This book focuses on the short but crucial period that led to the collapse of the Spanish Republic and set the stage for the ensuing civil war. Stanley G. Payne, an internationally known scholar of modern Spanish history, details the political shifts that occurred from 1933 to 1936 and examines the actions and inactions of key actors during these years. Using their own memoirs, speeches, and declarations, he challenges previous perceptions of various major players, including President Alcalá Zamora.   The breakdown of political coalitions and the internal rifts between Spain’s bourgeois and labor classes sparked many instances of violent dissent in the mid-1930s. The book addresses the election of 1933 and the destabilizing insurrection that followed, Alcalá Zamora's failed attempts to control the major parties, and the backlash that resulted.  The alliances of the socialist left with communism and the right with fascism are also explored, as is the role of forces outside Spain in spurring the violence that eventually exploded into war.    

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.

James M. McPherson is acclaimed as one of the finest historians writing today and a preeminent commentator on the Civil War. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of that conflict, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." Now, in Drawn With the Sword, McPherson offers a series of thoughtful and engaging essays on some of the most enduring questions of the Civil War, written in the masterful prose that has become his trademark.
Filled with fresh interpretations, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Drawn With the Sword explores such questions as why the North won and why the South lost (emphasizing the role of contingency in the Northern victory), whether Southern or Northern aggression began the war, and who really freed the slaves, Abraham Lincoln or the slaves themselves. McPherson offers memorable portraits of the great leaders who people the landscape of the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant, struggling to write his memoirs with the same courage and determination that marked his successes on the battlefield; Robert E. Lee, a brilliant general and a true gentleman, yet still a product of his time and place; and Abraham Lincoln, the leader and orator whose mythical figure still looms large over our cultural landscape. And McPherson discusses often-ignored issues such as the development of the Civil War into a modern "total war" against both soldiers and civilians, and the international impact of the American Civil War in advancing the cause of republicanism and democracy in countries from Brazil and Cuba to France and England. Of special interest is the final essay, entitled "What's the Matter With History?," a trenchant critique of the field of history today, which McPherson describes here as "more and more about less and less." He writes that professional historians have abandoned narrative history written for the greater audience of educated general readers in favor of impenetrable tomes on minor historical details which serve only to edify other academics, thus leaving the historical education of the general public to films and television programs such as Glory and Ken Burns's PBS documentary The Civil War.
Each essay in Drawn With the Sword reveals McPherson's own profound knowledge of the Civil War and of the controversies among historians, presenting all sides in clear and lucid prose and concluding with his own measured and eloquent opinions. Readers will rejoice that McPherson has once again proven by example that history can be both accurate and interesting, informative and well-written. Mark Twain wrote that the Civil War "wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." In Drawn With the Sword, McPherson gracefully and brilliantly illuminates this momentous conflict.

In this anthology of Civil War memoirs, we get a clearer impression of some of the chaplains who served during that Great Conflict. Chaplains were among the most omnipresent observers on the battlefield, and some wrote extensively about their experiences. Eighty-seven of the 3,695 chaplains who served in both armies wrote regimental histories or published personal memoirs, not counting a multitude of letters and more than 300 official reports. Yet, there has never been an extensive collection of memoirs from chaplains of both the Confederate and Union armies presented together. In this groundbreaking work, many of the Confederate chaplains write that they opposed secession and submitted to it only when war was inevitable. Moreover, some of the ministers who became chaplains were active in ministry to black slaves. They spoke out against the neglect and abuse of those held in bondage both before and during the war. For example, Reverend John L. Girardeau formed a large mission church for slaves in Charleston, South Carolina, before the war; Reverend Isaac Tichenor criticized the abuses of the slave system before the Alabama Legislature in 1863; and Chaplain Charles Oliver preached to black laborers in the Army of Northern Virginia in 1864 with the thought that more needed to be done for them. While these efforts may appear trivial in the face of the enormity of the entire slave system, they do reflect that a social conscience was not completely lacking among the Southern chaplains. From the battlefield to the pulpit, Confederate chaplains were surprising and complex individuals. For the first time, explore this aspect of the great struggle in each chaplain's own words.

Frequently surprising, sometimes bloody, and always absorbing, Behind Enemy Lines offers up tales of espionage, hit-and-run raids, and guerrilla warfare. The book provides a new perspective on familiar aspects of Civil War history, including shadowy agents, women using their feminine wiles, unashamed looting, and vengeful crusades. Popular historian Wilmer L. Jones reveals that, by subverting the methods of traditional warfare, small and sometimes unorganized groups as well as intrepid spies, daring raiders, and mutinous guerrillas turned the tide of the Civil War far from the fronts of the now-legendary battlefields. Each of the three sections-spies, raiders, and Guerrillas-introduces riveting accounts of the often-overlooked heroes and heroines of unconventional warfare. Behind Enemy Lines spotlights such fabled infiltrators as Belle Boyd, Allen Pinkerton, and Timothy Webster. It also examines how the South, with its daring cavalry and constant struggle for supplies, resorted to sometimes brutal offensives led by men like Turner Ashby, John Mosby, and John Hunt Morgan. Finally, the gripping and detailed narrative peers into the bloody guerrilla warfare, spotlighting John Brown, William Clark Quantrill, and Bloody Bill Anderson, as well as the genesis of the James-Younger Gang. Civil war buffs, history lovers, and espionage enthusiasts will find this fascinating volume a welcome addition to their libraries.

