From the outset, the 1st Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters had problems. Much of the trouble lay in the organization of Civil War regiments and companies. Most companies in the early years of the war were made up of men from the same town or county. The concept of the sharpshooters was alien to this home-town tradition. Men were asked to leave the comfortable companionship of their neighbors and friends and go into a unit with people they had never met before. Despite its uncertain beginning, the battalion was molded into a fine unit by the skill and energy of its officers and non-commissioned officers. The sharpshooters early won the praise of higher-level commanders and inspecting officers. However, as the war dragged on, the battalion was reduced in numbers, morale, and efficiency. Notwithstanding its poor performance in the last months of its life, the unit has a high reputation that was well deserved. A Civil War veteran and historian called the sharpshooters "one of the best-drilled and most-efficient battalions in the service." This book objectively examines the organization, leadership, and performance of the sharpshooters, follows their wartime experiences, and devotes considerable attention to the individual soldiers. If the story of the 1st Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters has not been a well known story, it is now.

Burke McCarty sets out a complex alternative theory regarding the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, namely the notion that the event was orchestrated by shadowy religious powers. McCarty gathers and presents correspondences and other documents; together these offer an alternate explanation for Lincoln's heinous murder. He alleges that a Treaty in Verona in 1822 was the start of a plot to kill an American President, a plot whose pieces would gradually fall into place in the four decades which followed. McCarty alleges involvement by the Pope and the Catholic church, plus other clandestine figures, pointing to what he considers coded references in letters. Modern historians and scholars consider alternative theories behind the death of President Lincoln as spurious conspiracy. The overwhelming evidence remains that John Wilkes Booth, a vain and agitated man with a craving for notoriety, acted alone in his scheme to murder Abraham Lincoln as the President watched a performance at Ford's Theater.

Covering both the great military leaders and the critical civilian leaders, this book provides an overview of their careers and a professional assessment of their accomplishments. Entries consider the leaders' character and prewar experiences, their contributions to the war effort, and the war's impact on the rest of their lives. The entries then look at how history has assessed these leaders, thus putting their longtime reputations on the line. The result is a thorough revision of some leaders' careers, a call for further study of others, and a reaffirmation of the accomplishments of the greatest leaders. Analyzing the leaders historiographically, the work shows how the leaders wanted to be remembered, how postwar memorists and biographers saw them, the verdict of early historians, and how the best modern historians have assessed their contributions. By including a variety of leaders from both civilian and military roles, the book provides a better understanding of the total war, and by relating their lives to their times, it provides a better understanding of historical revisionism and of why history has been so interested in Civil War lives.

This work is the first monograph which closely examines the role of the German minority in the American South during the Civil War. In a comparative analysis of German civic leaders, businessmen, militia officers and blockade runners in Charleston, New Orleans and Richmond, it reveals a German immigrant population which not only largely supported slavery, but was also heavily involved in fighting the war. A detailed appendix includes an extensive survey of primary and secondary sources, including tables listing the members of the all-German units in Virginia, South Carolina and Louisiana, with names, place of origin, rank, occupation, income, and number of slaves owned. This book is a highly useful reference work for historians, military scholars and genealogists conducting research on Germans in the American Civil War and the American South.

Between 1861 and 1865 seven men commanded the North's Army of the Potomac. All found themselves, one by one, pitted against a soldier of consummate ability, Robert E. Lee. How did they react to this supreme test? What were their patterns of conduct in battle and at the conference table? This book takes the measure of each soldier at the crucial moment of his life and the life of the nation.

Revised and expanded with recently uncovered information, this work features detailed maps of escape routes and networks, and eyewitness accounts of fugitives. Organised in antebellum America to help slaves escape to freedom, the Underground Railroad was cloaked in secrecy and operated at great peril to everyone involved. The system was extremely active in Pennsylvania, with routes running through cities and towns in all parts of the state. This revised second edition retraces the routes with detailed maps, discusses the large city networks, identifies the houses and sites where escapees found refuge, and records the names of the people who risked their lives to support the operation.

Letting ordinary people speak for themselves, this book uses primary documents to highlight daily life among Americans-Union and Confederate, black and white, soldier and civilian-during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Focusing on routines as basic as going to school and cooking and cleaning, Voices of Civil War America: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life explores the lives of ordinary Americans during one of the nation's most tumultuous eras. The book emphasizes the ordinary rather than the momentous to help students achieve a true understanding of mid-19th-century American culture and society. Recognizing that there is no better way to learn history than to allow those who lived it to speak for themselves, the authors utilize primary documents to depict various aspects of daily life, including politics, the military, economics, domestic life, material culture, religion, intellectual life, and leisure. Each of the documents is augmented by an introduction and aftermath, as well as lists of topics to consider and questions to ask. Original materials from a wide range of sources, including letters, diaries, newspaper editorials, journal articles, and book chapters Detailed background for each of the 48 featured documents, placing the experiences and opinions of the authors into historical context

