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Books > Humanities > History > American history > 1800 to 1900
Written in a clear and engaging narrative style, this book analyzes
the pivotal campaign in which Robert E. Lee drove the Union Army of
the Potomac under George B. McClellan away from the Confederate
capital of Richmond, VA, in the summer of 1862. The Seven Days'
Battles: The War Begins Anew examines how Lee's Confederate forces
squared off against McClellan's Union Army during this week-long
struggle, revealing how both sides committed many errors that could
have affected the outcome. Indeed, while Lee is often credited with
having brilliant battle plans, the author shows how the Confederate
commander mismanaged battles, employed too many complicated
maneuvers, and overestimated what was possible with the resources
he had available. For his part, McClellan of the Union Army failed
to commit his troops at key moments, accepted erroneous
intelligence, and hindered his campaign by refusing to respect the
authority of his civilian superiors. This book presents a synthetic
treatment that closely analyzes the military decisions that were
made and why they were made, analyzes the successes and failures of
the major commanders on both sides, and clearly explains the
outcomes of the battles. The work contains sufficient depth of
information to serve as a resource for undergraduate American
history students while providing enjoyable reading for Civil War
enthusiasts as well as general audiences.
With lively narration, telling anecdotes, and vivid battlefield
accounts, Michigan and the Civil War tells the story as never
before of Michigan's heroic contributions to saving the Union.
Beginning with Michigan's antebellum period and anti-slavery
heritage, the book proceeds through Michigan's rapid response to
President Lincoln's call to arms, its participation in each of the
War's greatest battles, portrayal of its most interesting
personalities, and the concluding triumph as Custer corners Lee at
Appomattox and the 4th Michigan Cavalry apprehends the fleeing Jeff
Davis. Based on thorough and up-to-date research, the result is
surprising in its breadth, sometimes awe-inspiring, and always a
revelation given how contributions by the Great Lake State in the
Civil War are too often overlooked, even by its own citizens.
From the initial enlistment and recruitment of men for the opposing
armies, through their demobilization during the spring, summer, and
fall of 1865, Paul A. Cimbala always places the solider at the
center of the story. This book shows how the men who signed up with
the Union and the Confederacy fought their way through the bloody
U.S. fields, how they adjusted to peace (often badly wounded and
scarred), and how they remembered their experiences. How did they
cope with wounds and disease in the 1860s? What was the role of
black soldiers on both the Union and Confederate sides? In wartime
politics, why and how did soldiers continue to participate in the
electoral process and what did they think about their politicians?
Relying on his primary research on such topics as invalid soldiers
and postwar experiences, Cimbala presents a vivid picture of the
Civil War soldier's life. Highlights include: Motivations for men
to enlist, and why blacks and other ethnic groups joined up; the
mental and physical consequences to soldier survivors; drug and
alcohol addiction in the Civil War; women's contributions on both
sides of the war; daily life in the camp, letter writing crazes to
newspapers, camp followers and sex; prisoners' and guards' lives;
the Freedmen's Bureau; veterans, including black veterans; and
organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan. The book also includes a
timeline to put dates and events in better perspective; a
comprehensive, topically arranged bibliography of primary and
secondary sources; and a comprehensive index.
JIM BRIDGER- MOUNTAIN MAN: A BIOGRAPHY by STANLEY VESTAL. Contents
include: PREFACE ix PART 1 TRAPPER I ENTERPRISING YOUNG MAN 1 II.
SET POLES FOR THE MOUNTAINS 8 HI. HIVERNAN 21 IV. THE MISSOURI
LEGION 28 V. HUGH GLASS AND THE GRIZZLY 40 PART 3 BOOSHWAY VI.
BLANKET CHIEF 57 VIL THE BATTLE OF PIERRE S HOLE 69 VHI. SHOT IN
THE BACK 86 IX. DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST 95 X. ARROW BUTCHERED OUT
105 XL OLD GABE TO THE RESCUE 112 XII. INJUN SCRAPES 119 XIII. THE
LAST RENDEZVOUS 132 vii mil CONTENTS PART 3 TRADER XTV. FORT
BRIDGER 142 XV. MILK RIVER . 154 XVI. THE OVERLAND TRAIL 162 XVH.
THE TREATY AT LARAMIE 168 XVm. THE SAINTS RAID FORT BRIDGER 182
PART 4, GUIDE XIX. SIR GEORGE GORE 192 XX. THE MARCH SOUTH 199 XXI.
TALL TALES 206 PART 5 CHIEF OF SCOUTS XXII. THE POWDER RIVER
EXPEDITION 220 XXHI. RED CLOUD S DEFIANCE 241 XXIV. THE CHEYENNES
WARNING 249 XXV. BLOODY JUNKET 258 XXVI. FORT PHIL KEARNEY 268
XXVEL AMBUSH 278 XXVttL MASSACRE 284 XXIX. THE END OF THE TRAIL 295
APPENDIX 301 INDEX PREFACE EVER since tlie days when, as a boy, I
raced Indian ponies and swam in a Western river with the Cheyenne
lads, I have felt the lack of a satisfying portrait of Jim Bridger.