In time for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), author Laurence H. Freiheit has written the definitive study of cavalry actions, Union and Confederate, before, during, and after the battle. This massive study, the product of years of research and topographical analysis, will surely be the authoritative scholarly resource on this aspect of the Civil War for years to come. Boots and Saddles: Cavalry During the Maryland Campaign of September 1862 is a 594-page, 8 1/2 x 11" hardcover, with over 200 maps, photographs, and illustrations. Included is a driving tour written by Craig Swain, with modern maps and GPS coordinates. The second edition corrects some typographical errors and supplies updates based on new source

In early 1864, as the Confederate Army of Tennessee licked its wounds after being routed at the Battle of Chattanooga, Major-General Patrick Cleburne (the "Stonewall of the West") proposed that "the most courageous of our slaves" be trained as soldiers and that "every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war" be freed. In Confederate Emancipation, Bruce Levine looks closely at such Confederate plans to arm and free slaves. He shows that within a year of Cleburne's proposal, which was initially rejected out of hand, Jefferson Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, and Robert E. Lee had all reached the same conclusions. At that point, the idea was debated widely in newspapers and drawing rooms across the South, as more and more slaves fled to Union lines and fought in the ranks of the Union army. Eventually, the soldiers of Lee's army voted on the proposal, and the Confederate government actually enacted a version of it in March. The Army issued the necessary orders just two weeks before Appomattox, too late to affect the course of the war. Throughout the book, Levine captures the voices of blacks and whites, wealthy planters and poor farmers, soldiers and officers, and newspaper editors and politicians from all across the South. In the process, he sheds light on such hot-button topics as what the Confederacy was fighting for, whether black southerners were willing to fight in large numbers in defense of the South, and what this episode foretold about life and politics in the post-war South. Confederate Emancipation offers an engaging and illuminating account of a fascinating and politically charged idea, setting it firmly and vividly in the context of the Civil War and the part played in it by the issue of slavery and the actions of the slaves themselves.

Every leader needs a trusted confidant. For Nathan Bedford Forrest, one the Civil War's greatest military minds, that man was David Campbell Kelley. Kelley began adulthood in the clergy, serving for two years as a missionary in China, and returning home just a year before the Civil War. He then raised a company of cavalry from his family's large congregation, which became a part of Forrest's original regiment. Kelley quickly became Forrest's second-in-command, assisting in some of his most daring engagements, offering support in key decisions, and serving as his unofficial chaplain. Following the war, Kelley returned to preaching, helped establish Vanderbilt University, and launched a campaign for governor of Tennessee. Now, for the first time, author Michael R. Bradley brings Kelley's dynamic life to the fore.

Analyses the role of long-term continuities in the political and religious culture of Wales from the eve of the Civil War in 1640 to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 In Royalism, Religion and Revolution: Wales, 1640-1688, Sarah Ward Clavier provides a ground-breaking analysis of the role of long-term continuities in the political and religious culture of Wales from the eve of the Civil War in 1640 to the Glorious Revolution. A final chapter also extends the narrative to the Hanoverian succession. The book discusses three main themes: the importance of continuities (including concepts of Welsh history, identity and language); religious attitudes and identities; and political culture. As Ward Clavier shows, the culture of Wales in this period was not frozen but rather dynamic, one that was constantly deploying traditional cultural symbols and practices to sustain a distinctive religious and political identity against a tide of change. The book uses a wide range of primary research material: from correspondence, diaries and financial accounts, to architectural, literary and material sources, drawing on both English and Welsh language texts. As part of the 'New Regional History' this book discusses the distinctively Welsh alongside aspects common to English and, indeed, European culture, and argues that the creative construction of continuity allowed the gentry of North-East Wales to maintain and adapt their identity even in the face of rupture and crisis.

The Civil War was trying, bloody, and hard-fought combat for both sides. What was it, then, that sustained soldiers low on supplies and morale? For the Army of Tennessee, it was religion. Onward Southern Soldiers: Religion and the Army of Tennessee in the Civil War explores the significant impact of religion on every rank, from generals to chaplains to common soldiers. It took faith to endure overwhelming hardship. Religion unified troops, informing both why and how they fought, and providing the rationale for enduring great hardship for the Confederate cause. Using primary source material such as diaries, letters, journals and sermons of the Army of Tennessee, Traci Nichols-Belt, along with Gordon T. Belt, present the first-ever history of the vital role of the Army's religious practices.

