A chronicle of Civil War activity in Florida, both land and sea maneuvers. For each engagement the author includes excerpts from official government reports by officers on both sides of the battle lines. Also a guide to Civil War sites you can visit. Includes photos and maps.

Sites include:

Fort Pickens, Natural Bridge Battlefield State Historic Site, Fort Clinch State Park, Olustee Battlefield, Suwannee River State Park, Castillo de San Marcos, Bronson-Mulholland House, Cedar Key Island Hotel, Gamble Plantation, Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins State Historic Site, Fort Zachary Taylor State Historic Site, Fort Jefferson State Historic Site

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.

With the collapse of the Confederate defences at Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, the entire Tennessee Valley was open to Union invasion and control. These Northern victories set up the 1864 Atlanta Campaign that cut the Confederacy in two. Had Confederate planning and leadership been better, no one can say what difference it might have made to the Civil War in the West and the outcome of the war itself. Where The South Lost The War is a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign. Kendall D. Gott examines in detail the preparation, logistics and events that led to a large Confederate surrender and to the eventual defeat of the entire Confederate force. About the Author Kendall D. Gott is a military historian for the Combat Studies Institute at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is the author of several articles and studies on American military history, including In Glory's Shadow: The 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment during the Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991.

Burke McCarty sets out a complex alternative theory regarding the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, namely the notion that the event was orchestrated by shadowy religious powers. McCarty gathers and presents correspondences and other documents; together these offer an alternate explanation for Lincoln's heinous murder. He alleges that a Treaty in Verona in 1822 was the start of a plot to kill an American President, a plot whose pieces would gradually fall into place in the four decades which followed. McCarty alleges involvement by the Pope and the Catholic church, plus other clandestine figures, pointing to what he considers coded references in letters. Modern historians and scholars consider alternative theories behind the death of President Lincoln as spurious conspiracy. The overwhelming evidence remains that John Wilkes Booth, a vain and agitated man with a craving for notoriety, acted alone in his scheme to murder Abraham Lincoln as the President watched a performance at Ford's Theater.

"Lowry, a physician and medical historian, weaves a fascinating history of a little-discussed aspect (sex) of a much-discussed subject (the Civil War)." - Library Journal Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources - from letters that escaped the censoriousness of their writers' descendants to court-martial reports, prostitutes' diaries, and the modest remaining examples of very immodest Victorian erotica - Lowry argues that, in spite of Victorian mores, a thoroughly normal amount of sexual activity went on under the covers and in other places during the war."- Booklist This is the first book to cover all aspects of sexuality during the Civil War. Based on area original sources, including the soldiers' jokes, songs, letters, and diaries it provides a extraordinary look at life beyond the battlefield. Explore the secret life of the men in blue and grey - from pornography, bawdy songs, and prostitution to stories of love and marriage.

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

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.

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.

Early in May 1861, twenty-one-year-old Sam R. Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee, joined the First Tennessee Regiment, Company H, to fight for the Confederacy. Of the 120 original recruits in his company, Watkins was one of only seven to survive every one of its battles, from Shiloh to Nashville. Twenty years later, with a "house full of young 'rebels' clustering around my knees and bumping about my elbows," he wrote this remarkable account of "Co. Aytch" -- its common foot soldiers, its commanders, its Yankee enemies, its victories and defeats, and its ultimate surrender on April 26, 1865.

Co. Aytch is the work of a natural storyteller who balances the horror of war with an irrepressible sense of humor and a sharp eye for the lighter side of battle. Among Civil War memoirs, it is considered a classic -- a living testament to one man's enduring humanity, courage, and wisdom in the midst of death and destruction.

Located on Pea Patch Island at the entrance to the Delaware River, Fort Delaware was built to protect Wilmington and Philadelphia in case of an attack by sea. When the Civil War broke out, Fort Delaware's purpose changed dramatically--it became a prisoner of war camp. By the fall of 1863, about 12,000 soldiers, officers, and political prisoners were being held in an area designed to hold only 4,000--and known as the Andersonville of the North, a place where terrible sickness and deprivation were a way of life despite the commanding general's efforts to keep the prison clean and the prisoners fed. Many books have been written about the Confederacy's Andersonville and its terrible conditions, but comparatively little has been written about its counterparts in the North. The conditions at Fort Delaware are fully explored, contemplating what life was like for prisoners and guards alike.

Sixty years ago today the guns that thundered round Fort Sumter began the third and greatest modern civil war fought by English-speaking people. This war was quite as full of politics as were the other two-the War of the American Revolution and that of Puritan and Cavalier. But, though the present Chronicle never ignores the vital correlations between statesmen and commanders, it is a book of warriors, through and through. I gratefully acknowledge the indispensable assistance of Colonel G. J. Fiebeger, a West Point expert, and of Dr. Allen Johnson, chief editor of the series and Professor of American History at Yale. WILLIAM WOOD, Late Colonel commanding 8th Royal Rifles, and Officer-in-charge, Canadian Special Mission Overseas. QUEBEC, April 18, 1921

The battle of Shiloh, fought in April 1862 in the wilderness of south central Tennessee, marked a savage turning point in the Civil War. In this masterful book, Larry Daniel re-creates the drama and the horror of the battle and discusses in authoritative detail the political and military policies that led to Shiloh, the personalities of those who formulated and executed the battle plans, the fateful misjudgments made on both sides, and the heroism of the small-unit leaders and ordinary soldiers who manned the battlefield.

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.

For some eighty-five years--between, roughly, 1725 and 1810--the American colonies were agitated by what can only be described as a revolutionary movement. This was not the well-known political revolution that culminated in the War of Independence, but a revolution in religious and ethical thought. Its proponents called their radical viewpoint "deism." They challenged Christian orthodoxy and instead endorsed a belief system that celebrated the power of human reason and saw nature as God's handiwork and the only revelation of divine will. This illuminating discussion of American deism presents an overview of the main tenets of deism, showing how its influence rose swiftly and for a time became a highly controversial subject of debate in the colonies. The deists were students of the Enlightenment and took a keen interest in the scientific study of nature. They were thus critical of orthodox Christianity for its superstitious belief in miracles, persecution of dissent, and suppression of independent thought and expression. At the heart of his book are profiles of six "rational infidels," most of whom are quite familiar to Americans as founding fathers or colonial patriots: Benjamin Franklin (the ambivalent deist), Thomas Jefferson (a critic of Christian supernaturalism but an admirer of its ethics), Ethan Allen (the rough-edged "frontier deist"), Thomas Paine (the arch iconoclast and author of The Age of Reason), Elihu Palmer (the tireless crusader for deism and perhaps its most influential proponent), and Philip Freneau (a poet whose popular verses combined deism with early romanticism). This is a fascinating study of America's first culture war, one that in many ways has continued to this day.