Download or read book Hearts Torn Asunder written by Ernest A. Dollar and published by . This book was released on 2020-06-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the popular memory, the end of the Civil War arrived at Appomattox with handshakes and amicable banter between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant--an honorable ceremony amongst noble warriors. And so it has been remembered to this day. But the war was not over. A larger and arguably more important surrender had yet to take place in North Carolina. This story occupies but little space in the vast annals of Civil War literature. As author Ernest A. Dollar Jr. ably explains in Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in the Civil War's Final Campaign in North Carolina, the lens of modern science may reveal why.This war's final campaign in North Carolina began on April 10, 1865, a day after Appomattox. More than 120,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were still in the field bringing war with them as they moved across North Carolina's heartland. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was still out to destroy the South's ability and moral stamina to make war. His unstoppable Union troops faced Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's demoralized but still dangerous Confederate Army of Tennessee. Thousands of paroled Rebels, desperate, distraught, and destitute, added to the chaos by streaming into the state from Virginia. Grief-stricken civilians struggling to survive in a collapsing world were caught in the middle. The collision of these groups formed a perfect storm long ignored by those wielding pens.Hearts Torn Asunder explores the psychological experience of these soldiers and civilians during the chaotic closing weeks of the war. Their letters, diaries, and accounts reveal just how deeply the killing, suffering, and loss had hurt and impacted these people by the spring of 1865. The author deftly recounts the experience of men, women, and children who endured intense emotional, physical, and moral stress during the war's dramatic climax. Their emotional, irrational, and often uncontrollable reactions mirror symptoms associated with trauma victims today, all of which combined to shape memory of the war's end. Once the armies left North Carolina after the surrender, their stories faded with each passing decade, neither side looked back and believed there was much that was honorable to celebrate. Hearts Torn Asunder recounts at a very personal level what happened during those closing days that made a memory so painful that few wanted to celebrate, but none could forget.

Download or read book The Civil War s Last Campaign written by Mark A. Lause and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War's Last Campaign is a narrative history of General James B. Weaver's 1880 Presidential campaign as the Greenback-Labor party candidate. In the course of its narrative of the campaign, this study describes a complex coalition with interdependent conservative, radical and pragmatic currents essential to a mass insurgency. This account of his active campaigning offers a new look at America's society, values and politics in the postwar Gilded Age.

Download or read book Redemption written by Nicholas Lemann and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-08-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A century after Appomattox, the civil rights movement won full citizenship for black Americans in the South. It should not have been necessary: by 1870 those rights were set in the Constitution. This is the story of the terrorist campaign that took them away. Nicholas Lemann opens his extraordinary new book with a riveting account of the horrific events of Easter 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana, where a white militia of Confederate veterans-turned-vigilantes attacked the black community there and massacred hundreds of people in a gruesome killing spree. This was the start of an insurgency that changed the course of American history: for the next few years white Southern Democrats waged a campaign of political terrorism aiming to overturn the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and challenge President Grant'ssupport for the emergent structures of black political power. The remorseless strategy of well-financed "White Line" organizations was to create chaos and keep blacks from voting out of fear for their lives and livelihoods. Redemption is the first book to describe in uncompromising detail this organized racial violence, which reached its apogee in Mississippi in 1875. Lemann bases his devastating account on a wealth of military records, congressional investigations, memoirs, press reports, and the invaluable papers of Adelbert Ames, the war hero from Maine who was Mississippi's governor at the time. When Ames pleaded with Grant for federal troops who could thwart the white terrorists violently disrupting Republican political activities, Grant wavered, and the result was a bloody, corrupt election in which Mississippi was "redeemed"—that is, returned to white control. Redemption makes clear that this is what led to the death of Reconstruction—and of the rights encoded in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. We are still living with the consequences.

