Here is the detailed story of -The first serious attempt to capture Richmond -The struggle that marked the emergence of Robert E. Lee -The rise and fall of the North's great hope, General George B. McClellan In this first book on the subject in 50 years, historian Cullen presents incisive evaluations of the men and movements of the Confederate and Union Armies and disputes the long-held theory that interference form President Lincoln caused McClellan's failure. Reporting the campaign from both viewpoints, and then judging from the fascinating omniscience of history, he brings fresh research to an old subject that may be new-in this depth-to many. From the first skirmish to the concluding, bloody battle at Malvern Hill, Cullen dissects the strategies of both sides, reports the battles and skirmished, examines the character and abilities of the men who made the decisions in this early campaign that tested two newly formed armies, started Lee on his long war and brought ignominious retirement to McClel

The American Civil War was a vicious conflict that developed in intense hatred between opposing sides. Despite some historians' assertions that this was history's last great "gentlemen's war," the conflict was anything but civil. There is ample evidence to suggest that both sides quite commonly retaliated against one another throughout the war, often in chillingly inhumane ways. Violent retaliation was most apparent within Federal and Confederate penitentiaries. Prisoners of war were frequently subjected to both physical and mental abuse. This sort of mistreatment was employed to obtain information, recruit prisoners for military service, or to force prisoners to sign oaths of allegiance. In addition to the torture and neglect that were carried out on a regular basis, even more unbelievable-and less known-was the actual killing of these unarmed men in retribution for their army's actions on the battlefield. Sometimes it happened as the prisoners threw down their weapons and raised their hands to surrend

In a series of columns published in the African American newspaper The Christian Recorder, the young, charismatic preacher Henry McNeal Turner described his experience of the Civil War, first from the perspective of a civilian observer in Washington, D.C., and later, as one of the Union army's first black chaplains. In the halls of Congress, Turner witnessed the debates surrounding emancipation and black enlistment. As army chaplain, Turner dodged ""grape"" and cannon, comforted the sick and wounded, and settled disputes between white southerners and their former slaves. He was dismayed by the destruction left by Sherman's army in the Carolinas, but buoyed by the bravery displayed by black soldiers in battle. After the war ended, he helped establish churches and schools for the freedmen, who previously had been prohibited from attending either. Throughout his columns, Turner evinces his firm belief in the absolute equality of blacks with whites, and insists on civil rights for all black citizens. In vivid, detailed prose, laced with a combination of trenchant commentary and self-deprecating humor, Turner established himself as more than an observer: he became a distinctive and authoritative voice for the black community, and a leader in the African Methodist Episcopal church. After Reconstruction failed, Turner became disillusioned with the American dream and became a vocal advocate of black emigration to Africa, prefiguring black nationalists such as Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Here, however, we see Turner's youthful exuberance and optimism, and his open-eyed wonder at the momentous changes taking place in American society. Well-known in his day, Turner has been relegated to the fringes of African American history, in large part because neither his views nor the forms in which he expressed them were recognized by either the black or white elite. With an introduction by Jean Lee Cole and a foreword by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Freedom's Witness: The Civil War Correspondence of Henry McNeal Turner restores this important figure to the historical and literary record.

The South Carolina 23rd Infantry Regiment [also called Coast Rangers] was assembled at Charleston, South Carolina, in November, 1861. Most of the men were from Horry, Georgetown, Charleston, and Colleton counties. After being stationed in South Carolina, the regiment moved to Virginia and during the war served in General Evans', Elliot's, and Wallace's Brigade.

In the tradition of the great regimental histories of the past, this book records the fire which seared the ranks of the Twenty-Four Michigan Regiment of the legendary "Iron Brigade." Born as the result of a riot, led by a Virginian, met with coldness and hostility by the black-hatted veterans of the brigade, the Twenty-Fourth swore it would win their respect...and so they did with a vengeance. At Fredericksburg, in "artillery hell" and under a murderous crossfire from the guns of "Stonewall" Jackson and "Jeb" Stuart, they performed the manual of arms to stead the line. The first day at Gettysburg they sparked this remark from the confederate ranks..."That ain't no milishy, there's those damn black hats again." With the immortal First Corps they were ordered west of the town to hold long enough for the army to occupy the strategic heights behind them. They held, and by evening they had lost more men than any of the 400-odd Union regiments engaged in the battle. Still later they marched down "that crimson strip

