This is Grady McWhiney at his finest. Confederate Crackers and Cavaliers is a collection of seventeen essays on a wide variety of topics relating to Confederate leadership and war-making.

The role of culture in the coming of the war is explored in depth as are the differences between Southern "Crackers" and "Cavaliers". Battlefield leadership is also discussed, including pieces on A. P. Hill, P. G. T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, and Leonidas Polk.

Other important essays include work on why the South fired the first shot of the war, how 1862 was actually the "doom year" of the Confederacy, and a treatment of the tactical revolution that occurred between the beginning of the Mexican War and the end of the Civil War. There are more than a few surprises. One chapter, entitled "Sex and Chivalry", investigates the role of West Point in shaping the deportment of America's class of military gentlemen.

Jefferson Davis, though, looms largest in this book. From his days along the banks of the Hudson, to his service in Mexico, to an analysis of his war leadership as president of the Confederacy, McWhiney investigates this tarnished American hero whom, the author claims, has been almost as vilified by Americans as Adolf Hitler.

McWhiney is known for his unconventional stances. While his work is sometimes controversial, often hotly debated, and nearly always provacative, it can never be ignored. After a long sabbatical from publishing, this astonishing author and historian is back at work.

1862. Admiral David Farragut orders enclaves to be established in Texas as part of the Federal blockade. This involves attempts against Corpus Christi, Sabine Pass, Galveston, and Port Lavaca. By the end of the year Federal troops reduce the defenses of Sabine Pass and occupy Galveston, the state's principal port. However, the gains prove tenuous. While Federal sailors await Union infantry reinforcements, the Confederates, under Gen. John B. Magruder, seize the initiative. They organize a makeshift fleet of "cottonclads"--lightly armed and armored, but good platforms for sharpshooters--and boldly attack the Union fleet whenever it lies close to shore. Meanwhile, Confederate troops bombard from land. Ultimately, this counterattack results in the destruction or capture of four Union warships and three supply vessels and temporarily lifts the blockade. A lively account of innovative and daring tactics against superior forces by a dynamic historian.

An important primary source for eighty years, Lee's Dispatches is now once again available to Civil War scholars, students, and enthusiasts. When first published in 1914, these letters, written between June 2, 1862, and April 1, 1865, put Lee's strategy in clearer perspective and shed new light on certain of his moves that had been in dispute.

As Douglas Southall Freeman states in the Introduction, every written line of Lee's was a lesson in war. For example, the letters reveal that in 1862, when plans for the defense of Richmond were under review, the Confederate high command considered but rejected a bold proposal to strengthen Stonewall Jackson's army in the Shenandoah Valley, embark on a vigorous offensive campaign against the North, and, if necessary, abandon Richmond.

Together these 215 dispatches offer a portrait of Lee that can otherwise be glimpsed only by sifting through hundreds of other letters scattered through the ponderous volumes of the Official Records. They fill many important details about the leadership of the South's greatest general, especially about his close and always cooperative relationships with President Davis.

First published in 1949, Frank L. Owlsey's _Plain Folk of the Old South_ was the first book to systematically lay to rest the myth of the antebellum South's division into three classes--planters, poor whites, and slaves. Owsley draws on a wide range of source materials--firsthand accounts such as diaries and the published observations of travelers and journalists, church records, and county records including wills, deeds, tax lists, and grand-jury reports--to reconstruct carefully and accurately the prewar South's large and significant "yeoman farmer" middle class. He follows this history of these people beginning with their property holdings and economic standing, and tells of the rich texture of their lives: the singing schools and corn shuckings, courtship rituals and revival meetings, barn raisings and logrollings, and contests of markmanship and horsemanship such as "snuffing the candle," "driving the nail," and the "gander pull." Frank L. Owsley, who died in 1956, taught southern history for many years at Vanderbilt University, and later at the Univeristy of Alabama. He was the author of _States Rights in the Confederacy_, _King Cotton Diplomacy_, and _The United States from Colony to World Power_, and was one of the contributors to _I'll Take My Stand_.

In September 1863, Union Gen. William S. Rosecrans drives into Georgia flanking Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg out of Chattanooga. Bragg, heavily reinforced, turns on Rosecrans and nearly traps him before he can fall back. The two great armies finally meet at Chickamauga. Through woods and small clearings, a confused but vicious battle rages as each army gropes and grapples at the other trying to find the enemy's flanks. At nightfall, Rosecrans holds his ground and continues to slide his army northward to Chattanooga. The following morning, however, Bragg launches an attack that catches Rosecrans in the midst of a clumsy readjustment of his lines. Half the Union Army is crushed and sent streaming back to Chattanooga. The other half, led by the redoubtable George H. Thomas, stands firm, weathers furious day-long assaults, and salvages honor and survival for the beaten Union Army. A brief, fast-moving, colorful account of one of the biggest and bloodiest battles of the Civil War by a widely published historian.

May 1862. The C.S.S. Alabama is launched in Liverpool and makes its way to the Azores. There it receives its armaments, is commissioned under the command of Raphael Semmes, and embarks on a 21-month journey of unparalleled destruction of the Union merchant fleet. This campaign is highlighted by the sinking of the Union warship Hatteras off Galveston. Semmes and his Alabama search the seas from Newfoundland to the South Atlantic, from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, for Union merchant vessels. More than sixty ships are sunk or captured before Semmes and his exhausted crew finally meet their match. Trapped by the U.S.S. Kearsarge while anchored in the French harbor of Cherbourg, Semmes comes out to fight. For over an hour the ships bombard each other. Finally, the Kearsarge prevails, sinks the Alabama and takes many of her crew captive. Semmes and many of the rest of the crew are dramatically rescued by the English yacht, Deerhound, and make their way to England. A detailed account by a highly regarded expert in Naval History of the incredible exploits of Raphael Semmes and the Alabama during her 75,000-mile odyssey.

Summer 1862. The Confederacy has suffered several important defeats in the Western Theater and faces a serious threat to Richmond in the East. Federal politicians and citizenry, perplexed that fighting has continued into a second year, want an end to the war. Abraham Lincoln asks his battlefield commanders to develop a winning strategy in the East, a strategy that will not spare resources, terrain, nor the well being of private citizens--a strategy that would come to be known as "total war."
The plan, implemented in 1862, proves a failure, mostly because of the man charged with carrying it out: Gen. John Pope. Pope's defeat is the story of the Second Manassas campaign. While Pope's demise gives new life to the Confederacy and emboldens Robert E. Lee to invade Maryland, Lincoln remains convinced that a strategy of total war represents the North's best chance for victory. In 1864-1865, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman will prove him right. A vivid account of how Civil War campaigns foreshadowed total war.