Download or read book Confederate General R S Ewell written by Paul D. Casdorph and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 719 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Stoddert Ewell is best known as the Confederate General selected by Robert E. Lee to replace "Stonewall" Jackson as chief of the Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. Ewell is also remembered as the general who failed to drive Federal troops from the high ground of Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. Many historians believe that Ewell's inaction cost the Confederates a victory in this seminal battle and, ultimately, cost the Civil War. During his long military career, Ewell was never an aggressive warrior. He graduated from West Point and served in the Indian wars in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In 1861 he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and rushed to the Confederate standard. Ewell saw action at First Manassas and took up divisional command under Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign and in the Seven Days' Battles around Richmond. A crippling wound and a leg amputation soon compounded the persistent manic-depressive disorder that had hindered his ability to make difficult decisions on the battlefield. When Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia in May of 1863, Ewell was promoted to lieutenant general. At the same time he married a widowed first cousin who came to dominate his life—often to the disgust of his subordinate officers—and he became heavily influenced by the wave of religious fervor that was then sweeping through the Confederate Army. In Confederate General R.S. Ewell, Paul D. Casdorph offers a fresh portrait of a major—but deeply flawed—figure in the Confederate war effort, examining the pattern of hesitancy and indecisiveness that characterized Ewell's entire military career. This definitive biography probes the crucial question of why Lee selected such an obviously inconsistent and unreliable commander to lead one-third of his army on the eve of the Gettysburg Campaign. Casdorph describes Ewell's intriguing life and career with penetrating insights into his loyalty to the Confederate cause and the Virginia ties that kept him in Lee's favor for much of the war. Complete with riveting descriptions of key battles, Ewell's biography is essential reading for Civil War historians.
Download or read book Richard S Ewell written by Donald C. Pfanz and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General Richard Stoddert Ewell holds a unique place in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia. For four months Ewell was Stonewall Jackson's most trusted subordinate; when Jackson died, Ewell took command of the Second Corps, leading it at Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. In this biography, Donald Pfanz presents the most detailed portrait yet of the man sometimes referred to as Stonewall Jackson's right arm. Drawing on a rich array of previously untapped original source materials, Pfanz concludes that Ewell was a highly competent general, whose successes on the battlefield far outweighed his failures. But Pfanz's book is more than a military biography. It also examines Ewell's life before and after the Civil War, including his years at West Point, his service in the Mexican War, his experiences as a dragoon officer in Arizona and New Mexico, and his postwar career as a planter in Mississippi and Tennessee. In all, Pfanz offers an exceptionally detailed portrait of one of the South's most important leaders.
Download or read book The Road to Glory written by Samuel J. Martin and published by Clerisy Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell is remembered as one of the most enigmatic figures among Confederate generals. Often blamed for the South's failure at Gettysburg, the first new biography in over 50 years takes a fresh look at this eccentric historical figure, dispelling many misconceptions while presenting a fuller picture of the man in his times.
Download or read book The Letters of General Richard S Ewell written by Donald C. Pfanz and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2012-12-20 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Letters of General Richard S. Ewell provide a sweeping view of the nineteenth century. Such chronological breadth makes this volume truly exceptional and important. Through Ewell’s eyes we see the many worlds of an American people at war. His thoughtful observations, biting wit, and ironic disposition offer readers a chance to rethink the paper-thin generalizations of Ewell as a quirky neurotic who simply crumbled under the legacy of Stonewall Jackson.” —from the foreword by Peter S. Carmichael Richard S. Ewell was one of only six lieutenant generals to serve in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and of those he was but one of two—the other being Stonewall Jackson, his predecessor as commander of the Second Corps—to have left behind a sizable body of correspondence. Forty-nine of Ewell’s letters were published in 1939. This new volume, drawing on more recently available material and scrupulously annotated by Ewell biographer Donald Pfanz, offers a much larger collection of the general’s missives: 173 personal letters, 7 official letters, 4 battle narratives, and 2 memoranda of incidents that took place during the Civil War. The book covers the full range of Ewell’s career: his days at West Point, his posting on the western frontier, his role in the Mexican War, his Civil War service, and, finally, his postwar years managing farms in Tennessee and Mississippi. Some historians have judged Ewell harshly, particularly for his failure to capture Cemetery Hill on the first day at Gettysburg, but Pfanz contends that Ewell was in fact a brilliant combat general whose overall record, which included victories at the battles of Cross Keys, Second Winchester, and Fort Harrison, was one of which any commanding officer could be proud. Although irritable and often critical of others, Ewell’s correspondence shows him to have been generous toward subordinates, modest regarding his own accomplishments, and upright in both his professional and personal relationships. His letters to family and friends are a mixture of wry humor and uncommon sense. No one who reads them will view this important general in quite the same way again. DONALD C. PFANZ is the author of Richard S. Ewell: A Soldier’s Life, Abraham Lincoln at City Point, and War So Terrible: A Popular History of the Battle of Fredericksburg.
