The men of the Eighth Georgia Infantry Regiment answered the Confederate call to arms in the spring of 1861. They fought hard in most major battles of the war, including Bull Run and Gettysburg, enduring heartbreaking losses and finally, at Appomattox, witnessing their ultimate defeat.

A Scythe of Fire tells the remarkable story of this regiment, which held together through long years of victory, defeat, and despair. The magnificent product of meticulous research, Warren Wilkinson and Steven E. Woodworth's stirring chronicle brings the conflict alive through the eyes of the courageous men who fought and died on the nation's battlefields. Based on personal accounts, diaries, letters, and other primary sources, A Scythe of Fire is the history of the Eighth Georgia as experienced by those who carried its standard into battle: doctors and farmers, landowners and simple folk -- each dedicated to victory, yet proud and unbroken in the face of defeat.

Originally published in 1967 this book tells the full story of the breach between the United States and Great Britain and the pivotal role played by Benjamin Franklin in both the declaration of independence and the American Treaty. Accessibly written, and richly illustrated with half-tones and maps, this is an introductory text which will be of use to both A Level students and as an introductory text for under-graduates.

Originally published in 1933, and written by "America's historian", James Truslow Adams, this volume tells the story of the rise of the American nation encompassing economics, religion, social change and politics from settlement to the Civil War. Due emphasis is given to the inter-connectedness of America with Europe - both in terms of cultural heritage and political and military entanglements. Extensive in size and scope and richly illustrated with half-tones and maps these volumes balance a historical narrative with philosophical interpretation whilst touching on as many aspects of American life and history as possible.

Originally published in 1933, and written by "America's historian", James Truslow Adams, this volume tells the story of the rise of the American nation encompassing economics, religion, social change and politics from settlement to the Civil War. Due emphasis is given to the inter-connectedness of America with Europe - both in terms of cultural heritage and political and military entanglements. Extensive in size and scope and richly illustrated with half-tones and maps these volumes balance a historical narrative with philosophical interpretation whilst touching on as many aspects of American life and history as possible.

A fascinating and fact-filled collection of the greatest and dumbest missteps of America's bloodiest conflict

For four years in the middle of the nineteenth century, brother fought brother on American soil. No American war ever had higher stakes than, or changed a nation as profoundly as, the terrible conflict between the Union and the Confederacy. A dark historical panorama populated by a remarkable cast of colorful characters, the War Between the States was indelibly marked by both brilliant military maneuvers and mind-boggling battlefield blunders that gravely threatened the continuation of the American Experiment.

With suitable irreverence, Bill Fawcett chronicles the unbelievably disastrous decisions made by both sides in this monumental clash, including:

The Second Battle of Bull Run, where Robert E. Lee looks smart beating a remarkably stupid general

How the Union's shortsighted Colonel James Ripley's bad decision arms the Confederate Army better than his own

Lincoln's roller-coaster search for competent commanders, a long-running dark comedy of tragic errors

A golden opportunity squandered: General Lee fails to exploit a vulnerable Union and capture Washington, D.C.

Pickett's disastrous charge and the many, many Confederate command failures at Gettysburg

Lincoln's contentious draft policy that nearly burns New York City to the ground

This work provides an authoritative illustrated examination of the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, analyzing both grand strategy, and the tactical decisions of Day Two and the ensuing combat. July 2, 1863 was the bloodiest and most complicated of the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg. On this day, the clash involved five divisions of Confederate infantry and their accompanying artillery battalions, as well as a cavalry skirmish at nearby Hunterstown. The bulk of the Union army engaged on the second day of fighting, including men from the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 11th and 12th Corps. Assisted by superb maps and 3D diagrams, this fascinating work describes the tactical play-by-play, the customary "who did what" of the battle. Among the famous actions covered are Hunterstown and Benner's Hill, Little Round Top, Devil's Den, the Rose Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, and Culp's and Cemetery hills. The critical decisions taken on the second day are examined in detail, and why the commanders committed to them. Gettysburg was-first and foremost-a soldier's battle, full of raw emotion and high drama, and this work also examines the experience of combat as witnessed by the rank and file, bringing this to life in stunning battlescene artworks and primary accounts from common soldiers.

