General Winfield Scott Hancock was perhaps the most influential officer in the federal lines, though he commanded only one of seven Union corps at Gettysburg. On day one, he rallied fleeing troops and placed them in the formidable position the Union army occupied for the remainder of the battle. In a frantic few minutes on day two, he masterfully conducted reinforcements into a yawning gap in his defensive line, securing the position just moments before the Confederates advanced to try to take it. On the third day, he led the successful defense against the massive frontal assault known as Pickett's Charge. Understanding Hancock's pivotal actions at Gettysburg is essential to understanding the battle itself. This book covers his life and military career and considers the personal qualities that made him a preeminent figure in the greatest battle of the Civil 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.

This book is the story of the fascinating and accomplished life of a 19th-century Delaware favorite son, Brig. Gen. Henry Lockwood, who sailed aboard the U.S. Navy man-of-war United States with novelist Herman Melville and figures importantly in Melville's novel White-Jacket; who participated in Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones's seizure of Monterey from Mexico; who was a progenitor and co-builder of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis; who pacified the slavery-bound Delmarva peninsula during the Civil War; who distinguished himself as a brigade commander at Gettysburg; and who later commanded Maryland Heights at Harper's Ferry, the Middle Department/8th Corps, and a division at Cold Harbor. All these accomplishments occurred in the face of a stuttering tendency that afflicted him throughout his life. The book also notices important family members such as son Lieut.James Lockwood, who died of starvation during the Greely polar expedition after having reached the furthest point north of any human; brother Navy Surgeon John Lockwood, whose polemical essays in conjunction with Melville's didactic message in White-Jacket were major factors in the outlawing of punitive flogging in the Navy; and son-in-law Adm. Charles Sigsbee, who was in command of the Maine when it blew up in Havana Harbor, thus adding to the cries for war against Spain. Three pivotal events in Lockwood's military career have unjustly detracted from his historical reputation: the failure of the Naval Academy to memorialize him for his seminal role its building; the lack of historical notice of his pacification and reconciliation of Delmarva without a shot being fired; and his relief from division command at Cold Harbor by an unhinged corps commander. For the historical record, Lockwood finally receives vindication in this book.

Immortalized by David Farragut's apothegm, ""Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,"" the Battle of Mobile Bay remains one of history's great naval engagements, a contest between two admirals trained in the same naval tradition who once fought under the same flag. This new study takes a fresh look at the battle-the bloodiest naval battle of the Civil War-examining its genesis, tactics, and political ramifications. If the Confederacy had been able to deny the Union a victory before the presidential election, the South was certain to have won its independence. The North's win, however, not only stopped the blockade-runners in Mobile but insured Lincoln's re-election. Although the Union had an advantage in vessels of eighteen to four and an overwhelming superiority in firepower, it paid dearly for its victory, suffering almost ten times as many casualties as Franklin Buchanan's Confederate fleet. The author traces the evolution of the battle from the time Farragut took command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in February 1862 until the battle was fought on 5 August 1864. He then continues the narrative through the end of the war and explains how the battle influenced ship design and naval tactics for years to come.

Organized at Anderson, Indiana, in October 1862, the 47th Indiana Volunteer Infantry's Civil War service spanned the Mississippi Valley and the Gulf South. From Louisville to New Orleans and Mobile to the Rio Grande, the regiment took the war to the inland waterways and southern bayous, fighting in many of the Civil War's most famous campaigns, including Vicksburg, Red River and Mobile. This chronicle of the 47th Indiana follows the regiment's odyssey through the words of its officers and men. Sources include Chaplain Samuel Sawyer's account of his exploits in the Indianapolis Daily Journal, soldiers' accounts in Indiana newspapers, stories of war and intrigue from newspapermen of the Bohemian Brigade, and General James R. Slack's own story in letters to his wife, Ann. Numerous photographs, previously unpublished battle and area maps, and a full regimental roster complete this detailed account.

One of the most hotly debated issues in the historical study of race relations is the question of how the Civil War and Reconstruction affected social relations in the South. Did the War leave class and race hierarchies intact? Or did it mark the profound disruption of a long-standing social order?

