With Union armies poised to launch the final campaigns against the Confederacy in 1864, three of its five commanders were "political generals"--appointed officers with little or no military training. Army chief of staff Henry Halleck thought such generals jeopardized the lives of men under their command and he and his peers held them in utter contempt. Historians have largely followed suit. Thomas Goss, however, offers a new and more positive assessment of the leadership qualities of these Northern commanders. In the process, he cuts through the stereotypes of political generals as superfluous and largely inept tacticians, ambitious schemers, and military failures. Goss examines the reasons why the selection process yielded so many generals who lacked military backgrounds an explores the tense and often bitter relationships among political and professional officers to illuminate the dynamics of Union generalship during the war. As this book reveals, professional generals viewed the war as a military problem requiring battle-field solutions, while appointees (and President Lincoln) focused more emphatically on the broader political contours of the struggle. The resulting friction often eroded Northern morale and damaged the North's war effort. Goss challenges the traditional idea that success was measured only on the battle-field by demonstrating significant links between military success and the achievement of the Union's political objectives. Examining commanders like Benjamin Butler, Nathaniel Banks, John McClernand, John Fremont, and Franz Sigel, Goss shows how many filled vital functions by raising troops, boosting homefront morale, securing national support for the war--andsometimes even achieving significant success on the battlefield. Comparing these generals with their professional counterparts reveals that all had vital roles to play in helping Lincoln prosecute the war and that West Pointers, despite their military training, were not necessarily better prepared for waging war. Whether professional or appointed, Goss reminds us, all generals could be considered political inasmuch as war is a continuation of politics by other means. He shows us that far more was asked of Union commanders than to simply win battles and in so doing urges a new appreciation of those appointed leaders who were thrust into the maelstrom of the Civil War.

Full of true stories more dramatic than any fiction, The Underground Railroad: A Reference Guide offers a fresh, revealing look at the efforts of hundreds of dedicated persons-white and black, men and women, from all walks of life-to help slave fugitives find freedom in the decades leading up to the Civil War. The Underground Railroad provides the richest portrayal yet of the first large scale act of interracial collaboration in the United States, mapping out the complex network of routes and safe stations that made escape from slavery in the American South possible. Kerry Walters' stirring account ranges from the earliest acts of slave resistance and the rise of the Abolitionist movement, to the establishment of clandestine "liberty lines" through the eastern and then-western regions of the Union and ultimately to Canada. Separating fact from legend, Walters draws extensively on first-person accounts of those who made the Railroad work, those who tried to stop it, and those who made the treacherous journey to freedom-including Eliza Harris and Josiah Henson, the real-life "Eliza" and "Uncle Tom" from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Original documents, from key legislation like The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 to first-person narratives of escaping slaves Biographical sketches of key figures involved in the Underground Railroad, including Levi Coffin, William Lloyd Garrison, Robert Purvis, and Mary Ann Shadd

Known most prominently as a daring anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) worked tirelessly throughout her life as a political advocate for the rights of women, minorities, and members of the working class. Despite her significance, until the 1970s Wells-Barnett's life, career, and legacy were relegated to the footnotes of history. Beginning with the posthumously published autobiography edited and released by her daughter Alfreda in 1970, a handful of biographers and historians-most notably, Patricia Schechter, Paula Giddings, Mia Bay, Gail Bederman, and Jinx Broussard-have begun to place the life of Wells-Barnett within the context of the social, cultural, and political milieu of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This edited volume seeks to extend the discussions that they have cultivated over the last five decades and to provide insight into the communication strategies that the political advocate turned to throughout the course of her life as a social justice crusader. In particular, scholars such as Schechter, Broussard, and many more will weigh in on the full range of communication techniques-from lecture circuits and public relations campaigns to investigative and advocacy journalism-that Wells-Barnett employed to combat racism and sexism and to promote social equity; her dual career as a journalist and political agitator; her advocacy efforts on an international, national, and local level; her own failed political ambitions; her role as a bridge and interloper in key social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth century; her legacy in American culture; and her potential to serve as a prism through which to educate others on how to address lingering forms of oppression in the twenty-first century.