The intervening years permitted much research, but somehow the
books about Bridger never seemed to do him justice. In his own time
he was a legend, and since his death historians have been content
for the most part merely to pile up facts around these retold
incidents. There has been no adequate biog raphy to bring the man
to life. quot Few men have beenjso misrepresented. On the one hand,
he was represented in fiction and on the screen as a drunken,
loutish polygamist and liar, in a carica ture so monstrous that his
outraged relatives brought suit to recover damages. The court ruled
that no one could confuse this caricature with the real Jim
Bridger, and denied the suit. On the other hand, Jim Bridger s real
achievements have been ignored or neglected by writers, who have
tried to rep resent him as an Injun fighter with aE the dash and
daring of Kit Carson, as a wag with all the wit and love of fun of
Joe Meek, or as a crusty, ignorant hillbilly, unable to hold his
own in the society of civilized men...
ELLA CORRIGAN'S despair at being jilted pales in light of what
follows after she makes the hasty decision to marry a man she has
long avoided. Unaware that a friend's secret act of jealousy is
responsible for her bitter heartache, she enters an existence never
imagined during sweeter days as Mistress of her father's Savannah
River plantation - where a mystery is building around the family's
phenomenal natural spring, Corrigans' Pool. . . . The South is
embroiled in a bloody Civil War by the time Ella discovers that
Corrigans' Pool, on her family's property, is much more than the
exquisite pond she had thought it to be all her life, but by the
time she learns its dangerous secret, she is trapped by a secret of
her own, blackmailed, and powerless against one man's unspeakable
evil. Haunted by the threat of scandal, she struggles against the
horrors of her new existence, an existence she must keep private
even from the very people who could help her. Her life comes full
circle when the past she has long blamed for her wretchedness steps
unexpectedly out of the darkness to face her . . . FIVE STAR
FOREWORD CLARION REVIEW (EXCERPT): Ryan's storytelling ability and
masterful use of setting, dialogue, and characterization, adds up
to an exquisite piece of historical fiction. Corrigans' Pool
manages to blend romance, mystery, humor, and tragedy with flawless
precision. The romance is moving but subtle, the mystery is
suspenseful, and the story flows smoothly to a dramatic and
satisfying conclusion. Readers are sure to be enthralled with this
exceptional novel. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
On April 16, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued a blockade of
the Confederate coastline. The largely agrarian South did not have
the industrial base to succeed in a protracted conflict. What it
did have - and what England and other foreign countries wanted -
was cotton and tobacco. Industrious men soon began to connect the
dots between Confederate and British needs. As the blockade grew,
the blockade runners became quite ingenious in finding ways around
the barriers. Boats worked their way back and forth from the
Confederacy to Nassau and England, and everyone from scoundrels to
naval officers wanted a piece of the action. Poor men became rich
in a single transaction, and dances and drinking - from the posh
Royal Victoria hotel to the boarding houses lining the harbor -
were the order of the day. British, United States, and Confederate
sailors intermingled in the streets, eyeing each other warily as
boats snuck in and out of Nassau. But it was all to come crashing
down as the blockade finally tightened and the final Confederate
ports were captured. The story of this great carnival has been
mentioned in a variety of sources but never examined in detail.
Breaking the Blockade: The Bahamas during the Civil War focuses on
the political dynamics and tensions that existed between the United
States Consular Service, the governor of the Bahamas, and the
representatives of the southern and English firms making a large
profit off the blockade. Filled with intrigue, drama, and colorful
characters, this is an important Civil War story that has not yet
been told.
A great deal has been written about the military career of
Comfederate General Earl Van Dorn, but his death at the hands of
infuriated Dr. George B. Peters hinted spying and espionage. A baby
a short time later by Jessie McKissack Peters, the young wife of a
much older physician and state senator husband who had been absent
for a year, came into question. The fascinating families left to
cope with the situations include servants who were taught trades
that allowed them to erebuild the area. Descendants became the
first blacks to receive architectural licenses.
Not much has been written about the Italian immigrant experience
prior to 1880. This book, through careful analysis of primary and
archival sources, brings to life the Civil War-time trials and
tribulations of several notable Italian Americans--Bancroft
Gherardi, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, Francis B. Spinola, Decimus et
Ultimus Barziza, and Edward Ferrero, among others. Though their
numbers were few, Italian Americans played central roles in the
bloodiest war in our country's history. Included in this book are
samples of John Garibaldi's wartime correspondence to his wife,
lists of Italian Americans who served as officers and
noncommissioned sailors in the Union Navy, and first-hand
correspondence of William Howell Reed (Virginia hospitals overseer
under President Grant) and the brother of a young Italian who died
in the hospital during the war. Sons of Garibaldi in Blue and Gray
fills a critical gap in studies of Italian American life in the
United States in the late 1800s.
