Historians have long viewed President John Tyler as one of the nation's least effective heads of state. In President without a Party- the first fullA -scale biography of Tyler in more than fifty years and the first new academic study of him in eight decades- Christopher J. Leahy explores the life of the tenth chief executive of the United States. Born in the Virginia Tidewater into an elite family sympathetic to the ideals of the American Revolution, Tyler, like his father, worked as an attorney before entering politics. Leahy uses a wealth of primary source materials to chart Tyler's early political path, from his election to the Virginia legislature in 1811, through his stints as a congressman and senator, to his viceA -presidential nomination on the Whig ticket for the campaign of 1840. When William Henry Harrison died unexpectedly a mere month after assuming the presidency, Tyler became the first vice president to become president because of the death of the incumbent. Leahy traces Tyler's ascent to the highest office in the land and unpacks the fraught dynamics between Tyler and his fellow Whigs, who ultimately banished the beleaguered president from their ranks and stymied his election bid three years later. Leahy also examines the president's personal life, especially his relationships with his wives and children. In the end, Leahy suggests, politics fulfilled Tyler the most, often to the detriment of his family. Such was true even after his presidency, when Virginians elected him to the Confederate Congress in 1861, and northerners and Unionists branded him a ""traitor president."" The most complete accounting of Tyler's life and career, Leahy's biography makes an original contribution to the fields of politics, family life, and slavery in the antebellum South. Moving beyond the standard, often shortsighted studies that describe Tyler as simply a defender of the Old South's dominant ideology of states' rights and strict construction of the Constitution, Leahy offers a nuanced portrayal of a president who favored a middle-A of-A theA -road, bipartisan approach to the nation's problems. This strategy did not make Tyler popular with either the Whigs or the opposition Democrats while he was in office, or with historians and biographers ever since. Moreover, his most significant achievement as president- the annexation of Texas- exacerbated sectional tensions and put the United States on the road to civil war.

The American Civil War is the most read about era in our history, and among its most compelling aspects is the story of Civil War medicine - the staggering challenge of treating wounds and disease on both sides of the conflict. Written for general readers and scholars alike, this first-of-its kind encyclopedia will help all Civil War enthusiasts to better understand this amazing medical saga. Clearly organized, authoritative, and readable, "The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine" covers both traditional historical subjects and medical details. It offers clear explanations of unfamiliar medical terms, diseases, wounds, and treatments. The encyclopedia depicts notable medical personalities, generals with notorious wounds, soldiers' aid societies, medical department structure, and hospital design and function. It highlights the battles with the greatest medical significance, women's medical roles, period sanitation issues, and much more. Presented in A-Z format with more than 200 entries, the encyclopedia treats both Union and Confederate material in a balanced way. Its many user-friendly features include a chronology, a glossary, cross-references, and a bibliography for further study.

The first graphic history to capture the full scope of the Civil War, gorgeously drawn and expertly told

The graphic novelist Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and the award-winning historian Ari Kelman team up to create a unique portrait of a brutal and defining event in American history: the Civil War. The result is "Battle Lines," a monumental graphic history--rendered in Fetter-Vorm's sweeping full-color panoramas, and grounded in Kelman's nuanced understanding of the period--offering a series of wholly new perspectives on the conflict that turned this nation against itself.
Each chapter in "Battle Lines "begins with an object; each object tells its own story. A tattered flag, lowered in defeat at Fort Sumter. A set of chains, locked to the ankles of a slave as he scrambles toward freedom. A bullet, launched from the bore of a terrifying new rifle. A brick, hurled from a crowd of ration-starved rioters. With these objects and others, both iconic and commonplace, "Battle Lines" traces a broad and ambitious narrative from the early rumblings of secession to the dark years of Reconstruction. Richly detailed and wildly inventive, its stories propel the reader to all manner of unlikely vantages as only the graphic form can: from the malaria-filled gut of a mosquito to the faded ink of a soldier's pen, and from the barren farms of the home front to the front lines of an infantry charge.
Beautiful, uncompromising, poignant, and utterly original, "Battle Lines" is a daring vision of the war that nearly tore America apart.