"We went into the fight with 386, all told--358 guns. Every pioneer and musician who would carry a musket went into the ranks. Even the sick and footsore, who could not keep up in the march, came up as soon as they could find their regiments, and took their places in line of battle, while it was battle, indeed." --Col. Joshua Chamberlain

The fascinating story of Joshua Chamberlain and his volunteer regiment, the Twentieth Maine, is reprinted with a new foreword by Civil War historian and UCLA professor Joan Waugh. Pullen's classic and highly acclaimed book tells how Chamberlain and his men fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville on their way to the pivotal battle of Gettysburg. There, on July 2, 1863, at Little Round Top, they heroically saved the left flank of the Union battle line. The Twentieth Maine's remarkable story ends with the surrender of Lee's troops at Appomattox.

Considered by Civil War historians to be one of the best regimental histories ever written, this beloved standard of American history is now available in a new Stackpole edition. Includes maps, photographs, and drawings from the original edition.

My interest in my grandfather's war history of the Gee-Johnson's 15th AR Infantry Regiment started with a conversation between myself and Dr. Robert Walz; a History professor at Southern Arkansas University, who had a friend, Dr. John Ferguson, an AR State Historian who found an article written by Benjamin F. Cooling, a park historian at Fort Donelson National Military Park. The only information I had of my grandfather's service was that he was in Johnson's AR 15th Company. So this began lots of studying and research. I have compiled some history for my decendants living in South Arkansas from 1861-1865, through four years of war and then the reconstruction the next twelve years. My goal is to leave my family with history of Colonel's Gee and Johnson and the 15th AR. This book contains the results of that research.

In the summer of 1864, Georgia was the scene of one of the most important campaigns of the Civil War. William Tecumseh Sherman's push southward toward Atlanta threatened the heart of the Confederacy, and Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of Tennessee were the Confederacy's best hope to defend it. In June, Johnston managed to grind Sherman's advance to a halt northwest of Atlanta at Kennesaw Mountain. After weeks of maneuvering, on June 27, Sherman launched a bold attack on Johnston's lines. The Confederate victory was one of the bloodiest days of the entire campaign. And while Sherman's assaults had a frightful cost, Union forces learned important lessons at Kennesaw Mountain that enabled the fall of Atlanta several months later.

Discover the places where heroes were born and history was made. Covering 31 states, the District of Columbia, and three foreign countries, Civil War Sites is your official travel guide to more than 600 battlefields, antebellum mansions, state parks, cemeteries, memorials, museums, and other Civil War-related destinations that are part of the Civil War Discovery Trail. Whether you're a Civil War buff or planning a family trip to explore our nation's past, this easy-to-use, comprehensive, and completely up-to-date guide takes you to the places where heroes were born and history was made. Inside you'll find:
- More than 600 Civil War-related site listings, organized by region and listed alphabetically by state
- Specific directions, hours, admission fees, discounts, and contact information - Helpful maps to orient you to site locations
- Information about reenactments and special events
- A brief historical look at a nation divided Civil War Preservation Trust Civil War Preservation Trust is a private, nonprofit organization with 70,000 members across the country. The organization's mission is to promote appreciation and stewardship of our nation's historical, cultural, and environmental heritage through preservation of significant Civil War sites and through supporting preservation and education programs.

Georgians, like all Americans, experienced the Civil War in a variety of ways. Through selected articles drawn from the New Georgia Encyclopedia (www.georgiaencyclopedia.org), this collection chronicles the diversity of Georgia's Civil War experience and reflects the most current scholarship in terms of how the Civil War has come to be studied, documented, and analyzed.

The Atlanta campaign and Sherman's March to the Sea changed the course of the war in 1864, in terms both of the upheaval and destruction inflicted on the state and the life span of the Confederacy. While the dramatic events of 1864 are fully documented, this companion gives equal coverage to the many other aspects of the war--naval encounters and guerrilla war-fare, prisons and hospitals, factories and plantations, politics and policies-- all of which provided critical support to the Confederacy's war effort. The book also explores home-front conditions in depth, with an emphasis on emancipation, dissent, Unionism, and the experience and activity of African Americans and women.

Historians today are far more conscious of how memory--as public commemoration, individual reminiscence, historic preservation, and literary and cinematic depictions--has shaped the war's multiple meanings. Nowhere is this legacy more varied or more pronounced than in Georgia, and a substantial part of this companion explores the many ways in which Georgians have interpreted the war experience for themselves and others over the past 150 years. At the outset of the sesquicentennial these new historical perspectives allow us to appreciate the Civil War as a complex and multifaceted experience for Georgians and for all southerners.

A Project of the New Georgia Encyclopedia; Published in Association with the Georgia Humanities Council and the University System of Georgia/GALILEO.