our past, we could be headed next.

Evidence-based interventions are increasingly being required by third-party payers and an evidence-based orientation has come to define ethical practice. This compendium of short, how-to chapters focuses on the programs and interventions to prevent child maltreatment that have the best scientific evidence supporting their effectiveness. Interventions and programs discussed include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, EMDR, Multisystemic Therapy, Coping Cat, and many more. Busy practitioners will appreciate this book's implementation of evidence-based practices by providing the practical and "what now" rather than using the typical academic approach.

The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multivolume history of the American nation. In the newest volume in the series, The Republic for Which It Stands, acclaimed historian Richard White offers a fresh and integrated interpretation of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age as the seedbed of modern America. At the end of the Civil War the leaders and citizens of the victorious North envisioned the country's future as a free-labor republic, with a homogenous citizenry, both black and white. The South and West were to be reconstructed in the image of the North. Thirty years later Americans occupied an unimagined world. The unity that the Civil War supposedly secured had proved ephemeral. The country was larger, richer, and more extensive, but also more diverse. Life spans were shorter, and physical well-being had diminished, due to disease and hazardous working conditions. Independent producers had become wage earners. The country was Catholic and Jewish as well as Protestant, and increasingly urban and industrial. The "dangerous" classes of the very rich and poor expanded, and deep differences-ethnic, racial, religious, economic, and political-divided society. The corruption that gave the Gilded Age its name was pervasive. These challenges also brought vigorous efforts to secure economic, moral, and cultural reforms. Real change-technological, cultural, and political-proliferated from below more than emerging from political leadership. Americans, mining their own traditions and borrowing ideas, produced creative possibilities for overcoming the crises that threatened their country. In a work as dramatic and colorful as the era it covers, White narrates the conflicts and paradoxes of these decades of disorienting change and mounting unrest, out of which emerged a modern nation whose characteristics resonate with the present day.

This anthology commemorates the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War with reflections from both sides of the conflict. Compiled by an expert in the literature of the era, the poems and short stories appear in chronological order. They trace the war's progress and portray a gamut of moods, from the early days of eagerness to confront the foe to long years of horror at the ongoing carnage and sad relief at the struggle's end.
Selections include the poetry of Walt Whitman, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; observations by Herman Melville and Louisa May Alcott; and noteworthy fiction by Ambrose Bierce ("An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge") and Mark Twain ("A True Story, Repeated Word for Word, As I Heard It"). Lesser-known writers, many of them anonymous, offer heartfelt testimonials and eyewitness accounts from battlefields and the homefront.

How would Lincoln view race relations, terrorism, gun control, women's equality, and the influence of special interest groups on Congress? How would he react to the invasion of Iraq and the Great Recession? How would he feel about the growing gap between the haves and the have- nots, a worker's right to strike, the minimum wage, and labor unions? Would Lincoln have a mobile phone and embrace the whirl of social media? Phillips grounds his analysis in an illuminating understanding of Lincoln's own words and actions and offers a fascinating thesis that longtime fans and newcomers alike will be eagerto debate.

Since 1982, the renowned Civil War historian James I. "Bud" Robertson's "Civil War Sites in Virginia: A Tour Guide" has enlightened and informed Civil War enthusiasts and scholars alike. The book expertly explores the commonwealth's Civil War sites for those hoping to gain greater insight and understanding of the conflict. But in the years since the book's original publication, accessibility to many sites and the interpretive material available have improved dramatically. In addition, new historical markers have been erected, and new historically significant sites have been developed, while other sites have been lost to modern development or other encroachments. The historian Brian Steel Wills offers here a revised and updated edition that retains the core of the original guide, with its rich and insightful prose, but that takes these major changes into account, introducing especially the benefits of expanded interpretation and of improved accessibility. The guide incorporates new information on the lives of a broad spectrum of soldiers and citizens while revisiting scenes associated with the era's most famous personalities. New maps and a list of specialized tour suggestions assist in planning visits to sites, while three dozen illustrations, from nineteenth-century drawings to modern photographs, bring the war and its impact on the Old Dominion vividly to life. With the sesquicentennial remembrances of the American Civil War heightening interest and spurring improvements, there may be no better time to learn about and visit these important and moving sites than now.