No other general in American history has attracted the attention and adoration accorded to Robert Edward Lee, the peerless chieftain of the Confederacy. Indeed, in all of history, only Napoleon can vie with Lee for the hold he maintains on the imagination of students and admirers around the globe. Succeeding generations have invented and reinvented Lee, trying to make him a man for their own times, and year after year the writings of worshipers and revisionists-and occasionally even revilers-continue to come out. It is time for a step back, to take a reflective look at Lee through neither the eyes of adoration nor iconoclasm, and that is what eminent Southern historian Charles P. Roland does in Reflections on Lee: A Historian's Assessment. One of the country's most distinguished students of the South and the Civil War, Roland used the accumulated wisdom of a long career to draw a fresh picture of Lee-the man, the soldier, the symbol. Reflections on Lee is not a conventional biography, though the outline

This book tells the life story of William T. Sherman, one of the Civil War's most accomplished generals and an American military professional who changed how wars were fought. William T. Sherman: A Biography provides readers with a glimpse into the life of one of America's foremost military leaders and a top Union general in the Civil War. From his early life and military education, to his Civil War service and beyond, this book examines the career of a military professional who changed the way wars were fought. Prolific military history author Robert P. Broadwater follows Sherman's early development in the war and examines his most famous campaigns: the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas Campaign. An engaging read, the book details how the iconic leader hailed as the first "modern" general achieved the military successes that enabled the North to achieve victory and bring the war to a close. Uses Sherman's own words to give readers insight as to what he felt and thought Provides easy-to-read commentary of events in Sherman's life Describes interaction between Sherman and his peers that contributed to the outcome of battles Analyzes Sherman's accomplishments and failures in a fair and balanced manner

This is one volume in a library of Confederate States history, in twelve volumes, written by distinguished men of the South, and edited by Gen. Clement A. Evans of Georgia. A generation after the Civil War, the Southern protagonists wanted to tell their story, and in 1899 these twelve volumes appeared under the imprint of the Confederate Publishing Company. The first and last volumes comprise such subjects as the justification of the Southern States in seceding from the Union and the honorable conduct of the war by the Confederate States government; the history of the actions and concessions of the South in the formation of the Union and its policy in securing the territorial dominion of the United States; the civil history of the Confederate States; Confederate naval history; the morale of the armies; the South since the war, and a connected outline of events from the beginning of the struggle to its close. The other ten volumes each treat a separate State with details concerning its peculiar story, its own devotion, its heroes, and its battlefields. Volume 9 is Kentucky and Missouri.

"Custer had been usually effective as an Indian fighter for several years... He was adept in bringing off surprise attacks that crushed and paralyzed resistance. Both his reputation and his experience as an Indian campaigner were second to none; and the Seventh Cavalry...was held one of the best regiments in the service. It was but natural, then, that when the regiment marched proudly away from the mouth of the Rosebud on its mission, Terry could and did feel confident that if he could but catch the recalcitrant braves of Sitting Bull between Custer and Gibbon, he would certainly crush and capture them; and if, perchance, Custer found them elsewhere than was expected, the Seventh Cavalry, under such a leader, would be more than equal to any emergency." From the Story of the Little Big Horn In June 1876, General George A Custer was detailed to a column under General Alfred H. Terry. After being sent ahead of General George Crook at the Rosebud River, Custer and the Seventh Cavalry discovered a Souix encampment on

This exciting and groundbreaking collection of essays looks at the lives and command decisions of eight Confederates who held the rank of full general and at the impact they had on the conduct, and ultimate outcome, of the Civil War. Old myths and familiar assumptions are cast aside as a group of leading Civil War historians offers new insight into the men of the South, on whose shoulders the weight of prosecuting the war would wall.

Examining refugees of Civil War-era North Carolina, Driven from Home reveals the complexity and diversity of the war's displaced populations and the inadequate responses of governmental and charitable organisations as refugees scrambled to secure the necessities of daily life. In North Carolina, writes David Silkenat, the relative security of the Piedmont and mountains drew pro- Confederate elements from across the region. Early in the war, Union invaders established strongholds on the coast, to which their sympathisers fled in droves. Silkenat looks at five groups caught up in this flood tide of emigration: enslaved African Americans who fled to freedom; white Unionists; pro-Confederate whites-both slave owners (who often forced their slaves to migrate with them) and non-slave owners; and young women, often from more besieged areas of the South, who attended the state's many boarding schools. From their varied experiences, a picture emerges of a humanitarian crisis driven by mobility, shaped by unprecedented economic pressures and disease vectors, and exacerbated by governments unwilling or unable to provide meaningful relief. For anyone seeking context to current refugee crises, Driven from Home has much to say about the crushing administrative and logistical challenges of aid work, the illusory nature of such concepts as home fronts and battle lines, and the ongoing debate over links between relief and dependence.