Download or read book The Making of a Soldier written by Percy Gatling Hamlin and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1935 edition.
Download or read book The Making of a Soldier Letters of General R S Ewell written by Percy Gatling Hamlin and published by . This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Download or read book Campbell Brown s Civil War written by Terry L. Jones and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2001-10-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War writings of G. Campbell Brown—cousin, stepson, and staff officer of famed Confederate General Richard S. Ewell—provide a comprehensive account of the major campaigns in the north Virginia theater. Terry L. Jones has performed an invaluable service by gathering these widely scattered but oft-cited primary sources into a deftly edited volume. Brown’s memoir details his service under Ewell during the campaigns of First Manassas, the Shenandoah Valley, the Seven Days, Second Manassas, and Gettysburg, and under Joseph E. Johnston at Vicksburg. His correspondence and memoranda form a suspenseful recounting of the Overland Campaign, the siege of Richmond, and a harrowing retreat that ended with the capture of Brown and Ewell at Sayler’s Creek just three days before Robert E. Lee’s surrender. Their subsequent three-month captivity in Fort Warren, Massachusetts, is documented in Brown’s letters. Leaders such as Ewell, Johnston, Lee (whose daughter Brown tried to marry), “Stonewall” Jackson, and Jubal A. Early come to life in rich anecdotes and occasional critiques of their wartime actions. A southern aristocrat from Tennessee, Brown exhibits a grasp of the nuances of military protocol that is as compelling as his descriptions of battlefield horrors. Brown’s eagerness to report all he sees—from the quotidian to the bloodcurdling—makes his writings among the finest to come out of the Civil War. Scholars will want copies of this volume at close hand for ready reference, and buffs will treasure the play of a nimble mind over a dire and fascinating time.
Download or read book Major General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble written by Leslie R. Tucker and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2005-07-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble, one of the oldest and more eccentric officers involved in the Civil War, made himself a favorite of Stonewall Jackson through his courage and stubborn energy. Born to a Quaker family, Trimble spent his childhood on the American frontier. After graduating from West Point, he served in the Old Army and then involved himself with the growing railroad industry of the 1830s, living at the forefront of American modernization. As the war began, he sided with the South, burning railroad bridges north of Baltimore to deny Washington the support of Union troops, and then moving to Virginia. He enlisted in the Engineers and constructed battery emplacements. Commissioned brigadier general in late 1861, Trimble distinguished himself at Cross Keys, Gaines's Mill, Manassas, and Gettysburg; was involved in the Baltimore riots; and spent time as a prisoner on Johnson's Island. This biography covers Trimble's personal life and career with both the railroad and the military. Simultaneously, it serves as a case study of an American who chose to side with the South. Before the war, Trimble traveled freely between states and showed no early indication of a regional attachment. The work uses Abraham Maslow's motivation model, the hierarchy of needs, to reconcile Trimble's self-interest with his need to belong to a community. It also raises various questions related to Southern history, including community identity, modernization, and the concept of the "New South."