In The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of physical violence on the floor of the U.S. Congress in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery. These fights didn't happen in a vacuum. Freeman's dramatic accounts of brawls and thrashings tell a larger story of how fisticuffs and journalism, and the powerful emotions they elicited, raised tensions between North and South and led toward war. In the process, she brings the antebellum Congress to life, revealing its rough realities - the feel, sense, and sound of it - as well as its nation-shaping import. The result is riveting - and it reveals fresh understanding of the workings of American democracy and the bonds of Union on the eve of their greatest peril.

The American Civil War is the most read about era in our history, and among its most compelling aspects is the story of Civil War medicine - the staggering challenge of treating wounds and disease on both sides of the conflict. Written for general readers and scholars alike, this first-of-its kind encyclopedia will help all Civil War enthusiasts to better understand this amazing medical saga. Clearly organized, authoritative, and readable, "The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine" covers both traditional historical subjects and medical details. It offers clear explanations of unfamiliar medical terms, diseases, wounds, and treatments. The encyclopedia depicts notable medical personalities, generals with notorious wounds, soldiers' aid societies, medical department structure, and hospital design and function. It highlights the battles with the greatest medical significance, women's medical roles, period sanitation issues, and much more. Presented in A-Z format with more than 200 entries, the encyclopedia treats both Union and Confederate material in a balanced way. Its many user-friendly features include a chronology, a glossary, cross-references, and a bibliography for further study.

John Harrison Surratt, Jr., was a courier for the Confederate Secret Service and the only one of John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination plot to escape hanging by the U.S. government. Fleeing vengeful authorities in the wake of the assassination, Surratt traveled through three continents and served in the Papal Zouaves before being arrested in Egypt. His 1867 trial was a sensation, ending in a hung jury. Upon his release, he sought a quiet life away from the spotlight but privately suffered the consequences of his acts. The most complete study of Surratt's life to date, this book addresses many unanswered questions and considers theories that have received little attention.

The three civil wars that wracked England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, between 1642-1651 saw a greater percentage of the population killed than in the First World War. Hartlebury Castle, the home of the bishop of Worcester, saw involvement in all three wars. If you look for it in books on the civil war you will rarely find it mentioned and yet it was one of the two main fortresses guarding the north of the county and also a vital communication route for the Royalist troops from Wales and Ireland. Its troops were involved in skirmishes and battles and yet, when it was besieged in 1646, the governor of the Castle, William Sandys, is said to have surrendered without a shot being fired. A contemporary chronicler described this as done 'most poorly and cowardly'. Was this a justified accusation or did Sandys have no choice?

The Confederate Experience Reader provides students and professors with the essential materials needed to understand and appreciate the major issues confronting the Southern Republic's brief existence during the American Civil War. This anthology covers the full history of the Confederate experience including the origins of the antebellum South, the rise of southern nationalism, the 1860 election and the subsequent Secession Crisis, the military conflict, and Reconstruction. Drawing from a full range of primary writings that describe the experience of living in the Southern Republic in vivid detail, as well as a careful selection of secondary works by prominent scholars in the field of confederate history, The Confederate Experience Reader allows students to situate the Confederate experience within the larger context of Southern and American history.

The Confederate Experience Reader provides students and professors with the essential materials needed to understand and appreciate the major issues confronting the Southern Republic's brief existence during the American Civil War. This anthology covers the full history of the Confederate experience including the origins of the antebellum South, the rise of southern nationalism, the 1860 election and the subsequent Secession Crisis, the military conflict, and Reconstruction. Drawing from a full range of primary writings that describe the experience of living in the Southern Republic in vivid detail, as well as a careful selection of secondary works by prominent scholars in the field of confederate history, The Confederate Experience Reader allows students to situate the Confederate experience within the larger context of Southern and American history.

