One of the iconic moments in English history, the trial and execution of King Charles I has yet to be studied in-depth from a contemporary legal perspective. Professor Ian Ward brings his considerable legal and historical acumen to bear on the particular constitutional issues raised by the regicide of Charles, and not only analyses the unfolding of events and their immediate historical context, but also draws out their wider importance and legacy for the generations of historians, politicians, and writers over the ensuing three and a half centuries. This is a book about constitutional history and thought, but also about the writing of constitutional history and thought and the forms they have taken -whether as scholarship, polemics, or literary experiments - in collective British memory. Chapters range from the events leading up to and through the trial and execution of Charles; to their theatricality, legality, and constitutionality; to the political writings such as Milton's Tenure of Kings and Hobbes' Leviathan that followed; and finally trace the various subsequent histories and trials of Charles I that presented him either as martyr, Tory or -- in the 18th and 19th centuries -- the Whig.

WINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2021 'Riveting, appalling, addictive' Megan Nolan England, 1643. Puritanical fervour has gripped the nation. In Manningtree, depleted of men since the Civil War began, the women are left to their own devices and Rebecca West chafes against the drudgery of her days. But when Matthew Hopkins arrives, asking bladed questions and casting damning accusations, mistrust and unease seep into the lives of the women. Caught between betrayal and persecution, what must Rebecca West do to survive? 'Deft and witty... dazzling and precise' New Statesman

Irish-born and Irish-descended soldiers and sailors were involved in every major engagement of the American Civil War. Throughout the conflict, they shared their wartime experiences through songs and song lyrics, leaving behind a vast trove of ballads in songbooks, letters, newspaper publications, wartime diaries, and other accounts. Taken together, these songs and lyrics offer an underappreciated source of contemporary feelings and opinions about the war. Catherine V. Bateson's Irish American Civil War Songs provides the first in-depth exploration of Irish Americans' use of balladry to portray and comment on virtually every aspect of the war as witnessed by the Irish on the front line and home front. Bateson considers the lyrics, themes, and sentiments of wartime songs produced in America but often originating with those born across the Atlantic in Ireland and Britain. Her analysis gives new insight into views held by the Irish migrant diaspora about the conflict and the ways those of Irish descent identified with and fought to defend their adopted homeland. Bateson's investigation of Irish American song lyrics within the context of broader wartime experiences enhances our understanding of the Irish contribution to the American Civil War. At the same time, it demonstrates how Irish songs shaped many American balladry traditions as they laid the foundation of the Civil War's musical soundscape.

To date, most texts regarding higher education in the Civil War South focus on the widespread closure of academies. In contrast, Persistence through Peril: Episodes of College Life and Academic Endurance in the Civil War South brings to life several case histories of southern colleges and universities that persisted through the perilous war years. Contributors tell these stories via the lived experiences of students, community members, professors, and administrators as they strove to keep their institutions going. Despite the large-scale cessation of many southern academies due to student military enlistment, resource depletion, and campus destruction, some institutions remained open for the majority or entirety of the war. These institutions-"The Citadel" South Carolina Military Academy, Mercer University, Mississippi College, the University of North Carolina, Spring Hill College, Trinity College of Duke University, Tuskegee Female College, the University of Virginia, the Virginia Military Institute, Wesleyan Female College, and Wofford College-continued to operate despite low student numbers, encumbered resources, and faculty ranks stripped bare by conscription or voluntary enlistment. This volume considers academic and organizational perseverance via chapter "episodes" that highlight the daily operations, struggles, and successes of select southern institutions. Through detailed archival research, the essays illustrate how some southern colleges and universities endured the deadliest internal conflict in US history. Contributions by Christian K. Anderson, Marcia Bennett, Lauren Yarnell Bradshaw, Holly A. Foster, Tiffany Greer, Don Holmes, Donavan L. Johnson, Lauren Lassabe, Sarah Mangrum, R. Eric Platt, Courtney L. Robinson, David E. Taylor, Zachary A. Turner, Michael M. Wallace, and Rhonda Kemp Webb.

