Additional Contributing Authors Include Norman A. Graebner And David M. Potter. Foreword By U. S. Grant, III.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this work describes the life of one of the most extraordinary figures in American political history.

An Examination Of The Life And Tactics Of The Controversial Confederate General. Southern Biography Series.

An Examination Of The Life And Tactics Of The Controversial Confederate General. Southern Biography Series.

Additional Contributing Authors Include Norman A. Graebner And David M. Potter. Foreword By U. S. Grant, III.

Delivered At Mercer University On November 15, 16, And 17.

In the summer of 1959, A. J. Liebling, veteran writer for the New Yorker, came to Louisiana to cover a series of bizarre events that began with Governor Earl K. Long's commitment to a mental institution. Captivated by his subject, Liebling remained to write the fascinating yet tragic story of Uncle Earl's final year in politics. First published in 1961, The Earl of Louisiana recreates a stormy era in Louisiana politics and captures the style and personality of one of the most colorful and paradoxical figures in the state's history. This updated edition of the book includes a foreword by T. Harry Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Huey Long: A Biography, and a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jonathan Yardley that discusses Liebling's career and his most famous book from a twenty-first-century perspective.

In Americans at War T. Harry Williams, author of Lincoln and His Generals, offers a concise historical survey of the methods by which the United States government has sought to organize and direct our military forces from the days of the Revolutionary War to the Atomic Age. In giving his interpretative view of the development of the American command system, Dr. Williams demonstrates convincingly that the American genius- even the genius for making mistakes- has found full expression in the various systems which have been formulated. During the Revolutionary War, for instance, it was never finally determined just who had the ultimate authority in mapping strategy, Washington or the Continental Congress. The War of 1812 resulted in at least a technical defeat for the United States, Williams says, because of incompetent civilian authority over the military. In the Mexican War and the Civil War, the United States profited from strong war-time presidents, but during the Spanish-American War and World War I the civilian authority left something to be desired. Military men and the historians will welcome this first attempt to give an overall picture o the American command system through all our wars. ""I know of no man,"" one prominent military authority has stated, ""who is better qualified by knowledge, insight, and writing ability to discuss the American military experience.

This first collection of the essays of the late T. Harry Williams brings together some of the best shorter works of a man who was, by any standard, one of the finest historians of our time. Spanning the range of Williams' interests, this volume contains essays on the Civil War, Reconstruction, the ear of the world wars, military affairs, the craft of the historian, and the careers of Abraham Lincoln, Huey Long, and Lyndon Johnson. Williams' reputation rests on such large-scale works as Lincoln and His Generals and the Pulitzer-Prize winning biography Huey Long- exhaustively researched studies, monumental in their scope and ambition. Providing Williams with the chance to let his gaze probe beyond the fixed borders of such works, the essay was a flexible medium in which he could freely pursue some of the ideas that grew out of his daily regimen of writing and reading. He used the essay to examine large themes that spanned many areas of his interests as well as specific incidents in the course of American history, to reach both a popular audience and his fellow historians, to test ideas for books in the planning stage, and to assess the works of his colleagues. Among the essays brought together in this volume are That Strange Sad War, in which Williams examines the Civil War as the first truly, and tragically, modern war; Abraham Lincoln: Pragmatic Democrat, which sees Lincoln as the supreme example in our history of the union of principle and pragmatism in politics; and The Louisiana Unification Movement of 1873, which traces the short history of an ambitious attempt to bring about racial unity in Reconstruction Louisiana. In Interlude: 1918-1939- an essay published here for the first time- Williams analyzes the weakened state of American military preparedness before Franklin Roosevelt came into office and turned his attention to the growing threat of Hitler's Germany. In The Macs and the Ikes: America's Two Military Traditions, Williams contrasts the opposing types of military leaders in American history- those generals in the mold of Dwight Eisenhower who follow orders and submit to the power of the president and Congress, and the more fractious generals such as Douglas Macarthur, who view the military as an aristocracy of courage and genius and bridle at the reigns of civilian authority. Huey, Lyndon, and Southern Radicalism traces the common political roots of two men Williams considered among the most successful ""power artists"" of the century. And in Lyndon Johnson and the Art of Biography, Williams discusses his own plans to write a biography of Johnson and speaks of his unapologetic belief in a great-man theory of history.

