This work is the first monograph which closely examines the role of the German minority in the American South during the Civil War. In a comparative analysis of German civic leaders, businessmen, militia officers and blockade runners in Charleston, New Orleans and Richmond, it reveals a German immigrant population which not only largely supported slavery, but was also heavily involved in fighting the war. A detailed appendix includes an extensive survey of primary and secondary sources, including tables listing the members of the all-German units in Virginia, South Carolina and Louisiana, with names, place of origin, rank, occupation, income, and number of slaves owned. This book is a highly useful reference work for historians, military scholars and genealogists conducting research on Germans in the American Civil War and the American South.

Covering both the great military leaders and the critical civilian leaders, this book provides an overview of their careers and a professional assessment of their accomplishments. Entries consider the leaders' character and prewar experiences, their contributions to the war effort, and the war's impact on the rest of their lives. The entries then look at how history has assessed these leaders, thus putting their longtime reputations on the line. The result is a thorough revision of some leaders' careers, a call for further study of others, and a reaffirmation of the accomplishments of the greatest leaders. Analyzing the leaders historiographically, the work shows how the leaders wanted to be remembered, how postwar memorists and biographers saw them, the verdict of early historians, and how the best modern historians have assessed their contributions. By including a variety of leaders from both civilian and military roles, the book provides a better understanding of the total war, and by relating their lives to their times, it provides a better understanding of historical revisionism and of why history has been so interested in Civil War lives.

The ambitious self-made man who reached the pinnacle of American politics--only to be felled by an assassin's bullet and to die at the hands of his doctors
James A. Garfield was one of the Republican Party's leading lights in the years following the Civil War. Born in a log cabin, he rose to become a college president, Union Army general, and congressman--all by the age of thirty-two. Embodying the strive-and-succeed spirit that captured the imagination of Americans in his time, he was elected president in 1880. It is no surprise that one of his biographers was Horatio Alger.
Garfield's term in office, however, was cut tragically short. Just four months into his presidency, a would-be assassin approached Garfield at the Washington, D.C., railroad station and fired a single shot into his back. Garfield's bad luck was to have his fate placed in the care of arrogant physicians who did not accept the new theory of antisepsis. Probing the wound with unwashed and occasionally manure-laden hands, Garfield's doctors introduced terrible infections and brought about his death two months later.
Ira Rutkow, a surgeon and historian, offers an insightful portrait of Garfield and an unsparing narrative of the medical crisis that defined and destroyed his presidency. For all his youthful ambition, the only mark Garfield would make on the office would be one of wasted promise.

From the outset, the 1st Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters had problems. Much of the trouble lay in the organization of Civil War regiments and companies. Most companies in the early years of the war were made up of men from the same town or county. The concept of the sharpshooters was alien to this home-town tradition. Men were asked to leave the comfortable companionship of their neighbors and friends and go into a unit with people they had never met before. Despite its uncertain beginning, the battalion was molded into a fine unit by the skill and energy of its officers and non-commissioned officers. The sharpshooters early won the praise of higher-level commanders and inspecting officers. However, as the war dragged on, the battalion was reduced in numbers, morale, and efficiency. Notwithstanding its poor performance in the last months of its life, the unit has a high reputation that was well deserved. A Civil War veteran and historian called the sharpshooters "one of the best-drilled and most-efficient battalions in the service." This book objectively examines the organization, leadership, and performance of the sharpshooters, follows their wartime experiences, and devotes considerable attention to the individual soldiers. If the story of the 1st Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters has not been a well known story, it is now.

100 photos taken on field during the Civil War. Famous shots of Manassas, Harper's Ferry, Lincoln, Richmond, slave pens, etc.

Letting ordinary people speak for themselves, this book uses primary documents to highlight daily life among Americans-Union and Confederate, black and white, soldier and civilian-during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Focusing on routines as basic as going to school and cooking and cleaning, Voices of Civil War America: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life explores the lives of ordinary Americans during one of the nation's most tumultuous eras. The book emphasizes the ordinary rather than the momentous to help students achieve a true understanding of mid-19th-century American culture and society. Recognizing that there is no better way to learn history than to allow those who lived it to speak for themselves, the authors utilize primary documents to depict various aspects of daily life, including politics, the military, economics, domestic life, material culture, religion, intellectual life, and leisure. Each of the documents is augmented by an introduction and aftermath, as well as lists of topics to consider and questions to ask. Original materials from a wide range of sources, including letters, diaries, newspaper editorials, journal articles, and book chapters Detailed background for each of the 48 featured documents, placing the experiences and opinions of the authors into historical context

My interest in my grandfather's war history of the Gee-Johnson's 15th AR Infantry Regiment started with a conversation between myself and Dr. Robert Walz; a History professor at Southern Arkansas University, who had a friend, Dr. John Ferguson, an AR State Historian who found an article written by Benjamin F. Cooling, a park historian at Fort Donelson National Military Park. The only information I had of my grandfather's service was that he was in Johnson's AR 15th Company. So this began lots of studying and research. I have compiled some history for my decendants living in South Arkansas from 1861-1865, through four years of war and then the reconstruction the next twelve years. My goal is to leave my family with history of Colonel's Gee and Johnson and the 15th AR. This book contains the results of that research.

A string of Confederate victories at Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville led to the June 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania by the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee.

Between 1861 and 1865 seven men commanded the North's Army of the Potomac. All found themselves, one by one, pitted against a soldier of consummate ability, Robert E. Lee. How did they react to this supreme test? What were their patterns of conduct in battle and at the conference table? This book takes the measure of each soldier at the crucial moment of his life and the life of the nation.

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.

This appealing narrative history of one of the Civil War's most pivotal campaigns analyzes how the western Confederate army under John B. Hood suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of George H. Thomas's Union forces. Ideal for general readers interested in military history of the Civil War as well as those concentrating on the western campaigns, The 1864 Franklin-Nashville Campaign: The Finishing Stroke examines how the strategic and tactical decisions by Confederate and Union commanders contributed to the smashing Northern victories in Tennessee in November-December 1864. The book also considers the conflict through the lens of New Military History, including the manner in which the battles both affected and were affected by civilian individuals, the environment, and common soldiers such as Confederate veteran Sam Watkins. The result of author Michael Thomas Smith's extensive research into the Civil War and his recognition of inadequate coverage of the final western campaigns in the existing literature, this work serves to rectify this oversight. The book also questions the concept of the outcome of the Civil War as being essentially attributable to superior Northern organization and management-the "organized war to victory" theory as termed by its proponents. Emphasizes that the Northern high command suffered from serious dissension and divisions just as its Southern counterpart did-a historic reality often obscured by the ultimate Union victory Presents detailed information about the 1864 Franklin-Nashville campaign that suggests that Northern leadership was remarkably disorganized and often seriously at odds with one another, even during the war's last major campaign in the western theater Provides readers with rare insights into the often chaotic workings of the Civil War high commands, which suffered from deficiencies stemming from personal rivalries and honor-related conflicts as well as confused, ineffective organization and communication