Resounding documentary proof that the original reasoning behind secession and subsequent myth-making was in defense of slavery and white supremacy Most Americans hold basic misconceptions about the Confederacy, the Civil War, and the actions of subsequent neo-Confederates. For example, two-thirds of Americans--including most history teachers--think the Confederate States seceded for "states' rights." This error persists because most have never read the key documents about the Confederacy. The 150th anniversary of secession and civil war provides a moment for all Americans to read these documents, properly set in context by award-winning sociologist and historian James W. Loewen and coeditor Edward H. Sebesta, to put in perspective the mythology of the Old South. When South Carolina seceded, it published "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union." The document actually opposes states' rights. Its authors argue that Northern states were ignoring the rights of slave owners as identified by Congress and in the Constitution. Similarly, Mississippi's "Declaration of the Immediate Causes . . ." says, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest of the world." Later documents in this collection show how neo-Confederates obfuscated this truth, starting around 1890. The evidence also points to the centrality of race in neo-Confederate thought even today and to the continuing importance of neo-Confederate ideas in American political life. James W. Loewen, Washington, D.C., is the best-selling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong and Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. He is also the author of Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks; Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism; Social Science in the Classroom; and Mississippi: Conflict and Change. He is professor emeritus at the University of Vermont. Edward H. Sebesta, Dallas, Texas, is a coeditor of Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction. His articles have appeared in numerous journals.

A rich panorama of fascinating Civil War history, this is the story of gunboats and smugglers, privateers and street-brawlers-the chronicle of mighty armies and ironclads, shoreline artillery and tidewater guerillas, blockade-running oystermen, and the unsung sailors of the Potomac Flotilla. This is the story of the Chesapeake Bay in the Civil War.

Elizabeth Keckley reveals the hardships of slavery and the changing political climate in Washington amongst the country's most powerful couple, Abraham and Mary Lincoln. Keckley had unprecedented access, giving insight into their state during and after the Civil War. Elizabeth Keckley was born into slavery and experienced a traumatic upbringing riddled with physical and sexual violence. One attack resulted in the birth of her son, whom she named George. Elizabeth was a gifted seamstress who used her skills to save money to buy her and her son's freedom. She ventured North and started a career as a dressmaker to influential women in political circles. One of her most notable clients was Mary Todd Lincoln, with whom she developed a close friendship. Behind the Scenes is a harrowing story of one woman's unshakable drive. Despite her limiting circumstances, Elizabeth Keckley earned her freedom and became a successful entrepreneur. It's an inspiring tale that provides a personal account of one of the most volatile times in American history. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Behind the Scenes is both modern and readable.

This book explores the remarkable partnership of Joseph and Harriet Hawley, a married couple from Connecticut whose lives were transformed by overlapping experiences in the American Civil War era. When Joseph became the colonel of the 7th Connecticut Infantry Regiment in 1862, Harriet ignored family advice and social convention, and travelled to Union military headquarters at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where Joseph's regiment was stationed. From that bold beginning, she spent the next three years as a visitor at field hospitals, a teacher at freedman's schools, a wartime journalist, a ward nurse, and her husband's informal advisor and publicist. Moving in and around the scenes of military action, she lived and worked in spaces usually reserved for men and took on responsibilities that implicitly challenged conventional understandings of women's physical and emotional dependency. While Joseph struggled for recognition and promotion in the brutally competitive environment of Union military politics, Harriet shrewdly used her own personal contacts with power brokers in Hartford and Washington to protect his interests and those of his men. And as the terrible realities of the Civil War pushed them both to the brink of physical and emotional collapse, Harriet and Joseph remained committed to the cause and found ways to sustain their devotion to both Union and emancipation in the very worst moments of the conflict.

During the Civil War, scoundrels from both the Union and Confederate sides were able to execute illicit, but ingenious, schemes to acquire Texas cotton. Texas was the only Confederate state that bordered a neutral country, it was never forcibly conquered, and its coast was impossible to effectively blockade. Using little known contemporary sources, this story reveals how charlatans exploited these conditions to run the blockade, import machinery and weapons, and defraud the state's most prominent political, military and civilian leaders in the process. Best known for his role in the romantic entanglements of his co-conspirator William Sprague, Harris Hoyt stands out due to his sharp intellect and fascinating character. Hoyt was able to draw most of Abraham Lincoln's inner circle into his web of deceit and even influenced the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. This is the first account to expose the depth and breadth of the many Texas cotton trading scams and the sheer audacity of the shadowy men who profited from them, but managed to escape the gallows.