"We can no longer see ourselves as minor spectators or weary watchers of history a fter finishing this astonishing work of nonfiction." --Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy Connor Towne O'Neill's journey onto the battlefield of white supremacy began with a visit to Selma, Alabama, in 2015. There he had a chance encounter with a group of people preparing to erect a statue to celebrate the memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the most notorious Confederate generals, a man whom Union general William Tecumseh Sherman referred to as "that devil." After that day in Selma, O'Neill, a white Northerner transplanted to the South, decided to dig deeply into the history of Forrest and other monuments to him throughout the South, which, like Confederate monuments across America, have become flashpoints in the fight against racism. Forrest was not just a brutal general, O'Neill learned; he was a slave trader and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. O'Neill encountered citizens who still hold Forrest in cult-like awe, desperate to preserve what they call their "heritage," and he also talked to others fighting to tear the monuments down. In doing so he discovered a direct line from Forrest's ugly history straight to the heart of the battles raging today all across America. The fight over Forrest reveals a larger battle, one meant to sustain white supremacy--a system that props up all white people, not just those defending the monuments. With clear-eyed passion and honest introspection, O'Neill takes readers on a journey to understand the many ways in which the Civil War, begun in 1860, has never ended. A brilliant and provocative blend of history, reportage, and personal essay, Down Along with That Devil's Bones presents an important and eye-opening account of how we got from Appomattox to Charlottesville, and of our vital need to confront our past in order to transcend it and move toward a more just society.

Who were the greatest commanders of the American Civil War, and what made them so? In The Great Commanders of the American Civil War, the best military leaders of both sides are pitted against each other and their strengths and weaknesses examined - Robert E. Lee versus George Meade at Gettysburg, Ulysses S. Grant versus Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh, William Tecumseh Sherman versus John Bell Hood in the March to the Sea, along with eight other pairs. The book also explores a decisive battle between each pair of adversaries, highlighting the decisions made and why the battle was won. Each featured battle includes a contextual introduction, a description of the action, and an analysis of the aftermath. A specially commissioned colour map illustrating the dispositions and movement of forces brings the subject to life and helps the reader grasp the course of each battle. Featuring full-colour illustrations, paintings and photographs alongside the battle maps, The Great Commanders of the American Civil War is a fascinating comparison of the greatest Confederate and Union military leaders.

This volume narrates the major battles and campaigns of the conflict, conveying the full military experience during the Civil War. The military encounters between Union and Confederate soldiers and between both armies and irregular combatants and true non-combatants structured the four years of war. These encounters were not solely defined by violence, but military encounters gave the war its central architecture. Chapters explore well-known battles, such as Antietam and Gettysburg, as well as military conflict in more abstract places, defined by political qualities (like the border or the West) or physical ones (such as rivers or seas). Chapters also explore the nature of civil-military relations as Union armies occupied parts of the South and garrison troops took up residence in southern cities and towns, showing that the Civil War was not solely a series of battles but a sustained process that drew people together in more ambiguous settings and outcomes.

From his noble childhood in the kingdom of Borno to being kidnapped into slavery, the inspiring life-story of Nicholas Said is an epic journey that takes him from Africa and the Ottoman Empire through Czarist Russia and, finally, to heroic acclaim in the American Civil War. In the late 1830s a young Black man was born into a world of wealth and privilege in the powerful, thousand-year-old African kingdom of Borno. But instead of becoming a respected general like his fearsome father (who was known as The Lion), Nicolas Said's fate was to fight a very different kind of battle. At the age of thirteen, Said was kidnapped and sold into slavery, beginning an epic journey that would take him across Africa, Asia, Europe, and eventually the United States, where he would join one of the first African American regiments in the Union Army. Nicholas Said would then spend the rest of his life fighting for equality. Along the way, Said encountered such luminaries as Queen Victoria and Czar Nicholas I, fought Civil War battles that would turn the war for the North, established schools to educate newly freed Black children, and served as one of the first Black voting registrars. In The Sergeant, Said's epic (and largely unknown) story is brought to light by globe-trotting, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Dean Calbreath in a meticulously researched and approachable biography. Through the lens of Said's continent-crossing life, Calbreath examines the parallels and differences in the ways slavery was practiced from a global and religious perspective, and he highlights how Said's experiences echo the discrimination, segregation, and violence that are still being reckoned with today. There has never been a more voracious appetite for stories documenting the African American experience, and The Sergeant's unique perspective of slavery from a global perspective will resonate with a wide audience.