Download or read book The Killer Angels written by Michael Shaara and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2013-06-15 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the third summer of the war, June 1863, and Robert Lee's Confederate Army slips across the Potomac to draw out the Union Army. Lee's army is 70,000 strong and has won nearly every battle it has fought. The Union Army is 80,000 strong and accustomed to defeat and retreat. Thus begins the Battle of Gettysburg, the four most bloody and courageous days of America's history. Two armies fight for two goals - one for freedom, the other for a way of life. This is a classic, Pulitzer Prize-Winning, historical novel set during the Battle of Gettysburg.
Download or read book Lee and Jackson written by Paul D. Casdorph and published by Paragon House Publishers. This book was released on 1992 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first dual biography of the Confederacy's greatest commanders. Casdorph's exceptional biography brings the legend of Lee and Jackson to life. It is filled with keen insights, colorful anecdotes, dramatic battle scenes, and cogent analysis of tactics and strategy; it also gives us the key to understanding the most remarkable collaboration in American military history.
Download or read book Lee and His Generals With Portraits written by William Parker Snow and published by . This book was released on 1867 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Plenty of Blame to go Around written by Eric J. Wittenberg and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2006-09-12 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A welcome new account of Stuart’s fateful ride during the 1863 Pennsylvania campaign . . . well researched, vividly written, and shrewdly argued.” —Mark Grimsley, author of And Keep Moving On June 1863. The Gettysburg Campaign is in its opening hours. Harness jingles and hoofs pound as Confederate cavalryman James Ewell Brown (JEB) Stuart leads his three brigades of veteran troopers on a ride that triggers one of the Civil War’s most bitter and enduring controversies. Instead of finding glory and victory-two objectives with which he was intimately familiar, Stuart reaped stinging criticism and substantial blame for one of the Confederacy’s most stunning and unexpected battlefield defeats. In Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg, Eric J. Wittenberg and J. David Petruzzi objectively investigate the role Stuart’s horsemen played in the disastrous campaign. It is the first book ever written on this important and endlessly fascinating subject. Did the plumed cavalier disobey General Robert E. Lee’s orders by stripping the army of its “eyes and ears?” Was Stuart to blame for the unexpected combat that broke out at Gettysburg on July 1? Authors Wittenberg and Petruzzi, widely recognized for their study and expertise of Civil War cavalry operations, have drawn upon a massive array of primary sources, many heretofore untapped, to fully explore Stuart’s ride, its consequences, and the intense debate among participants shortly after the battle, through early post-war commentators, and among modern scholars. The result is a richly detailed study jammed with incisive tactical commentary, new perspectives on the strategic role of the Southern cavalry, and fresh insights on every horse engagement, large and small, fought during the campaign.
Download or read book The Second Battle of Winchester written by Eric J. Wittenberg and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive, deeply researched history of the pivotal 1863 American Civil War battle fought in northern Virginia. June 1863. The Gettysburg Campaign is underway. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia pushes west into the Shenandoah Valley and then north toward the Potomac River. Only one significant force stands in its way: Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy’s Union division of the Eighth Army Corps in the vicinity of Winchester and Berryville, Virginia. What happens next is the subject of this provocative new book. Milroy, a veteran Indiana politician-turned-soldier, was convinced the approaching enemy consisted of nothing more than cavalry or was merely a feint, and so defied repeated instructions to withdraw. In fact, the enemy consisted of General Lee’s veteran Second Corps under Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell. Milroy’s controversial decision committed his outnumbered and largely inexperienced men against some of Lee’s finest veterans. The complex and fascinating maneuvering and fighting on June 13-15 cost Milroy hundreds of killed and wounded and about 4,000 captured (roughly one-half of his command), with the remainder routed from the battlefield. The combat cleared the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley of Federal troops, demonstrated Lee could obtain supplies on the march, justified the elevation of General Ewell to replace the recently deceased Stonewall Jackson, and sent shockwaves through the Northern states. Today, the Second Battle of Winchester is largely forgotten. But in June 1863, the politically charged front-page news caught President Lincoln and the War Department by surprise and forever tarnished Milroy’s career. The beleaguered Federal soldiers who fought there spent a lifetime seeking redemption, arguing their three-day “forlorn hope” delayed the Rebels long enough to allow the Army of the Potomac to arrive and defeat Lee at Gettysburg. For the Confederates, the decisive leadership on display outside Winchester masked significant command issues buried within the upper echelons of Jackson’s former corps that would become painfully evident during the early days of July on a different battlefield in Pennsylvania. Award-winning authors Eric J. Wittenberg and Scott L. Mingus Sr. combined their researching and writing talents to produce the most in-depth and comprehensive study of Second Winchester ever written, and now in paperback. Their balanced effort, based upon scores of archival and previously unpublished diaries, newspaper accounts, and letter collections, coupled with familiarity with the terrain around Winchester and across the lower Shenandoah Valley, explores the battle from every perspective.