In his Second Inaugural Address, delivered as the nation was in the throes of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that both sides "read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." He wasn't speaking metaphorically: the Bible was frequently wielded as a weapon in support of both North and South. As James P. Byrd reveals in this insightful narrative, no book was more important to the Civil War than the Bible. From Massachusetts to Mississippi and beyond, the Bible was the nation's most read and respected book. It presented a drama of salvation and damnation, of providence and judgment, of sacred history and sacrifice. When Americans argued over the issues that divided them - slavery, secession, patriotism, authority, white supremacy, and violence - the Bible was the book they most often invoked. Soldiers fought the Civil War with Bibles in hand, and both sides called the war just and sacred. In scripture, both Union and Confederate soldiers found inspiration for dying-and for killing-on a scale never before seen in the nation's history. With approximately 750,000 fatalities, the Civil War was the deadliest of the nation's wars, leading many to turn to the Bible not just to fight but to deal with its inevitable trauma. A fascinating overview of religious and military conflict, A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood draws on an astonishing array of sources to demonstrate the many ways that Americans enlisted the Bible in the nation's bloodiest, and arguably most biblically-saturated conflict.

This first volume of three discusses the tactical decisions made on day one and the ensuing combat, while also including a brief summary of the grand strategy in the Eastern Theater of the war, the conduct of the Pennsylvania Campaign from June 6 to 30, 1863, and the plight of civilians caught up in the conflict. The Battle of Gettysburg, which took place July 1-3, 1863 in and around the town of Gettysburg, PA resulted in the largest number of casualties of the entire American Civil War and is seen as the key turning point in the conflict. On its first day, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia sought to destroy the Union army, forcing its men to retreat through the streets of the Pennsylvania town to the hills just to the south. This volume, the first of three to cover the battle in depth, includes the morning cavalry skirmish, the morning clash at the Herbst's Woodlot and at the railroad cut, the afternoon clash at Oak Ridge, the afternoon fight at the Edward McPherson farm, the afternoon rout of the 11th Corps, the last stand of the 1st Corps at Seminary Ridge, the Union retreat through town, and the positions of the armies at nightfall.

From its origins in the 1750s, the white-led American abolitionist movement adhered to principles of "moral suasion" and nonviolent resistance as both religious tenet and political strategy. But by the 1850s, the population of enslaved Americans had increased exponentially, and such legislative efforts as the Fugitive Slave Act and the Supreme Court's 1857 ruling in the Dred Scott case effectively voided any rights black Americans held as enslaved or free people. As conditions deteriorated for African Americans, black abolitionist leaders embraced violence as the only means of shocking Northerners out of their apathy and instigating an antislavery war. In Force and Freedom, Kellie Carter Jackson provides the first historical analysis exclusively focused on the tactical use of violence among antebellum black activists. Through rousing public speeches, the bourgeoning black press, and the formation of militia groups, black abolitionist leaders mobilized their communities, compelled national action, and drew international attention. Drawing on the precedent and pathos of the American and Haitian Revolutions, African American abolitionists used violence as a political language and a means of provoking social change. Through tactical violence, argues Carter Jackson, black abolitionist leaders accomplished what white nonviolent abolitionists could not: creating the conditions that necessitated the Civil War. Force and Freedom takes readers beyond the honorable politics of moral suasion and the romanticism of the Underground Railroad and into an exploration of the agonizing decisions, strategies, and actions of the black abolitionists who, though lacking an official political voice, were nevertheless responsible for instigating monumental social and political change.

Luther Lee, D.D. (1800-1889), one of the founders of Wesleyan Methodism, was a nineteenth-century reformer and an ordained minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Lee is known to most Methodist historians as a Methodist Episcopal minister who deserted the church that had brought him to spiritual birth and ordination. Wesleyan Methodist church historians know him as the first president of their denomination, an editor of their periodical, and unfortunately, a traitor who betrayed and then subsequently walked away from the church he had helped to establish. His significance to American history has not heretofore been observed. This volume explores Lee's life, his politics, and his theology. One of the author's particular foci is the extent to which Lee affected the antislavery movement. Paul L. Kaufman places Lee within the broad context of nineteenth-century reformism as he battled the "gag rule" of the Methodist Episcopal bishops, and then shaped the Wesleyan Methodist Connection while he served on the highest levels of Garrison's American AntiSlavery Society. Of interest to students and teachers of Methodism, American history, and the abolitionist movement.