The Civil War is most often described as one in which brother fought against brother. But the most devastating war fought on American soil was also one in which women demonstrated heroic deeds, selfless acts, and courage beyond measure. Women mobilized soup kitchens and relief societies. Women cared for wounded soldiers. Women were effective spies. And it is estimated that 300 women fought on the battlefields, usually disguised as men. The most fascinating Civil War women include:

• Harriet Tubman, a former slave, who led hundreds of fellow slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad
• Four hundred women who were seized in Roswell, Georgia, deported to Indiana, and vanished without a trace
• Belle Boyd, the "Siren of the Shenandoah," who at the age of seventeen killed a Union soldier
• "Crazy" Elizabeth Van Lew, who deliberately fostered the impression that she was eccentric so that she could be an effective spy for the North

"The poor fellow sprang from my hands and fell back quivering in the agonies of death. A bullet had passed between my body and the right arm which supported him, cutting through my sleeve and passing through his chest from shoulder to shoulder." ―Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross

"We were all amused and disgusted at the sight of a thing that nothing but the debased and depraved Yankee nation could produce. A woman] was dressed in the full uniform of a Federal surgeon. She was not good looking, and of course had tongue enough for a regiment of men." ―Captain Benedict J. Semmes, describing Mary Walker, M.D.

On a November afternoon in 1864, the weary Gen. John Bell Hood surveyed the army waiting to attack the Federals at Franklin, Tennessee. He gave the signal almost at dusk, and the Confederates rushed forward to utter devastation. This book describes the events and causes of the five-hour battle in gripping detail, particularly focusing on the reasons for such slaughter at a time when the outcome of the war had already been decided.
The genesis of the senseless tragedy, according to McDonough and Connelly, lay in the appointment of Hood to command the Army of Tennessee. It was his decision to throw a total force of some 20,000 men into an ill-advised frontal assault against the Union troops. The Confederates made their approach, without substantial artillery support, on a level of some two miles. Why did Hood select such a catastrophic strategy? The authors analyze his reasoning in full. Their vivid and moving narrative, with statements from eyewitnesses to the battle, make compelling reading for all Civil War buffs and historians.
James Lee McDonough is Justin Potter Professor of History at David-Lipscomb College and is the author of Shiloh and Stones River.
Thomas L. Connelly, professor of history at the university of South Carolina, is the author of Army of the Heartland, The Marble Man, and Autumn of Glory, a two-volume history of the Army of Tennessee.

Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad -- the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.

The U.S. government pitted two companies -- the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads -- against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes vibrantly to life.

Banks failed, credit contracted, inequality grew, and people everywhere were out of work while political paralysis and slavery threatened to rend the nation in two. As financial crises always have, the Panic of 1837 drew forth a plethora of reformers who promised to restore America to greatness. Animated by an ethic of individualism and self-reliance, they became prophets of a new moral order: if only their fellow countrymen would call on each individual's God-given better instincts, the most intractable problems could be resolved. Inspired by this reformist fervor, Americans took to strict dieting, water cures, phrenology readings, mesmerism, utopian communities, free love, mutual banking, and a host of other elaborate self-improvement schemes. Vocal activists were certain that solutions to the country's ills started with the reformation of individuals, and through them communities, and through communities the nation. This set of assumptions ignored the hard political and economic realities at the core of the country's malaise, however, and did nothing to prevent another financial panic twenty years later, followed by secession and civil war. Focusing on seven individuals-George Ripley, Horace Greeley, William B. Greene, Orson Squire Fowler, Mary Gove Nichols, Henry David Thoreau, and John Brown-Philip Gura explores their efforts, from the comical to the homicidal, to beat a new path to prosperity. A narrative of people and ideas, Man's Better Angels captures an intellectual moment in American history that has been overshadowed by the Civil War and the pragmatism that arose in its wake.