Download or read book Rashness of That Hour written by Robert Wynstra and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2010-12-08 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER, 2010, DR. JAMES I. ROBERTSON LITERARY PRIZE FOR CONFEDERATE HISTORY AWARD WINNER, 2011, THE BACHELDER-CODDINGTON LITERARY AWARD, GIVEN BY THE ROBERT E. LEE CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE OF CENTRAL NEW JERSEY No commander in the Army of Northern Virginia suffered more damage to his reputation at Gettysburg than did Brig. Gen. Alfred Holt Iverson. In little more than an hour during the early afternoon of July 1, 1863, much of his brigade (the 5th, 12th, 20th, and 23rd North Carolina regiments) was slaughtered in front of a stone wall on Oak Ridge. Amid rumors that he was a drunk, a coward, and had slandered his own troops, Iverson was stripped of his command less than a week after the battle and before the campaign had even ended. After months of internal feuding and behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, the survivors of Iverson's ill-fated brigade had no doubt about who to blame for their devastating losses. What remained unanswered was the lingering uncertainty of how such a disaster could have happened. This and many other questions are explored for the first time in Robert J. Wynstra's The Rashness of That Hour: Politics, Gettysburg, and the Downfall of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson. Wynstra's decade-long investigation draws upon a wealth of newly discovered and previously unpublished sources to provide readers with fresh perspectives and satisfying insights. The result is an engrossing chronicle of how the brigade's politics, misadventures, and colorful personalities combined to bring about one of the Civil War's most notorious blunders. As Wynstra's research makes clear, Iverson's was a brigade in fatal turmoil long before its rendezvous with destiny in Forney field on July 1. This richly detailed and thoughtfully written account is biographical, tactical, and brigade history at its finest. For the first time we have a complete picture of the flawed general and his brigade's bitter internecine feuds that made Iverson's downfall nearly inevitable and help us better understand "the rashness of that hour." About the Author: Robert J. Wynstra recently retired as a senior writer for the News and Public Affairs Office in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in history and a Master's degree in journalism, all from the University of Illinois. Rob has been researching Alfred Iverson's role in the Civil War for more than ten years. He is finishing work on a study of Robert Rodes' Division in the Gettysburg Campaign.
Download or read book Southern Hero written by Samuel J. Martin and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a member of a distinguished South Carolina family, Matthew Calbraith Butler led a most interesting life. His cavalry service during the Civil War saw him rise from regimental captain to major general in command of a division. He began the war with Jeb Stuart and participated in all of his early campaigns. Butler was wounded in the battle at Brandy Station and lost his foot as a result, but he returned to duty and the battles outside of Richmond in 1864, then hurried South to resist Sherman's advance into South Carolina. Unlike many other Confederate generals, Butler remained influential after the War. He served in the U.S. Senate for eighteen years, oversaw the end of Reconstruction in South Carolina, and was a major general during the Spanish-American War.
Download or read book Flames Beyond Gettysburg written by Scott L. Mingus and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2011 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gettysburg Campaign has been examined in detail from nearly every aspect but one: the key role played by Richard Ewell's Second Corps during the final days in June. This is the first in-depth study of these crucial summer days that not only shaped the course of the Gettysburg Campaign, but altered the course of our nation's history.
Download or read book Black Confederates written by Charles Kelly Barrow and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains correspondence, military records, and reminiscences from brave men who served what they considered their country.