A Union Army regiment at war
This concise account of a regiment of volunteers from the state of Illinois enables the reader to follow its progress through its service during the war between the states. Marching towards Nashville, the 86th took part in the Battle of Chickamauga followed by Mission Ridge, Knoxville, the Atlanta Campaign, Averysboro, Bentonville and the capture of Johnston's Army to war's end. Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket. Another essential unit history for students of the American Civil War.

The US Cavalry and Indian tribes at war
The author of this book was a young officer in the Union Army-a cavalryman of the 7th Iowa Cavalry-when in 1863, after the Battle of Gettysburg, he was ordered to the Western frontier to assist in dealing with potential uprisings by the Indian tribes in Omaha. Fortunately for posterity he decided to keep a daily journal and this together with reference to the lengthy correspondence he sent to his family concerning his activities has enabled the author to leave us a substantial, highly detailed and well written account of army life on the frontier and Indian warfare from the perspective of the horse soldier. This is an interesting and engaging book about a 'war within a war' against a formidable, elusive, fierce and resolute enemy. The scenes in which Indian forces literally surround the writer's beleaguered garrison are especially riveting.

Combining meticulous research with a unique perspective, Seven Days Before Richmond examines the 1862 Peninsula Campaign of Union General George McClellan and the profound effects it had on the lives of McClellan and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, as well as its lasting impact on the war itself.

Rudolph Schroeder's twenty-five year military career and combat experience bring added depth to his analysis of the Peninsula Campaign, offering new insight and revelation to the subject of Civil War battle history. Schroeder analyzes this crucial campaign from its genesis to its lasting consequences on both sides. Featuring a detailed bibliography and a glossary of terms, this work contains the most complete Order of Battle of the Peninsula Campaign ever compiled, and it also includes the identification of commanders down to the regiment level. In addition, this groundbreaking volume includes several highly-detailed maps that trace the Peninsula Campaign and recreate this pivotal moment in the Civil War.

Impeccably detailed and masterfully told, Seven Days Before Richmond is an essential addition to Civil War scholarship. Schroeder artfully enables us to glimpse the innermost thoughts and motivations of the combatants and makes history truly come alive.

Banks failed, credit contracted, inequality grew, and people everywhere were out of work while political paralysis and slavery threatened to rend the nation in two. As financial crises always have, the Panic of 1837 drew forth a plethora of reformers who promised to restore America to greatness. Animated by an ethic of individualism and self-reliance, they became prophets of a new moral order: if only their fellow countrymen would call on each individual's God-given better instincts, the most intractable problems could be resolved. Inspired by this reformist fervor, Americans took to strict dieting, water cures, phrenology readings, mesmerism, utopian communities, free love, mutual banking, and a host of other elaborate self-improvement schemes. Vocal activists were certain that solutions to the country's ills started with the reformation of individuals, and through them communities, and through communities the nation. This set of assumptions ignored the hard political and economic realities at the core of the country's malaise, however, and did nothing to prevent another financial panic twenty years later, followed by secession and civil war. Focusing on seven individuals-George Ripley, Horace Greeley, William B. Greene, Orson Squire Fowler, Mary Gove Nichols, Henry David Thoreau, and John Brown-Philip Gura explores their efforts, from the comical to the homicidal, to beat a new path to prosperity. A narrative of people and ideas, Man's Better Angels captures an intellectual moment in American history that has been overshadowed by the Civil War and the pragmatism that arose in its wake.

The memoir of Sam Russell (1915-2010), a communist journalist and a British volunteer with the anti-fascist Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. First-hand accounts of significant historical events, from the formerly occupied Channel Islands at the end of World War II to the show trials of communists in Eastern Europe in the 1950s. Fascinating insight into the Spanish Civil War, the history of communism, and British radical history.