For more information, including a full list of entries, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Women During the Civil War website.
Women During the Civil War: An Encyclopedia is the first A-Z reference work to offer a panoramic presentation of the contributions, achievements, and personal stories of American women during one of the most turbulent eras of the nation's history. Incorporating the most recent scholarship as well as excerpts from diaries, letters, newspapers, and other primary source documents, this Encyclopedia encompasses the wartime experiences of famous and lesser-known women of all ethnic groups and social backgrounds throughout the United States during the Civil War era.

"A remarkable act of personal history: brave, revelatory and unflinchingly honest" WILLIAM BOYD "There is no-one writing in English like this: engaged humanity achieving a hard-won wisdom" DAVID MILLS, The Times Lord of All the Dead is a courageous journey into Javier Cercas' family history and that of a country collapsing from a fratricidal war. The author revisits Ibahernando, his parents' village in southern Spain, to research the life of Manuel Mena. This ancestor, dearly loved by Cercas' mother, died in combat at the age of nineteen during the battle of the Ebro, the bloodiest episode in Spain's history. Who was Manuel Mena? A fascist hero whose memory is an embarrassment to the author, or a young idealist who happened to fight on the wrong side? And how should we judge him, as grandchildren and great-grandchildren of that generation, interpreting history from our supposed omniscience and the misleading perspective of a present full of automatic answers, that fails to consider the particularities of each personal and family drama? Wartime epics, heroism and death are some of the underlying themes of this unclassifiable novel that combines road trips, personal confessions, war stories and historical scholarship, finally becoming an incomparable tribute to the author's mother and the incurable scars of an entire generation.

'Just the thing for US Civil War buffs: snappily written, informative and entertaining. A cracking read.' Saul David, bestselling author and historian This attractively packaged gift book offers a highly illustrated introduction to some of the U.S. Civil War's most famous and important battles, from the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861 to the Battle of Appomatox Court House in 1865. The U.S. Civil War was the most cataclysmic military struggle of the late 19th century, and in four bloody years of fighting from 1861 to 1865 over 620,000 American soldiers and sailors lost their lives in more than 8,000 battles, engagements and skirmishes. U.S. Civil War Battle by Battle tells the story of 30 of the most significant of these battles. These include some of the most famous clashes, such as the battles of Gettysburg and Fredericksburg, which resonate through American military history, but also the less well known, such as the battles of Brandy Station and Cedar Creek. This highly illustrated introduction, packed full of colour artwork, covers every theatre of the war and details infantry, cavalry, artillery and seaborne units from both the Union and the Confederate forces to give a true sense of the scale of the War between the States.

A free region deeply influenced by southern mores, the Lower Middle West represented a true cultural and political median in Civil War-era America. Here grew a Unionism steeped in the mythology of the Loyal West--a myth rooted in regional and racial animosities and the belief that westerners had won the war. Matthew E. Stanley's intimate study explores the Civil War, Reconstruction, and sectional reunion in this bellwether region. Using the lives of area soldiers and officers as a lens, Stanley reveals a place and a strain of collective memory that was anti-rebel, anti-eastern, and anti-black in its attitudes--one that came to be at the forefront of the northern retreat from Reconstruction and toward white reunion. The Lower Middle West's embrace of black exclusion laws, origination of the Copperhead movement, backlash against liberalizing war measures, and rejection of Reconstruction were all pivotal to broader American politics. And the region's legacies of white supremacy--from racialized labor violence to sundown towns to lynching--found malignant expression nationwide, intersecting with how Loyal Westerners remembered the war. A daring challenge to traditional narratives of section and commemoration, The Loyal West taps into a powerful and fascinating wellspring of Civil War identity and memory.

The Lower Mississippi Valley is more than just a distinct geographical region of the United States; it was central to the outcome of the Civil War and the destruction of slavery in the American South. Beginning with Lincoln's 1860 presidential election and concluding with the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Freedom's Crescent explores the four states of this region that seceded and joined the Confederacy: Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. By weaving into a coherent narrative the major military campaigns that enveloped the region, the daily disintegration of slavery in the countryside, and political developments across the four states and in Washington DC, John C. Rodrigue identifies the Lower Mississippi Valley as the epicenter of emancipation in the South. A sweeping examination of one of the war's most important theaters, this book highlights the integral role this region played in transforming United States history.