Download or read book The Battle of Peach Tree Creek written by Earl J. Hess and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-08-09 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On July 20, 1864, the Civil War struggle for Atlanta reached a pivotal moment. As William T. Sherman's Union forces came ever nearer the city, the defending Confederate Army of Tennessee replaced its commanding general, removing Joseph E. Johnston and elevating John Bell Hood. This decision stunned and demoralized Confederate troops just when Hood was compelled to take the offensive against the approaching Federals. Attacking northward from Atlanta's defenses, Hood's men struck George H. Thomas's Army of the Cumberland just after it crossed Peach Tree Creek on July 20. Initially taken by surprise, the Federals fought back with spirit and nullified all the advantages the Confederates first enjoyed. As a result, the Federals achieved a remarkable defensive victory. Offering new and definitive interpretations of the battle's place within the Atlanta campaign, Earl J. Hess describes how several Confederate regiments and brigades made a pretense of advancing but then stopped partway to the objective and took cover for the rest of the afternoon on July 20. Hess shows that morale played an unusually important role in determining the outcome at Peach Tree Creek--a soured mood among the Confederates and overwhelming confidence among the Federals spelled disaster for one side and victory for the other.
Download or read book The Battle of Peach Tree Creek written by Robert D. Jenkins and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Peach Tree Creek marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy, for it turned the page from the patient defense displayed by General Joseph E. Johnston to the bold offense called upon by his replacement, General John Bell Hood. Until this point in the campaign, the Confederates had fought primarily in the defensive from behind earthworks, forcing Federal commander William T. Sherman to either assault fortified lines, or go around them in flanking moves. At Peach Tree Creek, the roles would be reversed for the first time, as Southerners charged Yankee lines. The Gate City, as Atlanta has been called, was in many ways the capstone to the Confederacy's growing military-industrial complex and was the transportation hub of the fledgling nation. For the South it had to be held. For the North it had to be taken. With General Johnston removed for failing to parry the Yankee thrust into Georgia, the fate of Atlanta and the Confederacy now rested on the shoulders of thirty-three-year-old Hood, whose body had been torn by the war. Peach Tree Creek was the first of three battles in eight days in which Hood led the Confederate Army to desperate, but unsuccessful, attempts to repel the Federals encircling Atlanta. This particular battle started the South on a downward spiral from which she would never recover. After Peach Tree Creek and its companion battles for Atlanta, the clear-hearing Southerner could hear the death throes of the Confederacy. It was the first nail in the coffin of Atlanta and Dixie. -end
Download or read book Kennesaw Mountain written by Earl J. Hess and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2013 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While fighting his way toward Atlanta, William T. Sherman encountered his biggest roadblock at Kennesaw Mountain, where Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee held a heavily fortified position. The opposing armies confronted each other from June 19 to July 3, 1864. Hess explains how this battle, with its combination of maneuver and combat, severely tried the patience and endurance of the common soldier and why Johnston's strategy might have been the Confederates' best chance to halt the Federal drive toward Atlanta.
Download or read book Braxton Bragg written by Earl J. Hess and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-09-02 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a leading Confederate general, Braxton Bragg (1817–1876) earned a reputation for incompetence, for wantonly shooting his own soldiers, and for losing battles. This public image established him not only as a scapegoat for the South's military failures but also as the chief whipping boy of the Confederacy. The strongly negative opinions of Bragg's contemporaries have continued to color assessments of the general's military career and character by generations of historians. Rather than take these assessments at face value, Earl J. Hess's biography offers a much more balanced account of Bragg, the man and the officer. While Hess analyzes Bragg's many campaigns and battles, he also emphasizes how his contemporaries viewed his successes and failures and how these reactions affected Bragg both personally and professionally. The testimony and opinions of other members of the Confederate army--including Bragg's superiors, his fellow generals, and his subordinates--reveal how the general became a symbol for the larger military failures that undid the Confederacy. By connecting the general's personal life to his military career, Hess positions Bragg as a figure saddled with unwarranted infamy and humanizes him as a flawed yet misunderstood figure in Civil War history.