While engineers played a critical role in the performance of both the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, few historians have examined their experiences or impact. Larry J. Daniel's Engineering in the Confederate Heartland fills a gap in that historiography by analyzing the accomplishments of these individuals working for the Confederacy in the vast region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, commonly referred to as the Western Theater. Though few in number, the members of the western engineer corps were vital in implementing Confederate strategy and tactics. Most Confederate engineers possessed little to no military training, transitioning from the civilian tasks of water drainage, railroad construction, and land surveys to overseeing highly technical war-related projects. Their goal was simple in mission but complex in implementation: utilize their specialized skills to defeat, or at least slow, the Union juggernaut. The geographical diversity of the Heartland further complicated their charge. The expansive area featured elevations reaching over six thousand feet, sandstone bluffs cut by running valleys on the Cumberland Plateau, the Nashville basin's thick cedar glades and rolling farmland, and the wind-blown silt soil of the Loess Plains of the Mississippi Valley. Regardless of the topography, engineers encountered persistent flooding in all sectors. Daniel's study challenges the long-held thesis that the area lacked adept professionals. Engineers' expertise and labor, especially in the construction of small bridges and the laying of pontoons, often proved pivotal. Lacking sophisticated equipment and technical instruments, they nonetheless achieved numerous successes: the Union army never breached the defenses at Vicksburg or Atlanta, and by late 1864, the Army of Tennessee boasted a pontoon train sufficient to span the Tennessee River. Daniel uncovers these and other essential contributions to the war effort made by the Confederacy's western engineers.

The County Regiment
by Dudley Landon Vaill
History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry
by Daniel Oakey
Frontier Service During the Rebellion
by George H. Pettis
Three regiments of men in blue
Fortunately, so momentous an event in a young nation's history as the great civil war between the states guaranteed that posterity would be left a considerable volume of histories of the campaigns and units that took part, together with the personal wartime experiences of many of its participants. Rich though this resource is, it is also the case that many of these accounts are comparatively short in length and so are unlikely to achieve individual re-publication in modern times. The Leonaur editors are pleased to remedy this in the case of these three unit histories brought together in one special good value volume. The first account follows the fortunes of the 2nd Connecticut Regiment of Heavy Artillery. The second, written by a captain of the regiment, chronicles the war of the Second Massachusetts whilst the third concerns the doings of the First Infantry, California Volunteers as it campaigned in the wild south west. Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket.

"Ty Seidule scorches us with the truth and rivets us with his fierce sense of moral urgency." --Ron Chernow In a forceful but humane narrative, former soldier and head of the West Point history department Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy--and explores why some of this country's oldest wounds have never healed. Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhood to his service in the U.S. Army, every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who ever lived, and that the Confederates were underdogs who lost the Civil War with honor. Now, as a retired brigadier general and Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, his view has radically changed. From a soldier, a scholar, and a southerner, Ty Seidule believes that American history demands a reckoning. In a unique blend of history and reflection, Seidule deconstructs the truth about the Confederacy--that its undisputed primary goal was the subjugation and enslavement of Black Americans--and directly challenges the idea of honoring those who labored to preserve that system and committed treason in their failed attempt to achieve it. Through the arc of Seidule's own life, as well as the culture that formed him, he seeks a path to understanding why the facts of the Civil War have remained buried beneath layers of myth and even outright lies--and how they embody a cultural gulf that separates millions of Americans to this day. Part history lecture, part meditation on the Civil War and its fallout, and part memoir, Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the deeply-held legends and myths of the Confederacy--and provides a surprising interpretation of essential truths that our country still has a difficult time articulating and accepting.

