The Texas 26th Cavalry Regiment was formed in March, 1862, using the 7th Texas Cavalry Battalion as its nucleus. Its companies were from Huntsville, Houston, Lockhart, Galveston, Centerville, and Hempstead, and Leon and Walker counties. Consi-dered to be one of the best disciplined regiments in Confederate service, it was assigned to H. Bee's and Debray's Brigade in the Trans-Mississippi Depart-ment. The unit served along the Rio Grande and in January, 1864, contained 29 officers and 571 men. It was involved in the operations against Banks' Red River Campaign, then returned to Texas where it was stationed at Houston and later Navasota. Here the 26th disbanded in May, 1865.

This book comprehensively covers the wide geographical range of the northern home fronts during the Civil War, emphasizing the diverse ways people interpreted, responded to, and adapted to war by their ideas, interests, and actions. The Northern Home Front during the Civil War provides the first extensive treatment of the northern home front mobilizing for war in two decades. It collates a vast and growing scholarship on the many aspects of a citizenship organizing for and against war. The text focuses attention on the roles of women, blacks, immigrants, and other individuals who typically fall outside of scrutiny in studies of American war-making society, and provides new information on subjects such as raising money for war, civil liberties in wartime, the role of returning soldiers in society, religion, relief work, popular culture, and building support for the cause of the Union and freedom. Organized topically, the book covers the geographic breadth of the diverse northern home fronts during the Civil War. The chapters supply self-contained studies of specific aspects of life, work, relief, home life, religion, and political affairs, to name only a few. This clearly written and immensely readable book reveals the key moments and gradual developments over time that influenced northerners' understanding of, participation in, and reactions to the costs and promise of a great civil war. Contemporary illustrations from illustrated magazines such as Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper Lithographs depicting such activities as women and men at work making armaments, people examining wares at a Sanitary Fair, nurses tending to soldiers in hospitals, and immigrants, workers, and others in dissent Period photographs of subjects such as supply depots filled with material for war, women making flags for regiments, and recruiting activities A map of the northern states An extensive and extremely detailed bibliographical essay

The Tennessee 18th Cavalry Regiment was also called the 19th Regiment. It was organized in May, 1864, by consolidating six companies of Newsom's Tennessee Cavalry Regiment and four companies of Forrest's Alabama Cavalry Regiment, The unit was assigned to T.H. Bell's Brigade in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. Its members were recruited in Hardeman, Madison, Henderson, and McNairy counties.

Once symbols of the past, ruins have become ubiquitous signs of our future. Americans today encounter ruins in the media on a daily basis-images of abandoned factories and malls, toxic landscapes, devastating fires, hurricanes, and floods. In this sweeping study, Miles Orvell offers a new understanding of the spectacle of ruins in US culture, exploring how photographers, writers, painters, and filmmakers have responded to ruin and destruction, both real and imaginary, in an effort to make sense of the past and envision the future. Empire of Ruins explains why Americans in the nineteenth century yearned for the ruins of Rome and Egypt and how they portrayed a past as ancient and mysterious in the remains of Native American cultures. As the romance of ruins gave way to twentieth-century capitalism, older structures were demolished to make way for grander ones, a process interpreted by artists as a symptom of America's "creative destruction." In the late twentieth century, Americans began to inhabit a perpetual state of ruins, made visible by photographs of decaying inner cities, derelict factories and malls, and the waste lands of the mining industry. This interdisciplinary work focuses on how visual media have transformed disaster and decay into spectacles that compel our moral attention even as they balance horror and beauty. Looking to the future, Orvell considers the visual portrayal of climate ruins as we face the political and ethical responsibilities of our changing world. A wide-ranging work by an acclaimed urban, cultural, and photography scholar, Empire of Ruins offers a provocative and lavishly illustrated look at the American past, present, and future.

"The Mississippi Secession Convention" is the first full treatment of any secession convention to date. Studying the Mississippi convention of 1861 offers insight into how and why southern states seceded and the effects of such a breech. Based largely on primary sources, this book provides a unique insight into the broader secession movement.

There was more to the secession convention than the mere act of leaving the Union, which was done only three days into the deliberations. The rest of the three-week January 1861 meeting as well as an additional week in March saw the delegates debate and pass a number of important ordinances that for a time governed the state. As seen through the eyes of the delegates themselves, with rich research into each member, this book provides a compelling overview of the entire proceeding.

The effects of the convention gain the most analysis in this study, including the political processes that, after the momentous vote, morphed into unlikely alliances. Those on opposite ends of the secession question quickly formed new political allegiances in a predominantly Confederate-minded convention. These new political factions formed largely over the issues of central versus local authority, which quickly played into Confederate versus state issues during the Civil War. In addition, author Timothy B. Smith considers the lasting consequences of defeat, looking into the effect secession and war had on the delegates themselves and, by extension, their state, Mississippi.