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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations > Civil war
Sounding Forth the Trumpet brings to life one of the most crucial
epochs in America's history--the events leading up to and
precipitating the Civil War. In this enlightening book, readers
live through the Gold Rush, the Mexican War, the skirmishes of
Bleeding Kansas, and the emergence of Abraham Lincoln, as well as
the tragic issue of slavery.
The diary of Anton Reiff Jr. (c. 1830-1916) is one of only a
handful of primary sources to offer a firsthand account of
antebellum riverboat travel in the American South. The Pyne and
Harrison Opera Troupe, a company run by English sisters Susan and
Louisa Pyne and their business partner, tenor William Harrison,
hired Reiff, then freelancing in New York, to serve as musical
director and conductor for the company's American itinerary. The
grueling tour began in November 1855 in Boston and then proceeded
to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati,
where, after a three-week engagement, the company boarded a paddle
steamer bound for New Orleans. It was at that point that Reiff
started to keep his diary. Diligently transcribed and annotated by
Michael Burden, Reiff's diary presents an extraordinarily rare view
of life with a foreign opera company as it traveled the country by
river and rail. Surprisingly, Reiff comments little on the
Pyne-Harrison performances themselves, although he does visit the
theaters in the river towns, including New Orleans, where he spends
evenings both at the French Opera and at the Gaiety. Instead, Reiff
focuses his attention on other passengers, on the mechanics of the
journey, on the landscape, and on events he encounters, including
the 1856 Mardi Gras and the unveiling of the statue of Andrew
Jackson in New Orleans's Jackson Square. Reiff is clearly
captivated by the river towns and their residents, including the
enslaved, whom he encountered whenever the boat tied up. Running
throughout the journal is a thread of anxiety, for, apart from the
typical dangers of a river trip, the winter of 1855-1856 was one of
the coldest of the century, and the steamer had difficulties with
river ice. Historians have used Reiff's journal as source material,
but until now the entire text, which is archived in Louisiana State
University's Special Collections in Hill Memorial Library, has only
been available in its original state. As a primary source, the
published journal will have broad appeal to historians and other
readers interested in antebellum riverboat travel, highbrow
entertainment, and the people and places of the South.
When Union and Confederate forces squared off along Bull Run on
July 21, 1861, the Federals expected this first major military
campaign would bring an early end to the Civil War. But when
Confederate troops launched a strong counterattack, both sides
realized the war would be longer and costlier than anticipated.
First Bull Run, or First Manassas, set the stage for four years of
bloody conflict that forever changed the political, social, and
economic fabric of the nation. It also introduced the commanders,
tactics, and weaponry that would define the American way of war
through the turn of the twentieth century.
This crucial campaign receives its most complete and comprehensive
treatment in Edward G. Longacre's "The Early Morning of War." A
magisterial work by a veteran historian, "The Early Morning of War"
blends narrative and analysis to convey the full scope of the
campaign of First Bull Run--its drama and suspense as well as its
practical and tactical underpinnings and ramifications. Also woven
throughout are biographical sketches detailing the backgrounds and
personalities of the leading commanders and other actors in the
unfolding conflict.
Longacre has combed previously unpublished primary sources,
including correspondence, diaries, and memoirs of more than four
hundred participants and observers, from ranking commanders to
common soldiers and civilians affected by the fighting. In weighing
all the evidence, Longacre finds correctives to long-held theories
about campaign strategy and battle tactics and questions sacrosanct
beliefs--such as whether the Manassas Gap Railroad was essential to
the Confederate victory. Longacre shears away the myths and
persuasively examines the long-term repercussions of the Union's
defeat at Bull Run, while analyzing whether the Confederates really
had a chance of ending the war in July 1861 by seizing Washington,
D.C.
Brilliant moves, avoidable blunders, accidents, historical forces,
personal foibles: all are within Longacre's compass in this deftly
written work that is sure to become the standard history of the
first, critical campaign of the Civil War.
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