In the tradition of the great regimental histories of the past, this book records the fire which seared the ranks of the Twenty-Four Michigan Regiment of the legendary "Iron Brigade." Born as the result of a riot, led by a Virginian, met with coldness and hostility by the black-hatted veterans of the brigade, the Twenty-Fourth swore it would win their respect...and so they did with a vengeance. At Fredericksburg, in "artillery hell" and under a murderous crossfire from the guns of "Stonewall" Jackson and "Jeb" Stuart, they performed the manual of arms to stead the line. The first day at Gettysburg they sparked this remark from the confederate ranks..."That ain't no milishy, there's those damn black hats again." With the immortal First Corps they were ordered west of the town to hold long enough for the army to occupy the strategic heights behind them. They held, and by evening they had lost more men than any of the 400-odd Union regiments engaged in the battle. Still later they marched down "that crimson strip

One of the Confederacy's most loyal adherents and articulate advocates was Lieutenant General James Longstreet's aide-de-camp, Thomas Jewett Goree. Present at Longstreet's headquarters and party to the counsels of Robert E. Lee and his lieutenants, Goree wrote incisively on matters of strategy and politics and drew revealing portraits of Longstreet, Jefferson Davis, P. G. T. Beauregard, John Bell Hood, J. E. B. Stuart, and others of Lee's inner circle. His letters are some of the richest and most perceptive from the Civil War period. In addition to their inside view of the campaigns of the Confederacy, Goree's Civil War letters shed light on their remarkable author, a onetime lawyer whose growing interest in politics and desire for "immediate secession", as he wrote to his mother in 1860, led him in July 1861 to Virginia and a new career as Longstreet's associate. He stayed with Longstreet through the war, ultimately becoming a major and participating in nearly all the battles of the Army of Northern Virginia. His letters include vivid descriptions of many battles, including Blackburn's Ford, Seven Pines, Yorktown, Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, the siege of Petersburg, and the surrender at Appomattox. Fortunate in war, he was exposed to constant fire for seven hours in the battle of Williamsburg. Although his saddle and accoutrements were struck seventeen times, he never received a wound. Thomas Cutrer has collected all of Goree's wartime correspondence to his family, as well as his travel diary from June - August 1865, in which he recorded his trip with Longstreet from Appomattox to Talledaga, Alabama. As a special feature Cutrer includes Goree's postwar letters to andfrom Longstreet and others that discuss the war and touch on questions regarding military operations. With its wide scope and rich detail, Longstreet's Aide represents an invaluable addition to the Civil War letter collections published in recent years. While Goree's letters will fascinate Civil War buffs, they also provide a unique opportunity for scholars of social and military history to witness from inside the workings of both an extended Southern family and the forces of the Confederacy.

Both Prayed to the Same God is the first book-length, comprehensive study of religion in the Civil War. While much research has focused on religion in a specific context of the civil war, this book provides a needed overview of this vital yet largely forgotten subject of American History. Writing passionately about the subject, Father Robert Miller presents this history in an accessible but scholarly fashion. Beginning with the religious undertones in the lead up to the war and concluding with consequences on religion in the aftermath, Father Miller not only shows us a forgotten aspect of history, but how our current historical situation is not unprecedented.