Often relegated to a backseat by action in the Eastern Theater, the Western Theater is actually where the Federal armies won the Civil War. In the West, General Ulysses S. Grant strung together a series of victories that ultimately led him to oversee Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and, eventually, two terms in the White House. In the West, the fall of Atlanta secured Lincoln's reelection for his own second term. In the West, Federal armies split the Confederacy in two - and then split it in two again. In the West, Federal armies inexorably advanced, gobbling up huge swaths of territory in the face of ineffective Confederate opposition. By war's end, General William T. Sherman had marched the "Western Theater" all the way into central North Carolina. In the Eastern Theater, the principal armies fought largely within a 100-mile corridor between the capitals of Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, with a few ill-fated Confederate invasions north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The Western Theater, in contrast, included the entire area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, from Kentucky in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south - a vast geographic expanse that, even today, can be challenging to understand. The Western Theater of War: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War revisits some of the Civil War's most legendary battlefields: Shiloh, Chickamauga, Franklin, the March to the Sea, and more.

When it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground. Polarizing debates over their meaning have intensified into legislative maneuvering to preserve the statues, legal battles to remove them, and rowdy crowds taking matters into their own hands. These conflicts have raged for well over a century--but they've never been as intense as they are today. In this eye-opening narrative of the efforts to raise, preserve, protest, and remove Confederate monuments, Karen L. Cox depicts what these statues meant to those who erected them and how a movement arose to force a reckoning. She lucidly shows the forces that drove white southerners to construct beacons of white supremacy, as well as the ways that antimonument sentiment, largely stifled during the Jim Crow era, returned with the civil rights movement and gathered momentum in the decades after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Monument defenders responded with gerrymandering and "heritage" laws intended to block efforts to remove these statues, but hard as they worked to preserve the Lost Cause vision of southern history, civil rights activists, Black elected officials, and movements of ordinary people fought harder to take the story back. Timely, accessible, and essential, No Common Ground is the story of the seemingly invincible stone sentinels that are just beginning to fall from their pedestals.

Elite Confederate Women in the American Civil War is a wide-ranging primary source collection that offers a compelling selection of upper-class, white Confederate women's voices from archives across the South. From the prison diary of Mary Terry to Elizabeth Baker Crozier's eyewitness account of the siege of Knoxville, this volume introduces lesser-known voices of the war to show the interconnections between the home front and the front lines, and how the war shaped the lives of women and households across the South. This collection challenges students to engage with the role of first-person narratives in history and to reconsider the roles of southern women in the Civil War. Exploring the themes of slavery, nationalism, secession and occupation, these narratives offer new ways to think about traditional issues in Civil War history and, more broadly, show the ways in which studies of women and gender can enrich studies of cultures of war. This book is designed for undergraduate and graduate students of both the American Civil War and women's history.

Elite Confederate Women in the American Civil War is a wide-ranging primary source collection that offers a compelling selection of upper-class, white Confederate women's voices from archives across the South. From the prison diary of Mary Terry to Elizabeth Baker Crozier's eyewitness account of the siege of Knoxville, this volume introduces lesser-known voices of the war to show the interconnections between the home front and the front lines, and how the war shaped the lives of women and households across the South. This collection challenges students to engage with the role of first-person narratives in history and to reconsider the roles of southern women in the Civil War. Exploring the themes of slavery, nationalism, secession and occupation, these narratives offer new ways to think about traditional issues in Civil War history and, more broadly, show the ways in which studies of women and gender can enrich studies of cultures of war. This book is designed for undergraduate and graduate students of both the American Civil War and women's history.