Download or read book Meade and Lee After Gettysburg written by Jeffrey Wm Hunt and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2017-07-19 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “very satisfying blow-by-blow account of the final stages of the Gettysburg Campaign” fills an important gap in Civil War history (Civil War Books and Authors). Winner of the Gettysburg Civil War Round Table Book Award This fascinating book exposes what has been hiding in plain sight for 150 years: The Gettysburg Campaign did not end at the banks of the Potomac on July 14, but deep in central Virginia two weeks later along the line of the Rappahannock. Contrary to popular belief, once Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia slipped across the Potomac back to Virginia, the Lincoln administration pressed George Meade to cross quickly in pursuit—and he did. Rather than follow in Lee’s wake, however, Meade moved south on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in a cat-and-mouse game to outthink his enemy and capture the strategic gaps penetrating the high wooded terrain. Doing so would trap Lee in the northern reaches of the Shenandoah Valley and potentially bring about the decisive victory that had eluded Union arms north of the Potomac. The two weeks that followed resembled a grand chess match with everything at stake—high drama filled with hard marching, cavalry charges, heavy skirmishing, and set-piece fighting that threatened to escalate into a major engagement with the potential to end the war in the Eastern Theater. Throughout, one thing remains clear: Union soldiers from private to general continued to fear the lethality of Lee’s army. Meade and Lee After Gettysburg, the first of three volumes on the campaigns waged between the two adversaries from July 14 through the end of July, 1863, relies on the official records, regimental histories, letters, newspapers, and other sources to provide a day-by-day account of this fascinating high-stakes affair. The vivid prose, coupled with original maps and outstanding photographs, offers a significant contribution to Civil War literature. Named Eastern Theater Book of the Year byCivil War Books and Authors

Download or read book The Battle of Monroe s Crossroads written by Eric J. Wittenberg and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2006-04-19 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed tactical narrative of one of the most important but least known engagements of William T. Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign during the Civil War. As General Sherman’s infantry crossed into North Carolina, Maj. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s veteran Federal cavalry division fanned out in front, screening the advance. When Kilpatrick learned that Confederate cavalry under Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton was hot on his trail, he decided to set a trap for the Southern horsemen near a place called Monroe’s Crossroads. Hampton, however, learned of the plan and decided to do something Kilpatrick was not expecting: attack. On March 10, 1865, Southern troopers under Hampton and Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler launched a savage surprise attack on Kilpatrick’s sleeping camp. After three hours of some of the toughest cavalry fighting of the entire Civil War, Hampton broke off and withdrew. His attack, however, stopped Kilpatrick’s advance and bought another precious day for Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee to evacuate his command from Fayetteville. This, in turn, permitted Hardee to join the command of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and set the stage for the climactic Battle of Bentonville nine days later. Noted Civil War author Eric J. Wittenberg has written the first history of this important but long-forgotten battle, and places it in its proper context within the entire Carolinas Campaign. His study features twenty-eight original maps and dozens of illustrations. Finally, an author of wide experience and renown has brought to vivid life this overlooked portion of the Carolinas Campaign. Praise for The Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads “All the elements that we expect in great battle are here: high drama, command decisions good, bad, and ugly; courage and cowardice, sacrifice, and fortitude. Readers both new to the genre and veteran to the literature will find much of value in The Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads.” —Noah Andre Trudeau, author of The Last Citadel: Petersburg, June 1864–April 1865 “Features a marvelous cast of characters and a riveting story impeccably researched and judiciously interpreted. It is the definitive account of this fascinating battle.” —Mark L. Bradley, author of Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville

Download or read book The Last Siege written by Paul Brueske and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth history of the Confederate Army’s last stand in Mobile, Alabama, a month after Gen. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. It has long been acknowledged that Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at the Battle of Appomattox ended the civil war in Virginia in April of 1865. However, the last siege of the war was the Mobile campaign, an often-overlooked battle that was nevertheless crucial to securing a complete victory. Indeed, the final surrender of Confederate forces happened in Alabama. The Last Siege explores the events surrounding the Union Army’s capture of Mobile and offers a new perspective on its strategic importance, including access to vital rail lines and two major river systems. Included here are the most detailed accounts ever written on Union and Confederate camp life in the weeks prior to the invasion, cavalry operations of both sides during the expedition, the Federal feint movement at Cedar Point, the crippling effect of torpedoes on US naval operations in Mobile Bay, the treadway escape from Spanish Fort, and the evacuation of Mobile. Evidence is presented that contradicts the popular notion that Mobile welcomed the Federals as a pro-Union town. Using primary sources, this book highlights the actions of Confederate soldiers who fought to the last with sophisticated military tactics in the Confederacy’s last campaign, which led to the final surrender at Citronelle, Alabama, in May.

Download or read book Grant s Last Battle written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2015-07-19 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable story of how one of America’s greatest military heroes became a literary legend. The former general in chief of the Union armies during the Civil War . . . the two-term president of the United States . . . the beloved ambassador of American goodwill around the globe . . . the respected New York financier—Ulysses S. Grant—was dying. The hardscrabble man who regularly smoked twenty cigars a day had developed terminal throat cancer. Thus began Grant’s final battle—a race against his own failing health to complete his personal memoirs in an attempt to secure his family’s financial security. But the project evolved into something far more: an effort to secure the very meaning of the Civil War itself and how it would be remembered. In this maelstrom of woe, Grant refused to surrender. Putting pen to paper, the hero of Appomattox embarked on his final campaign: an effort to write his memoirs before he died. The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant would cement his place as not only one of America’s greatest heroes but also as one of its most sublime literary voices. Authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White have recounted Grant’s battlefield exploits as historians at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, and Mackowski, as an academic, has studied Grant’s literary career. Their familiarity with the former president as a general and as a writer bring Grant’s Last Battle to life with new insight, told with the engaging prose that has become the hallmark of the Emerging Civil War Series.

Download or read book The Vicksburg Campaign written by Ulysses S. Grant and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-11-20 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 19th century, one of the surest ways to rise to prominence in American society was to be a war hero, like Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison. But few would have predicted such a destiny for Hiram Ulysses Grant, who had been a career soldier with little experience in combat and a failed businessman when the Civil War broke out in 1861. However, while all eyes were fixed on the Eastern theater at places like Manassas, Richmond, the Shenandoah Valley and Antietam, Grant went about a steady rise up the ranks through a series of successes in the West. His victory at Fort Donelson, in which his terms to the doomed Confederate garrison earned him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, could be considered the first major Union victory of the war, and Grant's fame and rank only grew after that at battlefields like Shiloh and Vicksburg. Along the way, Grant nearly fell prey to military politics and the belief that he was at fault for the near defeat at Shiloh, but President Lincoln famously defended him, remarking, "I can't spare this man. He fights." Lincoln's steadfastness ensured that Grant's victories out West continued to pile up, and after Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Grant had effectively ensured Union control of the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as the entire Mississippi River. At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln put him in charge of all federal armies, and he led the Army of the Potomac against Robert E. Lee in the Overland campaign, the siege of Petersburg, and famously, the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. Although Grant was instrumental in winning the war and eventually parlayed his fame into two terms in the White House, his legacy and accomplishments are still the subjects of heavy debate today. His presidency is remembered mostly due to rampant fraud within his Administration, although he was never personally accused of wrongdoing, and even his victories in the Civil War have been countered by charges that he was a butcher. Like the other American Legends, much of Grant's personal life has been eclipsed by the momentous battles and events in which he participated, from Fort Donelson to the White House.

Download or read book The Richmond Campaign of 1862 written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whiting's Confederate division in the battle of Gaines's Mill, the role of artillery in the battle of Malvern Hill, and the efforts of Radical Republicans in the North to use the Richmond campaign to rally support for emancipation."--BOOK JACKET.