The 29th Mississippi Infantry Regiment 29th Infantry Regiment was organized at Corinth, Mississippi, in April, 1862 with men from Grenada, Lafayette, Panola, Yalobusha, Washington, and De Soto counties. The unit served in Mississippi, then moved to Kentucky where it saw action in Munfordville. Later it joined the Army of Tennessee and was placed in General Walthall's and Brantly's Brigade where it participated in many battles from Murfreesboro to Bentonville. The 29th lost 5 killed and 36 wounded at Munfordville, had 34 killed and 202 wounded at Murfreesboro, and suffered fifty-three percent disabled of the 364 engaged at Chickamauga. It reported 191 casualties at Chattanooga and in December, 1863 was consolidated with the 30th and 34th Regiment and totalled 554 men and 339 arms. This unit reported 5 killed and 22 wounded at Resaca, and in the fight at Ezra Church the 29th/30th lost 8 killed and 20 wounded. Very few surrendered in North Carolina in April, 1865.

The Puritan Revolution escaped the control of its creators. The parliamentarians who went to war with Charles I in 1642 did not want or expect the fundamental changes that would follow seven years later: the trial and execution of the king, the abolition of the House of Lords, and the creation of the only republic in English history. There were startling and unexpected developments, too, in religion and ideas: the spread of unorthodox doctrines; the attainment of a wide measure of liberty of conscience; new thinking about the moral and intellectual bases of politics and society. God's Instruments centres on the principal instrument of radical change, Oliver Cromwell, and on the unfamiliar landscape of the decade he dominated, from the abolition of the monarchy in 1649 to the return of the Stuart dynasty in 1660. Its theme is the relationship between the beliefs or convictions of politicians and their decisions and actions. Blair Worden explores the biblical dimension of Puritan politics; the ways that a belief in the workings of divine providence affected political conduct; Cromwell's commitment to liberty of conscience and his search for godly reformation through educational reform; the constitutional premises of his rule and those of his opponents in the struggle for supremacy between parliamentary and military rule; the relationship between conceptions of civil and religious liberty. The conflicts Worden reconstructs are placed in the perspective of long-term developments, of which historians have lost sight, in ideas about parliament and about freedom. The final chapters turn to the guiding convictions of two writers at the heart of politics, John Milton and the royalist Edward Hyde, the future Earl of Clarendon. Material from previously published essays, much of it expanded and extensively revised, comes together with freshly written chapters.

An artillery man's experience of the war between the states
Carlton McCarthy, the author of this book, was a serving soldier in the Army of the Confederacy during the great American Civil War. As a humble private soldier of the second company of the Richmond Howitzers, Cutshaw's Battalion of Artillery, he had an intimate experience of life on campaign and upon the battlefield from within the Second Corps of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. McCarthy has painted a fascinating portrait of his experience of war and army life taking the reader to the very heart of the everyday business of soldiering for the Southern states. Much detail will be found in these pages concerning the minutiae of camp and campaign in all its aspects. McCarthy gives a vivid account of the closing stages of the war, the collapse of the Confederacy and his return homeward immediately after the surrender and the difficulties of subsisting in its aftermath.

There have been thousands of books put out about the Civil War, but none by a Civil War Buff, so I wrote one. This book was a produce of five years' work and puts the war in a way that casual fans of the war will be surprised at what took place.This book is in three parts: Civil War Timeline: the events, battles, politics, and personal observations of those who were a part of the war.Things that any good soldier of the Civil War should know: the weapons, uniforms, food, duties, marching, fighting, medical advice, and slang (with a little tribute to the Navy and Marines).Amazing Facts: starting with the issues, this part displays many facts that usually do not make it into the history books.

On an "I will if you will" dare, John Haley enlisted in the 17th Maine Regiment in August 1862 "for three years, unless sooner discharged." ("Discharged, shot, or starved" would have been more accurate, Haley later wryly observed.) Though a reluctant soldier at first, he served steadfastly in the Army of the Potomac for nearly three years, participating in some of the most significant battles of the Civil War. John Haley was not the only soldier to record each day's events in his journal by firelight or by picket's lantern, for his was a literate generation. He was unusual in that he later painstakingly rewrote his battlefield notes, "reflecting at leisure" and adding fascinating political and personal commentary to produce the remarkable volume he calls Haley's Chronicles.

"First at Bethel, farthest at Gettysburg and Chickamauga and last at Appomattox" is a phrase that is often used to encapsulate the role of North Carolina's Confederate soldiers. But the state's involvement stretched far beyond these few battles. The state was one of the last to leave the Union but contributed more men and sustained more dead than any other Southern state. Tar Heels witnessed the pitched battles of New Bern, Averysboro and Bentonville, as well as incursions like Sherman's March and Stoneman's Raid. Join Civil War scholar Michael Hardy as he delves into the story of North Carolina in the Civil War, from civilians to soldiers, as these valorous Tar Heels proved they were a force to be reckoned with.

A second edition of Harold Elk Straubling's work that covers the trials and triumphs of medical professionals, long neglected in most histories of the Civil War. He has collected a wide variety of original writings, each of which tells the story of these heart-wrenching days from an eyewitness perspective. These selections convey the thoughts and experiences of the people who served their country by serving its defenders.