Originally published in 1975, this assessment of the American Civil War is a broad treatment of the war as a major historical event, set in the context of a detailed picture of two governments, economies and societies at war. It discusses many controversial topics - the uncertainty and hesitation that surrounded the origins of the war, for example, its economic impact, the Radicals and their relationship with Lincoln and reconstruction as a wartime issue. It offers acute analysis of Lincoln's political skills, and an evaluation of emancipation and Lincoln's approach to it; the problems and performance of the opposition during the war; international reactions; an assessment of some of the leading generals like McClellan and Lee and the impact of the war on both Southern and Northern society.

A New York Times Notable Book of 2013 A Kirkus Best Book of 2013 A Bookpage Best Book of 2013Dazzling in scope, Ecstatic Nation illuminates one of the most dramatic and momentous chapters in America's past, when the country dreamed big, craved new lands and new freedom, and was bitterly divided over its great moral wrong: slavery.â ¨ â ¨With a canvas of extraordinary characters, such as P. T. Barnum, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, and L. C. Q. Lamar, Ecstatic Nation brilliantly balances cultural and political history: It's a riveting account of the sectional conflict that preceded the Civil War, and it astutely chronicles the complex aftermath of that war and Reconstruction, including the promise that women would share in a new definition of American citizenship. It takes us from photographic surveys of the Sierra Nevadas to the discovery of gold in the South Dakota hills, and it signals the painful, thrilling birth of modern America.An epic tale by award-winning author Brenda Wineapple, Ecstatic Nation lyrically and with true originality captures the optimism, the failures, and the tragic exuberance of a renewed Republic.

Frederick Douglass asks students to confront an explosive question: How, in a nation founded on ideas of equal rights and freedom, could the institution of slavery become so entrenched and long-lasting? How was slavery justified and how was it criticised? At a literary forum, students consider the newly-published Narrative of Frederick Douglass and hold a hearing on John C. Calhoun's view of slavery as a "positive good". Finally, players address the US Constitution, its original protections of the slaveholders' power and the central question: Are Americans more beholden to the Constitution or to some "higher law"?

"Captivating . . . [Lowenstein] makes what subsequently occurred at Treasury and on Wall Street during the early 1860s seem as enthralling as what transpired on the battlefield or at the White House." -Harold Holzer, Wall Street Journal "Ways and Means, an account of the Union's financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives . . . Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge." -Eric Foner, New York Times Book Review From renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, a revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country's history Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Even before the Confederacy's secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity-the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the "more perfect union" that had first drawn him to politics. With Lincoln at the helm, the United States would now govern "for" its people: it would enact laws, establish a currency, raise armies, underwrite transportation and higher education, assist farmers, and impose taxes for them. Lincoln believed this agenda would foster the economic opportunity he had always sought for upwardly striving Americans, and which he would seek in particular for enslaved Black Americans. Salmon Chase, Lincoln's vanquished rival and his new secretary of the Treasury, waged war on the financial front, levying taxes and marketing bonds while desperately battling to contain wartime inflation. And while the Union and Rebel armies fought increasingly savage battles, the Republican-led Congress enacted a blizzard of legislation that made the government, for the first time, a powerful presence in the lives of ordinary Americans. The impact was revolutionary. The activist 37th Congress legislated for homesteads and a transcontinental railroad and involved the federal government in education, agriculture, and eventually immigration policy. It established a progressive income tax and created the greenback-paper money. While the Union became self-sustaining, the South plunged into financial free fall, having failed to leverage its cotton wealth to finance the war. Founded in a crucible of anticentralism, the Confederacy was trapped in a static (and slave-based) agrarian economy without federal taxing power or other means of government financing, save for its overworked printing presses. This led to an epic collapse. Though Confederate troops continued to hold their own, the North's financial advantage over the South, where citizens increasingly went hungry, proved decisive; the war was won as much (or more) in the respective treasuries as on the battlefields. Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency of the Civil War to transform a union of states into a nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and a Congress studded with towering statesmen, changed the direction of the country and established a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

A dashing young orator during the Great Hunger of the 1840s, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony for life. But two years later he was "back from the dead" and in New York, instantly the most famous Irishman in America. Meagher's rebirth included his leading the newly formed Irish Brigade in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War. Afterward, he tried to build a new Ireland in the wild west of Montana - a quixotic adventure that ended in the great mystery of his disappearance, which Egan resolves convincingly at last.