Download or read book What the Yankees Did to Us written by Stephen Davis and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like Chicago from Mrs. O'Leary's cow, or San Francisco from the earthquake of 1906, Atlanta has earned distinction as one of the most burned cities in American history. During the Civil War, Atlanta was wrecked, but not by burning alone. Longtime Atlantan Stephen Davis tells the story of what the Yankees did to his city. General William T. Sherman's Union forces had invested the city by late July 1864. Northern artillerymen, on Sherman's direct orders, began shelling the interior of Atlanta on 20 July, knowing that civilians still lived there and continued despite their knowledge that women and children were being killed and wounded. Countless buildings were damaged by Northern missiles and the fires they caused. Davis provides the most extensive account of the Federal shelling of Atlanta, relying on contemporary newspaper accounts more than any previous scholar. The Yankees took Atlanta in early September by cutting its last railroad, which caused Confederate forces to evacuate and allowed Sherman's troops to march in the next day. The Federal army's two and a half-month occupation of the city is rarely covered in books on the Atlanta campaign. Davis makes a point that Sherman's "wrecking" continued during the occupation when Northern soldiers stripped houses and tore other structures down for wood to build their shanties and huts. Before setting out on his "march to the sea," Sherman directed his engineers to demolish the city's railroad complex and what remained of its industrial plant. He cautioned them not to use fire until the day before the army was to set out on its march. Yet fires began the night of 11 November--deliberate arson committed against orders by Northern soldiers. Davis details the "burning" of Atlanta, and studies those accounts that attempt to estimate the extent of destruction in the city.
Download or read book Confederate Odyssey written by Gordon L. Jones and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2014-11-15 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout his life, Atlanta resident George W. Wray Jr. (1936–2004) built a collection of more than six hundred of the rarest Confederate artifacts including not just firearms and edged weapons but also flags, uniforms, and accoutrements. Today, Wray’s collection forms an integral part of the Atlanta History Center’s holdings of some eleven thousand Civil War artifacts. Confederate Odyssey tells the story of the Civil War through the Wray Collection. Analyzing the collection as material evidence, Gordon L. Jones demonstrates how a slave-based economy on the cusp of industrialization attempted to fight an industrial war. The broad range of the collection includes many rare or one-of-a-kind objects, such as a patent model and early inventions by gun maker George W. Morse, the bloodstained coat of a seventeen-year-old South Carolina soldier, battle flags made of cloth imported from England, and arms made in Georgia, the heart of the Confederacy’s burgeoning military-industrial complex. As Civil War history, Confederate Odyssey benefits from the study of material remains as it bridges the domains of professional scholars and amateur collectors such as Wray. The book tells of the stories, significance, and context of these artifacts to general readers and Civil War buffs alike. The Wray Collection is more than a gathering of relics; it is a tale of historical truths revealed in small details.
Download or read book War Like the Thunderbolt written by Russell S. Bonds and published by Westholme Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Draws on diaries, unpublished letters, and other archival sources to trace the events of the Civil War campaign that sealed the fate of the Confederacy and was instrumental in securing Abraham Lincoln's reelection.
Download or read book Decision in the West written by Albert Castel and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following a skirmish on June 28, 1864, a truce is called so the North can remove their dead and wounded. For two hours, Yankees and Rebels mingle, with some of the latter even assisting the former in their grisly work. Newspapers are exchanged. Northern coffee is swapped for Southern tobacco. Yanks crowd around two Rebel generals, soliciting and obtaining autographs.
Download or read book The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta written by Earl J. Hess and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-05-18 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fought on July 28, 1864, the Battle of Ezra Church was a dramatic engagement during the Civil War's Atlanta campaign. Confederate forces under John Bell Hood desperately fought to stop William T. Sherman's advancing armies as they tried to cut the last Confederate supply line into the city. Confederates under General Stephen D. Lee nearly overwhelmed the Union right flank, but Federals under General Oliver O. Howard decisively repelled every attack. After five hours of struggle, 5,000 Confederates lay dead and wounded, while only 632 Federals were lost. The result was another major step in Sherman's long effort to take Atlanta. Hess's compelling study is the first book-length account of the fighting at Ezra Church. Detailing Lee's tactical missteps and Howard's vigilant leadership, he challenges many common misconceptions about the battle. Richly narrated and drawn from an array of unpublished manuscripts and firsthand accounts, Hess's work sheds new light on the complexities and significance of this important engagement, both on and off the battlefield.
