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Books > History > American history > 1800 to 1900
The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal but it took the Civil War and the adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed due process and the equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. By grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, the amendments marked the second founding of the United States. Eric Foner conveys the dramatic origins of these revolutionary amendments and explores the court decisions that then narrowed and nullified the rights guaranteed in these amendments. Today, issues of birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process and equal protection are still in dispute; the ideal of equality yet to be achieved.
Few 19th-century Americans were as adventurous as Henry Baxter. Best known for his Civil War exploits-from leading the 7th Michigan Volunteer Infantry across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg in the first daylight amphibious assault in American history, to his defense of the Union line on day one of Gettysburg-he accomplished these despite having no prewar military training. His heroism and leadership propelled him from officer of volunteers to major general in the Army of the Potomac. A New York emigrant from a prominent family, Baxter was involved in developing Michigan's political, business and educational foundations. He excelled at enterprise, leading a group of adventurers to California during the Gold Rush, co-founding what would become the Republican Party and eventually becoming President Grant's diplomat to Honduras during one of the most dynamic periods of Central American history. His story parallels Michigan's transition from territory to state and the United States' transformation from a divided republic into a fledgling world power.
Citizen-soldier Strong Vincent was many things: Harvard graduate, lawyer, political speaker, descendent of pilgrims and religious refugees, husband, father, brother. But his greatest contribution to history is as the saviour of the Federal left on the second day at Gettysburg, when he and his men held Little Round Top against overwhelming Confederate numbers. Forgotten by history in favour of his subordinate, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Vincent faded into relative obscurity in the decades following his death. This book restores Vincent to his rightful place among the heroes of the battle of Gettysburg: presenting his life story using new, never-before-published sources and archival material to bring the story of one of the most forgotten officers of the American Civil War back to the attention of readers and historians.
Sometimes a war's greatest heroes are its survivors, those who manage to forge new lives despite the tragedy they have experienced. For the sixteen unsung heroes profiled in Beyond Their Years, surviving also meant surrendering their childhood. These children found themselves on the edge of the fray - both in combat and in the throes of daily life - helping, or simply enduring, as best their interrupted youths allowed. Their behind-the-scenes stories illustrate what it was really like for children during the Civil War. Meet Ransom Powell, a thirteen-year-old drummer boy who survived grueling Confederate prison camps; writer and patriot Maggie Campbell, only eight years old when the war ended; Ulysses S. Grant's son Jesse, who rode proudly alongside Abraham Lincoln's son Tad and Ella Sheppard, daughter of a slave mother and a freed father, who lived through the backlash of slave rebellions. Each of these young survivors' lives represent an amazing contribution to the war effort and to postbellum life. Learn the inspiring stories of these American children who displayed courage, devotion, and wisdom beyond their years.
The hard-fighting 11th Michigan Volunteer Infantry was recruited from sparsely settled southwest Michigan shortly after the Civil War broke out. Mainly young farmers and tradesmen, the regiment rapidly evolved into one of the Army of the Cumberland's elite combat units, tenaciously fighting its way through some of the war's bloodiest engagements. This book - featuring a complete unit roster - tells the story of the regiment through the words of the veterans, tracing their development from a rabble of idealists into a fine-tuned fighting machine that executed successful bayonet charges against superior numbers. The narrative continues into the postwar period, discussing the ex-soldiers' careers through Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Photographs, maps, illustrations and a statistical analysis round out this tale of courage and travail.
The Alabama Cannoneers at War
Born in Germany in 1828, future Union general August Valentine Kautz came to America as an infant. He was privileged to obtain schooling and, after service in the war with Mexico, attended West Point. Relying heavily on detailed journals kept by Kautz for 43 years, this biography covers his early experiences and his time in the turbulent Pacific Northwest, where he was involved in Indian affairs and the Rogue River War. As with so many American military men of the time, however, the defining event in his career was the Civil War. Originally assigned to the Western Theater, where he played a role in the capture of Morgan's Raiders, Kautz's service included participation in the First Battle of Deep Bottom, the Wilson-Kautz Raid, and the Petersburg assault aimed at capturing Richmond. Kautz has often been misrepresented in historical mentions and this biography seeks to set the record straight. Period photographs and a number of maps are included.
Avenging Lincoln's Death: The Trial of John Wilkes Booth's Accomplices is an examination of the 1865 military commission trial of eight alleged accomplices of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin who murdered President Abraham Lincoln. The book analyzes the trial transcript and other relevant evidence relating to the guilt of Booth's alleged accomplices, as well as a careful application of basic constitutional law principles to the jurisdiction of the military commission and the fundamental fairness of the trial. The author found that the military commission trial was unconstitutional and unfair because Congress never authorized trial by military commission for these eight civilians. President Johnson exceeded the scope of his authority as commander in chief by ordering the accomplices to be tried by military commission. He failed to follow the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863 that required him to turn over the alleged accomplices to civilian authorities for prosecution. The accomplices were convicted on perjured testimony and the Government was allowed to drag in unrelated evidence of Confederate atrocities to poison the minds of the panel of officers.