Themes of the American Civil War offers a timely and useful guide to this vast topic for a new generation of students. The volume provides a broad-ranging assessment of the causes, complexities, and consequences of America s most destructive conflict to date. The essays, written by top scholars in the field, and reworked for this new edition, explore how, and in what ways, differing interpretations of the war have arisen, and explains clearly why the American Civil War remains a subject of enduring interest. It includes chapters covering four broad areas, including The Political Front, The Military Front, The Race Front, and The Ideological Front.

Additions to the second edition include a new introduction added to the current introduction by James McPherson a chapter on gender, as well as information on the remembrance of the war (historical memory). The addition of several maps, a timeline, and an appendix listing further reading, battlefield statistics, and battle/regiment/general names focuses the book squarely at undergraduates in both the US and abroad.

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.

The Antebellum Press: Setting the Stage for Civil War reveals the critical role of journalism in the years leading up to America's deadliest conflict by exploring the events that foreshadowed and, in some ways, contributed directly to the outbreak of war. This collection of scholarly essays traces how the national press influenced and shaped America's path towards warfare. Major challenges faced by American newspapers prior to secession and war are explored, including: the economic development of the press; technology and its influence on the press; major editors and reporters (North and South) and the role of partisanship; and the central debate over slavery in the future of an expanding nation. A clear narrative of institutional, political, and cultural tensions between 1820 and 1861 is presented through the contributors' use of primary sources. In this way, the reader is offered contemporary perspectives that provide unique insights into which local or national issues were pivotal to the writers whose words informed and influenced the people of the time. As a scholarly work written by educators, this volume is an essential text for both upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates who study the American Civil War, journalism, print and media culture, and mass communication history.

In 1864, Union soldier Charles George described a charge into battle by General Phil Sheridan: "Such a picture of earnestness and determination I never saw as he showed as he came in sight of the battle field . . . What a scene for a painter!" These words proved prophetic, as Sheridan's desperate ride provided the subject for numerous paintings and etchings as well as songs and poetry. George was not alone in thinking of art in the midst of combat; the significance of the issues under contention, the brutal intensity of the fighting, and the staggering number of casualties combined to form a tragedy so profound that some could not help but view it through an aesthetic lens, to see the war as a concert of death. It is hardly surprising that art influenced the perception and interpretation of the war given the intrinsic role that the arts played in the lives of antebellum Americans. Nor is it surprising that literature, music, and the visual arts were permanently altered by such an emotional and material catastrophe. In The Arts and Culture of the American Civil War, an interdisciplinary team of scholars explores the way the arts - theatre, music, fiction, poetry, painting, architecture, and dance - were influenced by the war as well as the unique ways that art functioned during and immediately following the war. Included are discussions of familiar topics (such as Ambrose Bierce, Peter Rothermel, and minstrelsy) with less-studied subjects (soldiers and dance, epistolary songs). The collection as a whole sheds light on the role of race, class, and gender in the production and consumption of the arts for soldiers and civilians at this time; it also draws attention to the ways that art shaped - and was shaped by - veterans long after the war.

Following the suggestion of the historian Peter Parish, these essays probe "the edges" of slavery and the sectional conflict. The authors seek to recover forgotten stories, exceptional cases and contested identities to reveal the forces that shaped America, in the era of "the Long Civil War," c.1830-1877. Offering an unparalleled scope, from the internal politics of southern households to trans-Atlantic propaganda battles, these essays address the fluidity and negotiability of racial and gendered identities, of criminal and transgressive behaviors, of contingent, shifting loyalties and of the hopes of freedom that found expression in refugee camps, court rooms and literary works.