Yankee Town, Southern City examines how the members of the southern community of Lynchburg, Virginia experienced four distinct but overlapping events--Secession, Civil War, Black Emancipation, and Reconstruction. By looking at life in the grog shop, at the military encampment, on the street corner, and on the shop floor, Steven Elliott Tripp illustrates the way in which ordinary people influenced the contours of race and class relations in their town.

The Civil War experience of the 10th Minnesota Volunteer Regiment resembles that of few other regiments. On the day the 10th Minnesota first mustered at Fort Snelling in August 1862, the Sioux Indian War broke out in western Minnesota. Soldiers who signed up to fight the Confederacy instead found themselves marching to defend the frontier and spending a year fighting two campaigns against the Sioux. When the 10th finally deployed south to fight the Confederate Army, it engaged in a series of skirmishes in the West, including battles at Tupelo and Nashville, and suffered many casualties. This chronicle merges the individual experiences of Union soldiers, Native Americans, and Confederates to offer a compelling, panoramic portrait of the 10th Minnesota during the Sioux Uprising and the Civil War, revealing the unwavering resolve of this remarkable regiment.

Edward Ephraim Cross (1832-1863) accomplished more in his short lifetime years than most men who live to be 100. By the eve of the Civil War, he had traveled from Cincinnati to Arizona working as a political reporter, travel writer, editor, trail hand, silver mine supervisor, and Indian fighter. In the summer of 1861, he became colonel of the Fighting Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers and gained fame as a fearless battlefield commander during action at Fair Oaks, Antietam, Fredricksburg, and Chancellorsville before being mortally wounded at Gettysburg. However, behind this great soldier lay a flawed man, an alcoholic with a short temper who fought a constant battle with words against immigrants, abolitionists, and others with whom he disagreed. This detailed biography presents a full portrait of this controversial and little-known figure, filling a critical gap in the literature of the northern Civil War experience.

The border states during the Civil War have long been ignored or misunderstood in general histories. This book corrects that oversight, explaining how many border state residents used wartime realities to redefine their politics and culture as "Southern." By studying the characteristics of those positioned along this fault line during the Civil War, the centrality of the war issue of slavery, which border residents long eschewed as being divisive, became apparent. This book explains how the process of Southernization occurred during and after the Civil War-a phenomenon largely unexplained by historians. Beyond the broader, more traditional narrative of the clash of arms, within these border slave states raged an inner civil war that shaped the military and political outcomes of the war as well as these states' cultural landscapes. Author Christopher Phillips describes how the Civil War experience in the border states served to form new loyalties and communities of identity that both deeply divided these states and distorted the meaning of the war for postwar generations. Explains how neutrality and definitions of loyalty and disloyalty during the war, which became key political issues, emerged from the military experience in the neutral border slave states Documents how Lincoln's major wartime political issues centered on events or conflicts that originated in the border slave states Describes the centrality of emancipation, black enlistment, and their intersection with guerrilla warfare in the border states' experience during the Civil War

The Union Army's Red River Campaign began on March 12, 1864, with a two-pronged attack aimed at gaining control of Shreveport, Louisiana. It lasted until May 22, 1864, when, after suffering significant casualties, the Union army retreated to Simmesport, Louisiana. The campaign was an attempt to prevent Confederate alliance with the French in Mexico, deny supplies to Confederate forces, and secure vast quantities of Louisiana and Texas cotton for Northern mills.

With this examination of Confederate leadership and how it affected the Red River Campaign, the author argues against the standard assumption that the campaign had no major effect on the outcome of the war. In fact, the South had--and lost--an excellent opportunity to inflict a decisive defeat that might have changed the course of history. With this campaign as an ideal example, the politics of military decision-making in general are also analyzed.