This reprint edition of Napier Bartlett's 1876 memoir again makes available a valuable resource on Louisiana troops' participation in the Civil War. Bartlett served throughout the war in Louisiana's elite Washington Artillery and fought in many battles in Virginia and the East. He later wrote an engaging account of his experiences, A Soldier's Story of the War, revealing a sensitive man's reaction to all that combat entails. This narrative constitutes a substantial portion of Military Record of Louisiana. The balance of the volume provides much detailed information and official data concerning Louisiana units in the Confederate Army, including muster rolls of the Orleans Guard, the Thirteenth Louisiana Regiment, the Washington Artillery, and Louisiana troops who fought in Virginia, the West, and the Trans-Mississippi. It also lists the casualties of various regiments (so far as was known then) and the cemeteries where they were buried, and includes company journals and personal narratives of prominent Louisiana soldiers. Part memoir, part inventory, Military Record of Louisiana is a storehouse of information for scholars, students, and genealogists alike.

First published in 1955 to wide acclaim, T. Harry Williams' P. G. T. Beauregard is universally regarded as ""the first authoritative portrait of the Confederacy's always dramatic, often perplexing"" general (Chicago Tribune). Chivalric, arrogant, and of exotic Creole Louisiana origin, Beauregard participated in every phase of the Civil War from its beginning to its end. He rigidly adhered to the principles of war derived from his studies of Jomini and Napoleon, and yet many of his battle plans were rejected by his superiors, who regarded him as excitable, unreliable, and contentious. After the war, Beauregard was almost the only prominent Confederate general who adapted successfully to the New South, running railroads and later supervising the notorious Louisiana Lottery. This paradox of a man who fought gallantly to defend the Old South and then helped industrialize it is the fascinating subject of Williams' superb biography.

The determination with which the Confederate garrison of Port Hudson, Louisiana, held out - for seven weeks, fewer than five thousand Confederate troops fended off almost thirty thousand Yankees - makes it one of the most interesting campaigns of the Civil War. It was, in fact, the longest siege in United States military history. In The Port Hudson Campaign, 1862-1863, Edward Cunningham tells for the first time the complete story of the Union operation against this Confederate stronghold on the Lower Mississippi. The initial phase was the costly attempt by the Union fleet to run the Port Hudson batteries - the naval engagement in which the historic warship Mississippi was lost. The second phase was the even more costly effort by General Nathaniel P. Banks to take the stronghold from the landward side. The third and final phase, the siege itself, culminated in surrender, less than a week after the capture of Vicksburg. Cunningham has unearthed in his research a greater abundance of sources and more information on the campaign than most historians thought existed. The resulting dramatic story of Port Hudson, told with great clarity and verve, reveals the importance of that campaign to the course of the Civil War.

This comprehensive history fills an important gap in the story of the Civil War. Too often the war waged west of the Mississippi River has been given short shrift by historians and scholars, who have tended to focus their attention on the great battles east of the river. This book looks in detail at the military operations that occurred in Louisiana, most of them minor skirmishes, but some of them battles and campaigns of major importance. The Civil War in Louisiana begins with the first talk of secession in the state and ends with the last tragic days of the war. John D. Winters describes with great fervor and detail such events as the fall of Confederate New Orleans and the burning of Alexandria. In addition to military action, Winters discusses the political, economic, and social aspects of the war in Louisiana. His accounts of battles and the men who waged them provide a fuller story of Louisiana in the Civil War than has ever before been told.

Since it was first published in 1952, "Lincoln and His Generals" has remained one of the definitive accounts of Lincoln's wartime leadership. In it T. Harry Williams dramatizes Lincoln's long and frustrating search for an effective leader of the Union Army and traces his transformation from a politician with little military knowledge into a master strategist of the Civil War. Explored in depth are Lincoln's often fraught relationships with generals such as McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Fremont, and of course, Ulysses S. Grant. In this superbly written narrative, Williams demonstrates how Lincoln's persistent "meddling" into military affairs was crucial to the Northern war effort and utterly transformed the president's role as commander-in-chief.