In 1862 at the age of thirty-two, Centreville, Michigan, physician John Bennitt joined the 19th Michigan Infantry Regiment as an assistant surgeon and remained in military service for the rest of the war. During this time Bennitt wrote more than two hundred letters home to his wife and daughters sharing his careful and detailed observations of army life, his medical trials in the field and army hospitals, dramatic battles, and character sketches of the people he encountered, including his regimental comrades, captured Confederates, and local citizens in southern towns. Bennitt writes about the war's progress on both the battlefield and the home front, and also reveals his changing view of slavery and race. Bennitt traces the history of the 19th Michigan Infantry, from its mustering in Dowagiac in August 1862, its duty in Kentucky and Tennessee, its capture and imprisonment by Confederate forces, its subsequent exchange and reorganization, its participation in the Atlanta and the Carolinas Campaigns, its place in the Grand Review in Washington, and the final mustering out in Detroit in June 1865. John Bennitt's significant collection of letters sheds light not only on the Civil War but on life in a small Michigan town. Although a number of memoirs from Civil War surgeons have been published, ""I Hope to Do My Country Service"" is the first of its kind from a Michigan regimental surgeon to appear in more than a century.
The sesquicentennial of the American Civil War presents a unique opportunity to consider the motivation behind General Robert E. Lee's efforts to defend the Confederacy against his once beloved United States. What will be learned from this book is that General Lee was following in the footsteps of his idol General George Washington. General Lee was not fighting to perpetuate and expand slavery, self-aggrandizement, or military glory. He was fighting for the 1776 principles of government based upon the consent of the governed, the 1789 principles of the rule of law, and for a Judeo-Christian based civilization. While Lee's military genius and commitment to duty are widely acknowledged, his political acumen is, for the most part, underrated. Master of the art of politics as much as war, which is politics by other means, Lee considered both normative arts concerned with the happiness and noble actions of the citizens. In fact, Lee's successes and failures on the battlefield were due in large measure to his worldview that if the Confederacy were to survive its citizenry must act nobly. According to Lee, it is in noble actions that human happiness is to be achieved. For Lee, the soldier and citizen performing their respective duties were on the paths to individual happiness and, ultimately, a free and independent CSA. In The Enduring Relevance of Robert E. Lee Marshall L. DeRosa uses the American Civil War and the figure of Robert E. Lee to consider the role of political leadership under extremely difficult circumstances and the proper response to those circumstances. DeRosa examines Lee as a politician rather than just a military leader and finds that many of Lee's assertions are still relevant today. DeRosa reveals Lee's insights and his awareness that the victory of the Union over the Confederacy placed America on the path towards the demise of government based upon the consent of the governed, the rule of law, and the Judeo-Christian American civilization.
The passion of Robert E. Lee and the puritan streak in cavalier J. E. B. Stuart are only two of the surprises in Alf J. Mapp Jr.'s highly regarded psychological analysis of Confederate military and political leaders. In this beautifully written book, Mapp also brings to life the defensively genteel Jefferson Davis, the paradoxically bold retreater Joseph E. Johnston, the amazingly transformed "Stonewall" Jackson, and the mysterious and astonishingly durable Judah P. Benjamin. Mapp's first-rate scholarship, fresh insights, and exciting prose have made Frock Coats and Epaulets essential reading for generations of historians and readers interested in the Civil War. Revised and with a new introduction and updated bibliography, Mapp's classic study of the men who led the Confederate rebellion against the United States will appeal to a whole new generation of Americans.
The Civil War Relived in 40 Stories! Between the first shots fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, the nation was irrevocably changed, as were the lives of the soldiers and civilians who lived through the war. This is an extraordinary collection of stories about that epochal conflict, bringing the victories and defeats, the valor and the heartbreak, alive with personal intensity. Includes entries by: Ambrose Bierce Stephan Crane Mark Twain Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S. Grant Walt Whitman Frederick L. Hitchcock Louisa May Alcott Carlton McCarthy Abner Doubleday Theodore Roosevelt and many others.