Download or read book To Gates of Atlanta written by Robert D. Jenkins and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Greatly Researched Prequel to "The Battle of Peach Tree Creek" To the Gates of Atlanta covers the period from the Confederate victory at Kennesaw Mountain, 27 June 1864, leading up to the Battle of Peach Tree Greek, 20 July 1864, and the first of four major battles for Atlanta that culminated in the Battle of Jonesboro, 31 August and 1 September 1864. To the Gates of Atlanta answers long-sought mysteries surrounding the actions, the reasoning, and the results of the events that culminated into the fall of Atlanta and the end of the Confederacy. Many historians point to the events that led to the fall of The Gate City as central to the War's outcome. Readers will learn why President Davis believed that he had to replace General Johnston on the eve of a battle that he hoped would save the city and turn the tide of the War for the South. Jenkins offers an understanding of why General Sherman had to take the city quickly without risking another disastrous Kennesaw Mountain. To the Gates of Atlanta also gives the important, but previously untold stories of the actions and engagements that befell the sleepy hamlet of Buckhead and the surrounding woods that today shelter many parts of Atlanta's vast community. From Smyrna to Ruffs Mill, Roswell to Vinings, Nancy Greek to Peach Tree Creek, and Moore's Mill to Howell's Mill, To the Gates of Atlanta tells the story of each as part of the larger story which led to the fall of the Gate City of the South. Book jacket.
Download or read book Memoirs of General William T Sherman written by William Tecumseh Sherman and published by . This book was released on 1875 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Major General George H Sharpe and the Creation of American Military Intelligence in the Civil War written by Peter G. Tsouras and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biography of the Civil War officer who established the Union’s intelligence network “is an absolute treasure trove of . . . operational information” (Military History Magazine). In this biography of George H. Sharpe, acclaimed historian Peter Tsouras recounts the significance of Sharpe’s grand contribution to the Union war effort: the creation of an all-source intelligence operation known as the Bureau of Military Information. Tsouras contends that, under Sharpe’s leadership, the BMI was the combat multiplier that ultimately brought the Union to victory. By early 1863, in the two-and-half months before the Chancellorsville Campaign, Sharpe had compiled a thorough and accurate Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield. His reports identified every brigade and its location in Lee’s army, provided an order-of-battle down to the regiment level, and a complete analysis of the railroad. Beyond this, Sharpe assembled a staff of thirty to fifty scouts and support personnel to run the military intelligence operation of the Army of the Potomac. He later supported Grant’s armies operating against Richmond during the Siege of Petersburg, where the BMI played a fundamental role in the victory. After the war, Sharpe became one of the most powerful Republican politicians in New York State, had close friendships with presidents Grant and Arthur, and was a champion of African American civil rights. With a wealth of newly discovered primary documents, including the diaries of Sharpe’s deputy John C. Babcock, Tsouras sheds significant new light on the evolution of Civil War intelligence reporting.