What happened to a soldier's soul during the Civil War as he faced the horrors of war? Why did a man leave behind a wife and two very young children to serve in the army? Who was Samuel K. Miller before, during and after the Civil War? What was the Mounted Pioneer Corps, and what was their critical role in keeping an army moving? Why was he chosen to be in that unit? When a woman was left with children while her husband went off to the Civil War, what pressures did she face because he was away? How did the women manage their homes while their husbands were away?
What were the feelings of a Union soldier as he faced his "brothers" across the picket lines, the Confederates whom he came to know personally? What did they eat? Where did they live and sleep? What did they wear, and where did they get what they needed? What volunteer organizations sprung up to help the soldiers as they fought in the battlefields, either by providing physical help, or in aiding them to be in contact with their loved ones?
From his vantage point, somewhat unique because of the positioning of the Mounted Pioneer Corps during battles, what did he see of the battles? What were the forces for and against the war in his community back in Pennsylvania? Who were the Copperheads? What happened to his four Ellis family brothers-in-law who also served in the Union Army?
All these questions are answered in this book, "The Soul of a Soldier: the True Story of a Mounted Pioneer in the Civil War." At age 42, Samuel K. Miller volunteered for the 211th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in September 1864 and served until June 1865. During his nine months in the service, he wrote 46 letters to his wife and, through her, to their one and five year old sons at their home in the little town of Hartstown, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, population less than 200.
This book contains the 46 letters that Samuel wrote during his time in the service of the Union Army, first as an infantryman, then in the Mounted Pioneer Corps attached to the Headquarters of the Union Ninth Corps. Portions of those letters are organized into 17 thematic chapters, which provide the answers to the questions raised above.
Samuel's letters provide a penetrating look into his soul, because of the highly personal nature of his letters. His letters reveal his character, values, his aspirations. Demetrius, an ancient Greek orator, literary critic, rhetorician and governor of Athens for ten years, once wrote: "Everyone reveals his own soul in his letters. In every other form of composition it is possible to determine the writer's character, but in none so clearly as the epistolary the letters]." Demetrius' words apply to Samuel Miller, for Samuel revealed his soul in his letters.

The Comte de Paris' account of the battle of Gettysburg is widely acknowledged to be the fairest description of the battle ever written. An itinerary of the Army of the Potomac and cooperating forces in the Gettysburg campaign, June and July, 1863, has also been revised and enlarged from documents in the possession of the War Department.

Rhoda is just eighteen when her family arranges for her to marry a wealthy and powerful plantation owner from Quincy, Florida, in 1853. Rhoda quickly adjusts to life on a plantation with 160 slaves, but it takes more time getting used to her husband, William.

The couple grows closer with time, and William promises Rhoda she "can have the moon" if she gives him a son. On Jan. 15, 1858, she gives birth to Albert Waller Gilchrist, who will eventually become Florida's governor. Mary Elizabeth is born the next year. Not long after, however, Rhoda finds herself a young widow. While she is still coping with William's death, another tragedy strikes; Rhoda's daughter dies of illness two years after her husband.

In the fall of 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, she discovers a new love when she meets Captain James Barrow, who is fighting for the Southern cause. When he asks her to marry him, she stalls, but she already knows the answer will be "yes." Throughout her life, she never loses her fighting spirit, remembering where she comes from and stays true to her ideals.

Based on the true story of Rhoda Elizabeth Waller Kilcrease Gibbes, this biographical narrative describes how her life in and around Quincy, Florida, took her indomitable spirit to the heights of leadership in Florida society.

Why put Abraham Lincoln, the sometime corporate lawyer and American President, in dialogue with Karl Marx, the intellectual revolutionary? On the surface, they would appear to share few interests. Yet, though Lincoln and Marx never met one another, both had an abiding interest in the most important issue of the nineteenth-century Atlantic world-the condition of labor in a capitalist world, one that linked slave labor in the American south to England's (and continental Europe's) dark satanic mills. Each sought solutions-Lincoln through a polity that supported free men, free soil, and free labor; Marx by organizing the working class to resist capitalist exploitation. While both men espoused emancipation for American slaves, here their agreements ended. Lincoln thought that the free labor society of the American North provided great opportunities for free men missing from the American South, a kind of "farm ladder" that gave every man the ability to become a landowner. Marx thought such "free land" a chimera and (with information from German-American correspondents), was certain that the American future lay in the proletarianized cities. Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx in Dialogue intersperses short selections from the two writers from their voluminous works, opening with an introduction that puts the ideas of the two men in the broad context of nineteenth-century thought and politics. The volume excerpts Lincoln's and Marx's views on slavery (they both opposed it for different reasons), the Civil War (Marx claimed the war concerned slavery and should have as its goal abolition; Lincoln insisted that his goal was just the defeat of the Confederacy), and the opportunities American free men had to gain land and economic independence. Through this volume, readers will gain a firmer understanding of nineteenth-century labor relations throughout the Atlantic world: slavery and free labor; the interconnections between slave-made cotton and the exploitation of English proletarians; and the global impact of the American Civil War.