The War of 1812 ranged over a remarkably large territory, as the fledgling United States battled Great Britain at sea and on land across what is now the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada. Native people and the Spanish were also involved in the war's interrelated conflicts. Often overlooked, the War of 1812 has been the subject of an explosion of new research over the past twenty-five years. The Routledge Handbook of the War of 1812 brings together the insights of this research through an array of fresh essays by leading scholars in the field, offering an overview of current understandings of the war that will be a vital reference for students and researchers alike. The essays in this volume examine a wide range of military, political, social, and cultural dimensions of the war. With full consideration given to American, Canadian, British, and native viewpoints, the international group of contributors place the war in national and international context, chart the course of events in its different theaters, consider the war's legacy and commemoration, and examine the roles of women, African Americans, and natives. Capturing the state of the field in a single volume, this handbook is a must-have resource for anyone with an interest in early America.
From a riverboat worker who dressed as a woman to the abolitionist who died for his beliefs, It Happened on the Underground Railroad offers a gripping look at heroic individuals who became a part of the famous "road" to freedom. Read about Peter Still, a former slave who came to the Philadelphia Antislavery Society in search of his family, only to discover that the man sitting in front of him was his brother. Meet the individuals who may have inspired characters in the novels Uncle Tom's Cabin and Beloved. Learn about the bakery where Frederick Douglass was first helped to freedom. And experience the heart-pounding fear of a man who mailed himself north.
North Carolina sent more than 125,000 men and boys to fight the Civil War. It is estimated that about 40,000 lost their lives on the battlefield or by disease. Most were sent home for burial in family plots or community churchyards but thousands could not be identified or could not be transported and were interred in unmarked graves across the country. Many never had an obituary published. Others had obituaries that included directions to the deceased's final resting place. This compilation of obituaries from North Carolina newspapers documents the date and cause of death for hundreds of soldiers, with many providing place of burial, surviving relatives, last words, accounts by comrades and details of military service.
In 2002, Judy Cook discovered a packet of letters written by her great-great-grandparents, Gilbert and Esther Claflin, during the American Civil War. An unexpected bounty, these letters from 1862-63 offer visceral witness to the war, recounting the trials of a family separated. Gilbert, an articulate and cheerful forty-year-old farmer, was drafted into the Union Army and served in the Thirty-Fourth Wisconsin Infantry garrisoned in western Kentucky along the Mississippi. Esther had married Gilbert when she was fifteen; now a woman with two teenage sons, she ran the family farm near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, in Gilbert's absence. In his letters, Gilbert writes about food, hygiene, rampant desertions by drafted men, rebel guerrilla raids, and pastimes in the daily life of a soldier. His comments on interactions with Confederate prisoners and ex-slaves before and after the Emancipation Proclamation reveal his personal views on monumental events. Esther shares in her letters the challenges and joys of maintaining the farm, accounts of their boys Elton and Price, concerns about finances and health, and news of their local community and extended family. Esther's experiences provide insight into family, farm, and village life in the wartime North, an often overlooked aspect of Civil War history. Judy Cook has made the letters accessible to a wider audience by providing historical context with notes and appendixes. The volume includes a foreword by Civil War historian Keith S. Bohannon.
This collection of writings by John Brown in the fateful days after his raid on Harper's Ferry showcase the depth of conviction of Brown's character. Paired with Louis DeCaro's narrative of the aftermath, trial, and execution of John Brown in Freedom's Dawn: The Last Days of John Brown in Virginia, this book preserves the first-hand experience of Brown as he gave his life for the abolitionist cause.
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.
From the training field at West Point to the entrenchments at Fort Donelson, Charles Ferguson Smith was the soldier's soldier. During his nearly forty-two year career, General Smith was a teacher, mentor, and role model for many young officers who became prominent Civil War generals. He was respected and admired by his former students and future officers including Grant, Halleck, Longstreet, and Sherman. This long overdue biography reveals a man who was a faithful officer, an excellent disciplinarian, an able commander, and a modest gentleman. Smith served at the US Military Academy from 1829 to 1842 as Instructor of Tactics, Adjutant to the Superintendent, and Commandant of Cadets. However, he was more than a instructor training cadets in the art of war. He set an example to junior officers in the Mexican War leading his light battalion to victories and earning three field promotions. Smith served with Albert Johnston and other future Confederate officers in the Mormon War. He mentored Grant while serving under him in the Civil War. Smith rose to the rank of major general while refusing to solicit political favours and court journalists. He ""turned the tide"" at Fort Donelson which led to Grant's rise to fame.
William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, called "Rooney" by his family, was born the second son of the famous commander and general of the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee. After graduating from Harvard, Rooney planned to take up farming on his family's plantation. When the Civil War broke out, however, he immediately volunteered and was commissioned a captain in the Confederate cavalry. During the war years, he was quickly promoted on his talents -his famous father was careful not to interfere in his son's promotion track. Rooney Lee earned a reputation for bravery and effective command at Gettysburg and Chancellorsville. He was wounded at Brandy Station and shortly after was captured by Federal raiders and placed in prison. After his release in a prisoner exchange, he was promoted to the rank of major general-the youngest man in the Confederacy to hold this rank. By the war's end, he was one of the highest-ranking cavalry commanders in the Confederate army.There has been no study of the military career and accomplishments of this important Confederate commander-until now. Using previously unavailable material from the Lee family archives, this new biography presents a balanced appraisal of one of the South's most important commanders.