Download or read book Custerology written by Michael A. Elliott and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-08-26 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a hot summer day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer led the Seventh Cavalry to the most famous defeat in U.S. military history. Outnumbered and exhausted, the Seventh Cavalry lost more than half of its 400 men, and every soldier under Custer’s direct command was killed. It’s easy to understand why this tremendous defeat shocked the American public at the time. But with Custerology, Michael A. Elliott tackles the far more complicated question of why the battle still haunts the American imagination today. Weaving vivid historical accounts of Custer at Little Bighorn with contemporary commemorations that range from battle reenactments to the unfinished Crazy Horse memorial, Elliott reveals a Custer and a West whose legacies are still vigorously contested. He takes readers to each of the important places of Custer’s life, from his Civil War home in Michigan to the site of his famous demise, and introduces us to Native American activists, Park Service rangers, and devoted history buffs along the way. Elliott shows how Custer and the Indian Wars continue to be both a powerful symbol of America’s bloody past and a crucial key to understanding the nation’s multicultural present. “[Elliott] is an approachable guide as he takes readers to battlefields where Custer fought American Indians . . . to the Michigan town of Monroe that Custer called home after he moved there at age 10 . . . to the Black Hills of South Dakota where Custer led an expedition that gave birth to a gold rush."—Steve Weinberg, Atlanta Journal-Constitution “By ‘Custerology,’ Elliott means the historical interpretation and commemoration of Custer and the Indian Wars in which he fought not only by those who honor Custer but by those who celebrate the Native American resistance that defeated him. The purpose of this book is to show how Custer and the Little Bighorn can be and have been commemorated for such contradictory purposes.”—Library Journal “Michael Elliott’s Custerology is vivid, trenchant, engrossing, and important. The American soldier George Armstrong Custer has been the subject of very nearly incessant debate for almost a century and a half, and the debate is multicultural, multinational, and multimedia. Mr. Elliott's book provides by far the best overview, and no one interested in the long-haired soldier whom the Indians called Son of the Morning Star can afford to miss it.”—Larry McMurtry
Download or read book The Road Past Kennesaw written by Richard M. Mac Murry and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Road Past Kennesaw: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 The Atlanta Campaign had an importance reaching beyond the immediate military and political consequences. It was conducted in a manner that helped establish a new mode of warfare. From beginning to end, it was a railroad campaign, in that a major transportation center was the prize for which the contestants vied, and both sides used rail lines to marshal, shift, and sustain their forces. Yanks and Rebs made some use of repeating rifles, and Confederate references to shooting down moving bushes indicate resort to camouflage by Sherman's soldiers. The Union commander maintained a command post under signal tree at Kennesaw Mountain and directed the movement of his forces through a net of telegraph lines running out to subordinate head quarters. Men oi both armies who early in the war had looked askance at the employment of pick and shovel, now, as a matter of course, promptly scooped out protective ditches at each change of position. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book Long Road to Liberty written by Donald Allendorf and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They served almost five years, most of that time in daily contact with their Southern adversaries in Tennessee and Georgia. When the war was finally over, more than half of the 904 officers and men who had ever served with the 15th regiment had been wounded or killed, while another 107 died of disease"--Jacket.
Download or read book Petersburg to Appomattox written by Caroline E. Janney and published by Military Campaigns of the Civi. This book was released on 2018 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last days of fighting in the Civil War's eastern theater have been wrapped in mythology since the moment of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House. War veterans and generations of historians alike have focused on the seemingly inevitable defeat of the Confederacy after Lee's flight from Petersburg and recalled the generous surrender terms set forth by Grant, thought to facilitate peace and to establish the groundwork for sectional reconciliation. But this volume of essays by leading scholars of the Civil War era offers a fresh and nuanced view of the eastern war's closing chapter. Assessing events from the siege of Petersburg to the immediate aftermath of Lee's surrender, Petersburg to Appomattox blends military, social, cultural, and political history to reassess the ways in which the war ended and examines anew the meanings attached to one of the Civil War's most significant sites, Appomattox. Contributors are Peter S. Carmichael, William W. Bergen, Susannah J. Ural, Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh, William C. Davis, Keith Bohannon, Caroline E. Janney, Stephen Cushman, and Elizabeth R. Varon.
Download or read book Coburn s Brigade written by Frank Johnson Welcher and published by Cardinal Publishers Group. This book was released on 1999 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " ... With few exceptions, the assignments of regiments to a brigade were not permanent. Coburn's brigade was one such exception. In October 1862, while near Lexington, Kentucky, the 85th Indiana, the 33rd Indiana, the 19th Michigan, and the 22nd Wisconsin regiments were assigned to a brigade to be commanded by Colonel John Coburn. These four regiments remained in the same brigade ... until they were mustered out in June 1865, and thus shared the same experiences for nearly three years of the war."--Page vii.