Overnight settlements, better known as 'Hell on Wheels, ' sprang up as the transcontinental railroad crossed Nebraska and Wyoming. They brought opportunity not only for legitimate business but also for gamblers, land speculators, prostitutes, and thugs. Dick Kreck tells their stories along with the heroic individuals who managed, finally, to create permanent towns in the interior West

Dan Showalter, a Pennsylvanian transplant to the Yosemite Valley, was Speaker Pro Tem of the California State Assembly at the outbreak of the Civil War and the exemplar of treason in the Far West among the pro-Union press. He gained notoriety as the survivor of California's last political duel, for his role in the display of a Confederate flag in Sacramento, and for his imprisonment after an armed confrontation with Union troops. Escaping to Texas, he distinguished himself in the Confederate service in naval battles and in pursuit of Comanche raiders. As commander the 4th Arizona Cavalry, he helped recapture the Rio Grande Valley from the Union and defended Brownsville against a combined Union and Mexican force. Refusing to surrender at war's end, he fled to Mexico where he died of a wound sustained in a drunken bar fight at age 35.

During the American Civil War, more than one hundred thousand men fought on ships at sea or on one of America's great inland rivers. There were no large-scale fleet engagements, yet the navies, particularly the Union Navy, did much to define the character of the war and affect its length. The first hostile shots roared from rebel artillery at Charleston Harbor. Along the Mississippi River and other inland waterways across the South, Union gunboats were often the first to arrive in deadly enemy territory. In the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic seaboard, blockaders in blue floated within earshot of gray garrisons that guarded vital ports. And on the open seas, rebel raiders wreaked havoc on civilian shipping. In Faces of the Civil War Navies, renowned researcher and Civil War photograph collector Ronald S. Coddington focuses his considerable skills on the Union and Confederate navies. Using identifiable cartes de visite of common sailors on both sides of the war, many of them never before published, Coddington uncovers the personal histories of each individual who looked into the eye of the primitive camera. These unique narratives are drawn from military and pension records, letters, diaries, period newspapers, and other primary sources. In addition to presenting the personal stories of seventy-seven intrepid volunteers, Coddington also focuses on the momentous naval events that ushered in an era of ironclad ships and other technical innovations. The fourth volume in Coddington's series on Civil War soldiers, this microhistory will appeal to anyone with an interest in the Civil War, social history, or photography. The narratives and photographs in Faces of the Civil War Navies shed new light on a lesser-known part of our American story. Taken collectively, these "snapshots" remind us that the history of war is not merely a chronicle of campaigns won and lost, it is the collective personal odysseys of thousands of individual life stories.

Before there was Shirley Temple or Judy Garland or Fanny Brice, before musical comedy even existed as a genre, Maggie Mitchell (1836-1918) consistently drew sold-out crowds for four decades as a musical comedy star. Admired by Abraham Lincoln as well as John Wilkes Booth, along with millions of adoring fans, both female and male, Maggie blazed across the American stage, her energy unstoppable in her signature roles: Fanchon, Little Barefoot, Pearl of Savoy, French Spy, Little Savage, and Jane Eyre. Trying to capture her appeal, reviewers exhausted their store of adjectives and metaphors, among them "vivacious," "beautiful," "hoydenish," "sprightly," "piquant," "elfin," "impish," "mischievous," "winsome," "electric," "versatile," "chaste," "a fascinating little witch," "a materialized sunbeam" and "a champagne sparkle." When she finally retired, one of the wealthiest actresses in the world, she left in her wake dozens of Maggie Mitchell imitators, and critics ever since have spoken of the "Maggie Mitchell style" of acting: effervescent, endearing, and eternally youthful. As an actress, a faithful wife and mother, and an icon of respectability in a field often condemned by moralists, she left a legacy of unparalleled achievement.

Charles Swett (1828-1910) was a prosperous Vicksburg merchant and small plantation owner who was reluctantly drawn into secession but then rallied behind the Confederate cause, serving with distinction in the Confederate Army. After the war some of Swett's peers from Mississippi and other southern states invited him to explore the possibility of settling in British Honduras or the Republic of Honduras.

"Confederates in the Tropics" uses Swett's 1868 travelogue to explore the motives of would-be Confederate migrants' fleeing defeat and Reconstruction in the United States South. The authors make a comparative analysis of Confederate communities in Latin America, and use Charles Swett's life to illustrate the travails and hopes of the period for both blacks and whites.

