Soldier mortals would not survive if they were not blessed with the gift of imagination and the pictures of hope,"" wrote Confederate Private Henry Graves in the trenches outside Petersburg, Virginia. ""The second angel of mercy is the night dream."" Providing fresh perspective on the human side of the Civil War, this book explores the dreams and imaginings of those who fought it, as recorded in their letters, journals and memoirs. Sometimes published as poems or songs or printed in newspapers, these rarely acknowledged writings reflect the personalities and experiences of their authors. Some expressions of fear, pain, loss, homesickness and disappointment are related with grim fatalism, and some with glimpses of humor.

The Diary of a Civil War Marine: Private Josiah Gregg is a rare firsthand account of a United States Marine during the Civil War, written within hours of the events described. Gregg enlisted as a private at the beginning of the war, and served as a shipboard Marine on the Vanderbilt as it hunted Confederate raiders in the Caribbean and Atlantic. He also served aboard the Brooklyn at the battles of Mobile Bay and Fort Fischer. Part war story and part travel log, Gregg tells a good story with the confident prose of a man who worked as a school teacher and a clerk before the war. Seen by only Gregg's descendants for the last 140 years, the diary entries have been edited to include notes that explain what might be unclear to a modern audience. Also included are brief histories of the ships and the events described in the journal, and eight black and white photographs that were found inside the journal.

This is the untold story of the heroic efforts of the men of the 4th United States Cavalry as they sabered their way through the Western Theater of the Civil War and into the heart of the Confederacy. From the earliest battles in Missouri at Dug Springs and Wilson's Creek, to Fort Donelson and Shiloh, Tennessee, and on to the great Battle of Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, where they delayed the advance of the Confederate Army for ten hours at Reed's Bridge, the regiment not only fought on Southern soil, but faced the best cavalry leaders the Confederacy had to offer, including Nathan Bedford Forrest. From the siege of Atlanta and Kilpatrick's Raid around the city, to the final great cavalry charge at Selma, Alabama, the 4th United States earned a reputation second to none as they became the Masters of the Field.

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.

This is a long-awaited translation of a definitive account of the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. Michael Alpert examines the origins, formation and performance of the Republican Army and sets the Spanish Civil War in its broader military context. He explores the conflicts between communists and Spanish anarchists about how the war should be fought, as well as the experience of individual conscripts, problems of food, clothing and arms, and the role of women in the new army. The book contains extensive discussion of international aspects, particularly the role of the International Brigades and of the Soviet Russian advisers. Finally, it discusses the final uprising of professional Republican officers against the Government and the almost unconditional surrender to Franco. Professor Alpert also provides detailed statistics for the military forces available to Franco and to the Republic and biographies of the key figures on both sides.

The Civil War is a much plumbed area of scholarship, so much so that at times it seems there is no further work to be done in the field. However, the experience of children and youth during that tumultuous time remains a relatively unexplored facet of the conflict. Children and Youth during the Civil War Era seeks a deeper investigation into the historical record by and giving voice and context to their struggles and victories during this critical period in American history. Prominent historians and rising scholars explore issues important to both the Civil War era and to the history of children and youth, including the experience of orphans, drummer boys, and young soldiers on the front lines, and even the impact of the war on the games children played in this collection. Each essay places the history of children and youth in the context of the sectional conflict, while in turn shedding new light on the sectional conflict by viewing it through the lens of children and youth. A much needed, multi-faceted historical account, Children and Youth during the Civil War Era touches on some of the most important historiographical issues with which historians of children and youth and of the Civil War home front have grappled over the last few years.