Generations of scholars have debated why the Union collapsed and descended into civil war in the spring of 1861. Turning this question on its head, Brian C. Neumann's Bloody Flag of Anarchy asks how the fragile Union held together for so long. This fascinating study grapples with this dilemma by reexamining the nullification crisis, one of the greatest political debates of the antebellum era, when the country came perilously close to armed conflict in the winter of 1832-33 after South Carolina declared two tariffs null and void. Enraged by rising taxes and the specter of emancipation, 25,000 South Carolinians volunteered to defend the state against the perceived tyranny of the federal government. Although these radical Nullifiers claimed to speak for all Carolinians, the impasse left the Palmetto State bitterly divided. Forty percent of the state's voters opposed nullification, and roughly 9,000 men volunteered to fight against their fellow South Carolinians to hold the Union together. Bloody Flag of Anarchy examines the hopes, fears, and ideals of these Union men, who viewed the nation as the last hope of liberty in a world dominated by despotism-a bold yet fragile testament to humanity's capacity for self-government. They believed that the Union should preserve both liberty and slavery, ensuring peace, property, and prosperity for all white men. Nullification, they feared, would provoke social and political chaos, shattering the Union, destroying the social order, and inciting an apocalyptic racial war. By reframing the nullification crisis, Neumann provides fresh insight into the internal divisions within South Carolina, illuminating a facet of the conflict that has long gone underappreciated. He reveals what the Union meant to Americans in the Jacksonian era and explores the ways both factions deployed conceptions of manhood to mobilize supporters. Nullifiers attacked their opponents as timid "submission men" too cowardly to defend their freedom. Many Unionists pushed back by insisting that "true men" respected the law and shielded their families from the horrors of disunion. Viewing the nullification crisis against the backdrop of global events, they feared that America might fail when the world, witnessing turmoil across Europe and the Caribbean, needed its example the most. By closely examining how the nation avoided a ruinous civil war in the early 1830s, Bloody Flag of Anarchy sheds new light on why America failed three decades later to avoid a similar fate.

The Civil War is a much plumbed area of scholarship, so much so that at times it seems there is no further work to be done in the field. However, the experience of children and youth during that tumultuous time remains a relatively unexplored facet of the conflict. Children and Youth during the Civil War Era seeks a deeper investigation into the historical record by and giving voice and context to their struggles and victories during this critical period in American history. Prominent historians and rising scholars explore issues important to both the Civil War era and to the history of children and youth, including the experience of orphans, drummer boys, and young soldiers on the front lines, and even the impact of the war on the games children played in this collection. Each essay places the history of children and youth in the context of the sectional conflict, while in turn shedding new light on the sectional conflict by viewing it through the lens of children and youth. A much needed, multi-faceted historical account, Children and Youth during the Civil War Era touches on some of the most important historiographical issues with which historians of children and youth and of the Civil War home front have grappled over the last few years.

About half of today's nation-states originated as some kind of breakaway state. The end of the Cold War witnessed a resurgence of separatist activity affecting nearly every part of the globe and stimulated a new generation of scholars to consider separatism and secession. As the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War approaches, this collection of essays allows us to view within a broader international context one of modern history's bloodiest conflicts over secession. The contributors to this volume consider a wide range of topics related to secession, separatism, and the nationalist passions that inflame such conflicts. The first section of the book examines ethical and moral dimensions of secession, while subsequent sections look at the American Civil War, conflicts in the Gulf of Mexico, European separatism, and conflicts in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The contributors to this book have no common position advocating or opposing secession in principle or in any particular case. All understand it, however, as a common feature of the modern world and as a historic phenomenon of international scope. Some contributors propose that "political divorce," as secession has come to be called, ought to be subject to rational arbitration and ethical norms, instead of being decided by force. Along with these hopes for the future, Secession as an International Phenomenon offers a somber reminder of the cost the United States paid when reason failed and war was left to resolve the issue.

Popular entertainment in antebellum Cincinnati ran the gamut from high culture to shows barely above the level of the tawdry. Among the options for those seeking entertainment in the summer of 1856 was the display of a "Wild Woman," purportedly a young woman captured while living a feral life beyond the frontier. The popular exhibit, which featured a silent, underdressed woman chained to a bed, was almost assuredly a hoax. Local activist women, however, used their influence to prompt a judge to investigate the display. The court employed eleven doctors, who forcibly subdued and examined the woman before advising that she be admitted to an insane asylum. In his riveting analysis of this remarkable episode in antebellum American history, Michael D. Pierson describes how people in different political parties and sections of the country reacted to the exhibit. Specifically, he uses the lens of the Wild Woman display to explore the growing cultural divisions between the North and the South in 1856, especially the differing gender ideologies of the northern Republican Party and the more southern focused Democrats. In addition, Pierson shows how the treatment of the Wild Woman of Cincinnati prompted an increasing demand for women's political and social empowerment at a time when the country allowed for the display of a captive female without evidence that she had granted consent.