Swett's diary is presented here in its entirety in a clear, accessible format, edited for contemporary readers. Swett's style, except for his passionate prefatory remarks, is a remarkably unsentimental, even scientific look at Belize and Honduras, more akin to a field report than a romantic travel account. In a final section, the authors suggest why the expatriate communities of white Southerners nearly always failed, and follow up on Swett's life in Mississippi in a way that sheds light on why disgruntled Confederates decided to remain in or eventually to return to the U.S. South.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice-and reparations Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position. By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her case: in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. Wood's son later became a prominent Chicago lawyer, and she went on to live until 1912. McDaniel's book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all, Sweet Taste of Liberty is a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place.

As the Civil War's toll mounted, an antiquated medical system faced a deluge of sick and wounded soldiers. In response, the United States created a national care system primarily funded and regulated by the federal government. New Haven, Connecticut, was chosen as the site for a new military hospital because of available medical expertise, ready access to rail and water transportation and a pre-existing state hospital for the indigent. Pliny Adams Jewett, next in line to become chief of surgery at Yale, sacrificed his private practice and eventually his future in New Haven to serve as chief of staff of the new thousand-bed Knight U.S. General Hospital. The ""War Governor,"" William Buckingham, personally financed hospital construction while supporting needy soldiers and their families. He appointed state agents to scour battlefields and hospitals to ensure his state's soldiers got the best care while encouraging their transfer to the hospital in New Haven. This history of the hospital's construction and operation during the war discusses the state of medicine at the time as well as the administrative side of providing care to sick and wounded soldiers.

This book reveals the life of R. Clay Crawford, his dreams, his schemes, his successes and his failures, as he launched himself into many of the most turbulent episodes of nineteenth-century United States history. Like everyone else, he was born with a family history, not just genetic, but also cultural, determinants; this book therefore reveals the influences on his behavior inherited from his father and his grandfathers. And, again like everyone else, he passed on to his children a model, not just genetic, but cultural. Even so, Clay's story is not just a family affair. Clay was a ""self-made man,"" living in an age when that figure was thought to be a national asset-he thus stands out as a warning that the worship of the ""self-made man"" produces more rogues than Rockefellers.

On April 16, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued a blockade of the Confederate coastline. The largely agrarian South did not have the industrial base to succeed in a protracted conflict. What it did have - and what England and other foreign countries wanted - was cotton and tobacco. Industrious men soon began to connect the dots between Confederate and British needs. As the blockade grew, the blockade runners became quite ingenious in finding ways around the barriers. Boats worked their way back and forth from the Confederacy to Nassau and England, and everyone from scoundrels to naval officers wanted a piece of the action. Poor men became rich in a single transaction, and dances and drinking - from the posh Royal Victoria hotel to the boarding houses lining the harbor - were the order of the day. British, United States, and Confederate sailors intermingled in the streets, eyeing each other warily as boats snuck in and out of Nassau. But it was all to come crashing down as the blockade finally tightened and the final Confederate ports were captured. The story of this great carnival has been mentioned in a variety of sources but never examined in detail. Breaking the Blockade: The Bahamas during the Civil War focuses on the political dynamics and tensions that existed between the United States Consular Service, the governor of the Bahamas, and the representatives of the southern and English firms making a large profit off the blockade. Filled with intrigue, drama, and colorful characters, this is an important Civil War story that has not yet been told.

Named for Massachusetts governor John Albion Andrew--who prevented these two companies from joining the nationalized Berdan's sharp-shooters so that their families could continue to receive state aid--the Andrew Sharpshooters often transferred from unit to unit as the need for their unique, long-range shooting skills changed. This first chronicle of the Massachusetts Andrew Sharpshooters details their day-to-day activities and their courageous service at Seven Pines, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and numerous other Civil War battles. Thorough historical and genealogical information on every man who served in the unit completes this study of these significant but overlooked foot soldiers.

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.

"The 22nd Maine Regiment joined General Nathaniel Banks' campaign in Louisiana, fighting at Irish Bend in two attacks on Port Hudson. Drawing on first-person accounts from soldiers, a company commander, and colonel, this military history follows the Civil War regiment from formation in 1862 to muster out in 1863"--Provided by publisher.