General John Bell Hood tried everything he could: Surprise attack. Flanking march. Cavalry raid into the enemy's rear lines. Simply enduring his opponent's semi-siege of the city. But nothing he tried worked. Because by the time he assumed command of Confederate forces protecting Atlanta, his predecessor Joe Johnston's chronic, characteristic strategy of gradual withdrawal had doomed the city to fall to William T. Sherman's Union troops. Joe Johnston lost Atlanta and John Bell Hood has gotten a bum rap, Stephen Davis argues in his new book, Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston, and the Yankee Heavy Battalions. The fall of the city was inevitable because Johnston pursued a strategy that was typical of his career: he fell back. Again and again. To the point where he allowed Sherman's army to within five miles of the city. Against a weaker opponent, Johnston's strategy might have succeeded. But Sherman commanded superior numbers, and he was a bold, imaginative strategist who pressed the enemy daily and used his artillery to pound their lines. Against this combination, Johnston didn't have a chance. And by the time Hood took over the Confederate command, neither did he. Atlanta Will Fall provides a lively, fast-paced overview of the entire Atlanta campaign from Dalton to Jonesboro. Davis describes the battles and analyzes the strategies. He evaluates the three generals, examining their plans of action, their tactics, and their leadership ability. In doing so, he challenges the commonly held perceptions of the two Confederate leaders and provides a new perspective on one of the most decisive battles of the Civil War. An excellent supplemental text for courses on the Civil War and American nineteenth-century history, Atlanta Will Fall will engage students with its brisk, concise examination of the fight for Atlanta.

The second and concluding volume of Professor Ashworth's study of American antebellum politics, this book offers an exciting new interpretation of the origins of the Civil War. The volume deals with the politics of the 1850s and with the plunge into civil war. Professor Ashworth offers a new way of understanding the conflict between North and South and shows how northern free labor increasingly came into conflict with southern slavery as a result of both changes in the northern economy and the structural weaknesses of slavery.

Charles I provides a detailed overview of Charles Stuart, placing his reign firmly within the wider context of this turbulent period and examining the nature of one of the most complex monarchs in British history. The book is organised chronologically, beginning in 1600 and covering Charles' early life, his first difficulties with his parliaments, the Personal Rule, the outbreak of Civil War, and his trial and eventual execution in 1649. Interwoven with historiography, the book emphasises the impact of Charles' challenging inheritance on his early years as king and explores the transition from his original championing of international Protestantism to his later vision of a strong and centralised monarchy influenced by continental models, which eventually provoked rebellion and civil war across his three kingdoms. This study brings to light the mass of contradictions within Charles' nature and his unusual approach to monarchy, resulting in his unrivaled status as the only English king to have been tried and executed by his own subjects. Offering a fresh approach to this significant reign and the fascinating character that held it, Charles I is the perfect book for students of early modern Britain and the English Civil War.

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.

Exploring how the face and body of America were imagined both physically and metaphorically during the Civil War, this book shows how visual iconography affected changes in postbellum gendered and racialised identifications of the nation.

North Carolina contributed more of her sons to the Confederate cause than any other state. The 37th North Carolina, made up of men from the western part of the state, served in famous battles like Chancellorsville and Gettysburg as well as in lesser known engagements like Hanover Courthouse and New Bern. This is the account of the unit's four years' service, told largely in the soldiers' own words. Drawn from letters, diaries, and postwar articles and interviews, this history of the 37th North Carolina follows the unit from its organization in November 1861 until its surrender at Appomattox. The book includes photographs of the key players in the 37th's story as well as maps illustrating the unit's position at several engagements. Appendices include a complete roster of the unit and a listing of individuals buried in large sites such as prison cemeteries. A bibliography and index are also included.

This is the story of 150 of the most adventurous scouts, gold prospectors, gunslingers, buffalo hunters, and Civil War veterans of both sides-they may have been the deadliest collection of shooters to ever hit the trail. This is the most detailed work ever produced on the obscure legend of the 1874 Yellowstone Wagon Road Prospecting Expedition in the Montana Territory-the product of multi-year research across the country, and visits to the three battlefields and expedition route of over 500 miles-an event that impacted the Little Bighorn in 1876. Numerous legends of the West rode on the expedition, later playing roles in the Great Sioux War of 1876. Their adversaries now were the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne-some of the greatest light cavalry to ever gallop over the North American continent. And watching their every move were Sitting Bull, Gall, Hump, Crazy Horse, and a renegade chief named Inkpaduta, ready to strike.