In this landmark narrative history of Chicago during the Civil War, Theodore J. Karamanski examines the people and events that formed this critical period in the city's history. Using diaries, letters, and newspapers that survived the Great Fire of 1871, he shows how Chicagoans' opinions evolved from a romantic and patriotic view of the war to recognition of the conflict's brutality. Located a safe distance behind the battle lines and accessible to the armies via rail and waterways, the city's economy grew feverishly while increasing population strained Chicago's social fabric. From the great Republican convention of 1860 in the "Wigwam," to the dismal life of Confederate prisoners in Camp Douglas on the South Side of Chicago, Rally 'Round the Flag paints a vivid picture of the Midwest city vigorously involved in the national conflict.
Frequently surprising, sometimes bloody, and always absorbing, Behind Enemy Lines offers up tales of espionage, hit-and-run raids, and guerrilla warfare. The book provides a new perspective on familiar aspects of Civil War history, including shadowy agents, women using their feminine wiles, unashamed looting, and vengeful crusades. Popular historian Wilmer L. Jones reveals that, by subverting the methods of traditional warfare, small and sometimes unorganized groups as well as intrepid spies, daring raiders, and mutinous guerrillas turned the tide of the Civil War far from the fronts of the now-legendary battlefields. Each of the three sections-spies, raiders, and Guerrillas-introduces riveting accounts of the often-overlooked heroes and heroines of unconventional warfare. Behind Enemy Lines spotlights such fabled infiltrators as Belle Boyd, Allen Pinkerton, and Timothy Webster. It also examines how the South, with its daring cavalry and constant struggle for supplies, resorted to sometimes brutal offensives led by men like Turner Ashby, John Mosby, and John Hunt Morgan. Finally, the gripping and detailed narrative peers into the bloody guerrilla warfare, spotlighting John Brown, William Clark Quantrill, and Bloody Bill Anderson, as well as the genesis of the James-Younger Gang. Civil war buffs, history lovers, and espionage enthusiasts will find this fascinating volume a welcome addition to their libraries.
The CSS Shenandoah fired the last shot of the Civil War and was the only Confederate warship to circumnavigate the globe. But what was Captain James Waddell's true relationship with his Yankee prisoner Lillias Nichols and how did it determine the ship's final destination? Without orders, Waddell undertook a dangerous three month voyage through waters infested with enemy cruisers. He risked mutiny by a horrified crew who, having been declared pirates, could be hanged. This is the true story behind the cruise of the Shenandoah--one of secret love and blackmail--brought to light for the first time in 150 years.
Historians of the American Civil War have debated a wide range of questions raised by the war and its outcome. None have been more vigorously argued as those surrounding its outcome. One of the leading explanations for Confederate defeat has been the argument that the Civil War South lacked a national identity. Related to and supporting this argument is the contention that the Civil War South failed to produce a distinct and vibrant literary culture. These contentions have been challenged by a growing body of literature which argues that the Civil War South did produce a sense of cultural and national identity. This book adds to this counter current through an examination of the Civil War experiences and writings of the Antebellum South's leading literary figure. Surprisingly, given William Gilmore Simms' well-known status prior to the war, his life and work during the course of the war itself has been understudied. This examination reveals the depth and extent to which Simms not only supported the Confederate war effort but how Simms conceptualized and articulated a vision of Confederate nationalism.
On August 26, 1861, one hundred volunteers met at Camp Wood and formed Company A. These men, for the most part, were well educated and left to us a series of letters to families and friends, diaries, letters to their local newspapers, official reports, and talks they gave after the war at reunions. Their correspondence differs from most others in that they do not simply record the temperature and what they had to eat. The story the correspondence of Company A tells allows the reader to know what it was really like to be a volunteer soldier. The men describe what they saw from their vantage points on the parts of the battlefield they could see. Their letters cover their discussions and arguments concerning slavery, the national draft, the right of "citizen soldiers" to confiscate property, and the use of blacks in combat. On a very personal level they describe what it was like to be captured and spend time in Confederate prisons awaiting exchange, what they felt when they had to leave wounded or dead comrades on the field when they had to retreat, whether to reenlist, the punishments they had to endure, the witnessing of military executions, and whether to mutiny. There are marvellous descriptions of the unauthorized truces the men arranged with the Confederates to trade tobacco for coffee or to bathe in a stream separating them. |
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