Because of Union victories at Fort Donaldson and Fort Henry, the
outer perimeter of defenses that protected western and middle
Tennessee left the city of Memphis, Tennessee exposed to Union
attack by river. After Grant's victory at Shiloh the Confederate
forces would concentrate their strength along the Ohio and Mobile
Railroad in northern Mississippi. The disastrous defeat of General
Earl Van Dorn at Corinth, Mississippi left the door wide open for a
union victory at Vicksburg and the fall of her sister fortress at
Port Hudson, Louisiana. The Mississippi River represents the
jugular vein of the South. The capture of New Orleans by Admiral
Farrago effectively shut commerce that the South depended upon. The
northern strategist fully recognized that the control of the
Mississippi and her tributaries would prevent any Southern
expansion into Missouri and Kentucky. The 18th Arkansas infantry
played a role in the defense of both the upper and lower
Mississippi River. This is their story.
Cavalryman, Infantryman and Prisoner of War
This personable first hand account of the American Civil War was
written by William Tyler of the 9th Illinois Cavalry of the Union
Army. It is an eye-witness narrative where the good nature of the
author shines through the text and, as a consequence, as well as
being a first rate source work of the horse soldiers in blue it is
also a story full of humour, adventure and anecdote. The first part
of the narrative deals with the business of war from the
perspective of a trooper in the Union Cavalry, but Tyler's role was
soon to change due to his singular success in the carrying of an
important dispatch. As often happens, especially in military life,
having demonstrated some talent Tyler became the 'expert on hand'
and was given further dispatches to carry through perilous, enemy
occupied country on a regular basis. He gives the impression that
he relished the independence of action and the adventures that came
his way. Discharged after a wound, Tyler re-enlisted, not to return
to his old unit but in the 95th Illinois Infantry because he wished
to be close to his brother who had joined that regiment. In a
battle near Guntown, Mississippi, against Forrest's Confederates,
Tyler was captured and sent to the notorious Andersonville prisoner
of war jail. In the final part of his book he describes the
appalling conditions and brutality suffered by the Union men in
Andersonville which makes for revealing if harrowing reading.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each
title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our
hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their
spines and fabric head and tail bands.
Considered one of the best treatments of the presidency of Abraham
Lincoln of its time, this portrait of the man and his
administration of the United States at the moment of its greatest
upheaval is both intimate and scholarly. Written by two private
secretaries to the president and first published in 1890, this
astonishingly in-depth work is still praised today for its clear,
easy-to-read style and vitality. This new replica edition features
all the original illustrations. Volume Four covers: Fort Pickens
reinforced the fall of Sumter the national uprising Washington in
danger rebellious Maryland European neutrality McClellan and Grant
Bull Run the Army of the Potomac and much more. American journalist
and statesman JOHN MILTON HAY (1838-1905) was only 22 when he
became a private secretary to Lincoln. A former member of the
Providence literary circle when he attended Brown University in the
late 1850s, he may have been the real author of Lincoln's famous
"Letter to Mrs. Bixby." After Lincoln's death, Hay later served as
editor of the *New York Tribune* and as U.S. ambassador to the
United Kingdom under President William McKinley. American author
JOHN GEORGE NICOLAY (1832-1901) was born in Germany and emigrated
to the U.S. as a child. Before serving as Lincoln's private
secretary, he worked as a newspaper editor and later as assistant
to the secretary of state of Illinois. He also wrote *Campaigns of
the Civil War* (1881).
Slavery on the Periphery focuses on nineteen counties on the
Kansas-Missouri border, tracing slavery's rise and fall from the
earliest years of American settlement through the Civil War along
this critical geographical, political, and social fault line.
Kristen Epps explores slavery's emergence from an upper South
slaveholding culture and its development into a small-scale system
characterised by slaves' diverse forms of employment, close contact
between slaves and slaveholders, a robust hiring market, and the
prevalence of abroad marriages. She demonstrates that space and
place mattered to enslaved men and women most clearly because slave
mobility provided a means of resistance to the strictures of daily
life. Mobility was a medium for both negotiation and confrontation
between slaves and slaveholders, and the ongoing political conflict
between proslavery supporters and antislavery proponents opened new
doors for such resistance. Slavery's expansion on the
Kansas-Missouri border was no mere intellectual debate within the
halls of Congress. Its horrors had become a visible presence in a
region so torn by bloody conflict that it captivated the nineteenth
- century American public. Foregrounding African Americans' place
in the border narrative illustrates how slavery's presence set the
stage for the Civil War and emancipation here, as it did elsewhere
in the United States.
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