The first of two volumes focusing on the African-American experience during the Civil War. Twenty-six articles review the rise of abolitionism in the North, the recruitment of black troops, their performance in battle, race as a factor in combat, women and the war effort, and black troops fighting for the Confederacy.

This book proposes an interpretation of Francoism as the Spanish variant of fascism. Unlike Italian fascism and Nazism, the Franco regime survived the Second World War and continued its existence until the death of dictator Francisco Franco. Francoism was, therefore, the Last Survivor of the fascisms of the interwar period. And indeed this designation applies equally to Franco. The work begins with an analysis of the historical identity of Spanish fascism, constituted in the process of fascistization of the Spanish right during the crisis of the Second Republic, and consolidated in the formation of the fascist single-party and the New State during the civil war. Subsequent chapter contributions focus on various cultural and social projects (the university, political-cultural journals, the Labor University Service, local policies and social insurance) that sought to socialize Spaniards in the political principles of the Franco regime and thereby to strengthen social cohesion around it. Francoism faced varying degrees of non-compliance and outright hostility, expressed as different forms of cultural opposition to the Franco regime, especially in the years of its maturity (decades of the fifties and sixties), from Spaniards both inside Spain and in exile. Such opposition is explored in the context of how the regime reacted via the social, cultural and economic inducements at its disposal. The editors and contributors are widely published in the field of Spain of the Second Republic, the civil war and the Franco dictatorship. Research material is drawn from primary archival sources, and provides new information and new interpretations on Spanish politics, culture and society during the dictatorship.

Marking the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, this volume takes a close look at the initial political moves, military actions and consequences of the fratricidal conflict and their impact on both Spaniards and contemporary European powers. The contributors re-examine the crystallisation of the political alliances formed in the Republican and the Nationalist zones; the support mobilised by the two warring camps; and the different attitudes and policies adopted by neighbouring and far away countries. This book goes beyond and against commonly held assumptions as to the supposed unity of the Nationalist camp vis-a-vis the fragmentation of the Republican one; and likewise brings to the fore the complexities of initial support of the military rebellion by Nazi Germany and Soviet support of the beleaguered Republic. Situating the Iberian conflict in the larger international context, senior and junior scholars from various countries challenge the multitude of hitherto accepted ideas about the beginnings of the Spanish Civil War. A primary aim of the editors is to enable discussion on the Spanish Civil War from lesser known or realized perspectives by investigating the civil wars impact on countries such as Argentina, Japan, and Jewish Palestine; and from lesser heard voices at the time of women, intellectuals, and athletes. Original contributions are devoted to the Popular Olympiad organised in Barcelona in July 1936, Japanese perceptions of the Spanish conflict in light of the 1931 invasion to Manchuria, and international volunteers in the International Brigades.

Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. FrEmont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of. His adventures are fit for remaking into the tall tales Bridger himself liked to tell. Here, in a biography that finally gives this outsize character his due, Jerry Enzler takes this frontiersman's full measure for the first time - and tells a story that would do Jim Bridger proud. Born in 1804 and orphaned at thirteen, Bridger made his first western foray in 1822, traveling up the Missouri River with Mike Fink and a hundred enterprising young men to trap beaver. At twenty he 'discovered' the Great Salt Lake. At twenty-one he was the first to paddle the Bighorn River's Bad Pass. At twenty-two he explored the wonders of Yellowstone. In the following years, he led trapping brigades into Blackfeet territory; guided expeditions of Smithsonian scientists, topographical engineers, and army leaders; and, though he could neither read nor write, mapped the tribal boundaries for the Great Indian Treaty of 1851. Enzler charts Bridger's path from the fort he built on the Oregon Trail to the route he blazed for Montana gold miners to avert war with Red Cloud and his Lakota coalition. Along the way he married into the Flathead, Ute, and Shoshone tribes and produced seven children. Tapping sources uncovered in the six decades since the last documented Bridger biography, Enzler's book fully conveys the drama and details of the larger-than-life history of the 'King of the Mountain Men.' This is the definitive story of an extraordinary life.