This groundbreaking analysis of Confederate demobilization examines the state of mind of Confederate soldiers in the immediate aftermath of war. Having survived severe psychological as well as physical trauma, they now faced the unknown as they headed back home in defeat. Lost Causes analyzes the interlude between soldier and veteran, suggesting that defeat and demobilization actually reinforced Confederate identity as well as public memory of the war and southern resistance to African American civil rights. Intense material shortages and images of the war's devastation confronted the defeated soldiers-turned-veterans as they returned home to a revolutionized society. Their thoughts upon homecoming turned to immediate economic survival, a radically altered relationship with freed people, and life under Yankee rule-all against the backdrop of fearful uncertainty. Bradley R. Clampitt argues that the experiences of returning soldiers helped establish the ideological underpinnings of the Lost Cause and create an identity based upon shared suffering and sacrifice, a pervasive commitment to white supremacy, and an aversion to Federal rule and all things northern. As Lost Causes reveals, most Confederate veterans remained diehard Rebels despite demobilization and the demise of the Confederate States of America.

Know your Southern history sothat you can help to defend it. Ourheritage is too important to leave toYankee and Scalawag revisionist.

In America today most are proud toboast of their cultural backgroundwhether that be Irish, African, Hispanicor whatever. One of the largest segmentsof the American population is attackedfor displaying pride in their heritage, those with Confederate ancestors. Weare immediately classified as racist if wedisplay the battle flag that the Southernsoldier carried as he defended his homeand family from invasion. We have madesome progress in convincing othersthat our flag is meant to symbolizeheritage not hate but we have further togo. The author is one Southerner whofeels that his ancestors were like theirgrandfathers before them, simply fightingfor their right to self government. Theydid nothing to be pardoned for andwe do nothing wrong in being proudof them just as other Americans takepride in their ancestors. The best way todo this is to become familiar with ourhistory. In recent years many academichistorians have joined the attacks ofour Confederate heritage. We must notleave our history to be told by Yankeeand Scalawag revisionist historians.Everyone who feels the same way shouldread this outline of Southern history forUnreconstructed Southerners.

This reminiscence of daily life on a Southern plantation during the Civil War was originally published in 1888. The book is filled with vivid details of everything from methods of making dyes and preparing foods to race relations and the effects of the war. A Blockaded Family is an unusual and beautifully-written primary source of Southern life inside the blockade, told from a point of view that is decidedly different from most post-war accounts. Contents Include: Beginnings of the Secession Movement A Negro Wedding Devices Rendered Necessary by the Blockade How the South Met a Great Emergency War Time Scenes on an Alabama Plantation Southern Women Their Ingenuity and Courage How Cloth was Dyed How Shoes, Thread, Hats and Bonnets Were Manufactured Homespun Dresses Home-Made Buttons and Pasteboard Uncle Ben Aunt Phillis and her Domestic Trials Knitting around the Fireside Tramp, Tramp of the Spinners Weaving Heavy Cloth Expensive Prints "Blood Will Tell" Substitutes for Coffee Raspberry-Leaf Tea Home-Made Starch Putty, and Cement Spinning Bees Old-Time Hoopskirts How the Slaves Lived Their Barbecues Painful Realities of Civil Strife Straitened Condition of the South Treatment of Prisoners Homespun Weddings A Pathetic Incident Approach of the Northern Army Pillage and Plunder "Papa's Fine Stock" The South Overrun by Soldiers Return of the Vanquished Poverty of the Confederates Repairing Damages A Mother made Happy