Sam Postlethwaite was a Confederate soldier buried in an unmarked grave in Rhode Island. Beginning with nothing more than a handful of dirt, author Les Rolston's innocent curiosity about this mysterious soldier's grave became a journey of thousands of miles that eventually led him to the soldier's family. The result is this factual account of Postlethwaite's odyssey and the author's determined efforts to learn his story. Other important facets of this affecting historical account are the experiences of Postlethwaite's fourteen-year-old brother, who found glory with Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley; and a boy from a prominent Rhode Island family who was emotionally ruined by the Civil War. Both their families, embittered by war, were destined to merge through a Civil War romance and marriage. This book is a tribute to all of the people, Northerners and Southerners, who joined together to choose forgiveness and understanding over bitterness and hatred.

The legendary feats of Davy Crockett, who could tree a ghost, ride his thirty-seven-foot-long alligator up Niagara Falls, and drink up the Mississippi River, are common knowledge to devotees of this nineteenth-century comic superhero. But what may come as a surprise to many is that the legendary frontiersman also served as the fictional narrator of a collection of outrageous tall tales about women in the same Crocket Almanacs in which he "recorded" his own adventures. Conceived as a marketing device by nineteenth-century publishers hoping to gain a share of the lucrative almanac market, such stories made these slim volumes the best-selling and longest-running series of comic almanacs published in the United States before the Civil War. Booking back at them now, the Crocket Almanacs offer a true "fun house mirror" view of the culture of antebellum America.

The Harrisburg Telegraph says: "...an unique and authoritative book, The Story of the Battles at Gettysburg" will arouse great interest among military men throughout the country." It is not generally known that the three-day battle of Gettysburg, one of the most important and significant engagements of the Civil War, is included in the course of training of student officers in practically all the European war colleges as an outstanding example of tactics and strategy. Once a year the students of the West Point Military Academy spend several days at Gettysburg in studying the battle problems during the first three days of July 1863. The outstanding features to the military, are the maps of the battlefield...these maps are drawn to scale with careful fidelity and the position of each regiment and branch of service is shown every hour of the day at different stages in the progress of the battles.

Between 1800 and the Civil War, the American West evolved from a region to territories to states. This book depicts the development of the antebellum West from the perspective of a resident of the Western frontier. What happened in the West in the lead-up to and during the American Civil War? The Civil War and the West: The Frontier Transformed provides a clear and complete answer to this question. The work succinctly overviews the West during the antebellum period from 1800 to 1862, supplying thematic chapters that explain how key elements and characteristics of the West created conflict and division that differed from those in the East during the Civil War. It looks at how these issues influenced the military, settlement, and internal territorial conflicts about statehood in each region, and treats the Cherokee and other Indian nations as important actors in the development of a national narrative. Provides both a historical overview of the antebellum West and detailed examinations of specific issues that shaped Western responses to the Civil War, serving students in Western American history and general American survey courses as well as students of the Civil War Explains how unique elements of the West, such as international influences, the military, the Indians, and settlement and legislation, created conflict that differed from what was experienced in the East during the Civil War

This true and exciting story collection concerns a little known area of south Georgia, in Telfair County. The town of Milan (locally pronounced My-lan) and the countryside present a series of family dramas dating back to the early 1800's. Addie Garrison Briggs, the author, introduces her family saga in her own words: "Contrary to what one often reads in local histories and genealogies, our ancestors were not all saints. Neither were they all war heroes and most of them were far more likely to struggle along on a small farm than to own a large plantation. In short, one might say that our forebears failed to live up to our expectations. The trouble with these ancestors was that they were real people. Sometimes they were good, sometimes bad; sometimes they were wise, and sometimes foolish. Perhaps they were a bit like us, with one major difference. There seems to have been more of a spirited quality to their lives. Whatever a man's actions, whether funny, tragic, or decidedly wicked, he did it with a definite dash. Therefore, while their lives may embarrass us, they will at the same time unquestionably intrigue us."