Providing a fresh look at a crucial aspect of the American Civil War, this new study explores the day-to-day life of people in the Confederate States of America as they struggled to cope with a crisis that spared no one, military or civilian. Mobley touches on the experiences of everyone on the home front-white and black, male and female, rich and poor, young and old, native and foreign born. He looks at health, agriculture, industry, transportation, refugees city life, religion, education, culture families, personal relationships, and public welfare. In so doing, he offers his perspective on how much the will of the people contributed to the final defeat of the Southern cause. Although no single experience was common to all Southerners, a great many suffered poverty, dislocation, and heartbreak. For African Americans, however, the war brought liberation from slavery and the promise of a new life. White women, too, saw their lives transformed as wartime challenges gave them new responsibilities and experiences. Mobley explains how the Confederate military draft, heavy taxes, and restrictions on personal freedoms led to widespread dissatisfaction and cries for peace among Southern folk. He describes the Confederacy as a region of divided loyalties, where pro-Union and pro-Confederate neighbors sometimes clashed violently. This readable, one-volume account of life behind the lines will prove particularly useful for students of the conflict.

Based on a combination of a wide range of second-hand sources with previously unknown archival material from Spain, Britain, France and the United States, this book explores the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 as a propaganda battle aimed mainly at foreign public opinion. It shows how both Nationalists and Republicans used the experiences of previous conflicts such as World War I, as well as that of their totalitarian allies, in order to set up a number of propaganda and censorship services with the goal of persuading foreign -- and specifically British -- audiences of the legitimacy of their causes, and of the need to give them political, military, and relief assistance. The propaganda messages designed by both sides -- ranging from the atrocities committed by the enemy to illegal foreign intervention on its behalf -- are analysed in detail, together with the techniques that were employed to transmit these messages: eye-witness accounts, official commissions, unofficial missions of investigation, documentaries, art exhibitions, etc. As to the impact of both campaigns on the British population, the author argues that their crude nature helped to mobilise both the extreme right and the extreme left, but alienated the great majority, who preferred to rally to the Non-Intervention policy adopted by the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments. The chronicle of this relatively neglected topic demonstrates not only the utter modernity of the Spanish conflict, but also the origin of some of the arguments still employed by current historians of the war.

At its core, the Civil War was a conflict over the meaning of citizenship. Most famously, it became a struggle over whether or not to grant rights to a group that stood outside the pale of civil-society: African Americans. But other groups--namely Jews, Germans, the Irish, and Native Americans--also became part of this struggle to exercise rights stripped from them by legislation, court rulings, and the prejudices that defined the age. Grounded in extensive research by experts in their respective fields, Civil War Citizens is the first volume to collectively analyze the wartime experiences of those who lived outside the dominant white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant citizenry of nineteenth-century America. The essays examine the momentous decisions made by these communities in the face of war, their desire for full citizenship, the complex loyalties that shaped their actions, and the inspiring and heartbreaking results of their choices-- choices that still echo through the United States today. Contributors: Stephen D. Engle, William McKee Evans, David T. Gleeson, Andrea Mehrlander, Joseph P. Reidy, Robert N. Rosen, and Susannah J. Ural.

An immense literature about the Civil War has nonetheless paid surprisingly little attention to the common soldier, North and South. Historians have shown even less concern for the long-term impact of this military service on American society. Larry M. Logue's To Appomattox and Beyond makes a major contribution in addressing this need. In a compact synthesis that draws upon important new materials from his own research, Logue provides the fullest account available of the Civil War soldier in war and peace who fought, what happened to them in battle, how the public regarded them, how the war changed the rest of their lives, in what ways they were like and different from their counterparts across the Mason-Dixon line. To Appomattox and Beyond offers surprising conclusions about the psychological impact of warfare on its participants; about the North's generous pension system for veterans; and about the role that veterans played in politics and social issues, notably the Confederate racist reaction of the late nineteenth century. In a final irony, Logue points out, by the twentieth century men who had once been enemies now had more in common with each other than with the new world around them."