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 Tullahoma written by David A. Powell and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: July 1863 was a momentous month in the Civil War. News of Gettysburg and Vicksburg electrified the North and devastated the South. Sandwiched geographically between those victories and lost in the heady tumult of events was news that William S. Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland had driven Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee entirely out of Middle Tennessee. The brilliant campaign nearly cleared the state of Rebels and changed the calculus of the Civil War in the Western Theater. Despite its decisive significance, few readers even today know of these events. The publication of Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that Changed the Course of Civil War, June 23 - July 4, 1863 by award-winning authors David A. Powell and Eric J. Wittenberg, forever rectifies that oversight.On June 23, 1863, Rosecrans, with some 60,000 men, initiated a classic campaign of maneuver against Bragg's 40,000. Confronted with rugged terrain and a heavily entrenched foe, Rosecrans intended to defeat Bragg through strategy rather than bloodshed by outflanking him and seizing control of Bragg's supply line, the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, at Tullahoma and thus force him to fight a battle outside of his extensive earthworks. It almost worked.The complex and fascinating campaign included deceit, hard marching, fighting, and incredible luck--both good and bad. Rosecrans executed a pair of feints against Guy's Gap and Liberty Gap to deceive the Rebels into thinking the main blow would fall somewhere other than where it was designed to strike. An ineffective Confederate response exposed one of Bragg's flanks--and his entire army--to complete disaster. Torrential rains and consequential decisions in the field wreaked havoc on the best-laid plans. Still Bragg hesitated, teetering on the brink of losing the second most important field army in the Confederacy. The hour was late and time was short, and his limited withdrawal left the armies poised for a climactic engagement that may have decided the fate of Middle Tennessee, and perhaps the war. Finally fully alert to the mortal threat facing him, Bragg pulled back from the iron jaws of defeat about to engulf him and retreated--this time all the way to Chattanooga, the gateway to the rest of the Southern Confederacy.Powell and Wittenberg mined hundreds of archival and firsthand accounts to craft a splendid study of this overlooked campaign that set the stage for the Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga, the removal of Rosecrans and Bragg from the chessboard of war, the elevation of U.S. Grant to command all Union armies, and the early stages of William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign. Tullahoma--one of the most brilliantly executed major campaigns of the war--was pivotal to Union success in 1863 and beyond. And now readers everywhere will know precisely why.

Download or read book Trailing Clouds of Glory written by Felice Flanery Lewis and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is a narrative of Zachary Taylor’s Mexican War campaign, from the formation of his army in 1844 to his last battle at Buena Vista in 1847, with emphasis on the 163 men in his “Army of Occupation” who became Confederate or Union generals in the Civil War. It clarifies what being a Mexican War veteran meant in their cases, how they interacted with one another, how they performed their various duties, and how they reacted under fire. Referring to developments in Washington, D.C., and other theaters of the war, this book provides a comprehensive picture of the early years of the conflict based on army records and the letters and diaries of the participants. Trailing Clouds of Glory is the first examination of the roles played in the Mexican War by the large number of men who served with Taylor and who would be prominent in the next war, both as volunteer and regular army officers, and it provides fresh information, even on such subjects as Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Particularly interesting for the student of the Civil War are largely unknown aspects of the Mexican War service of Daniel Harvey Hill, Braxton Bragg, and Thomas W. Sherman.

Download or read book Battle Cry of Freedom written by James M. McPherson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-11 with total page 946 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with fresh interpretations and information, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably become the standard one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War--the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry--and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict: the South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war--slavery--and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.

Download or read book Receding Tide written by Edwin C. Bearss and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A single day: July 4, 1863, brought to a conclusion two of the most infamous battles of the Civil War. This book tells the story of these two pivotal battles.

Download or read book The Last Road North written by Robert Orrison and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2016-06-19 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the Gettysburg Civil War battlefields and their history, featuring lesser-known sites, side trips, and optional stops along the way. "I thought my men were invincible,” admitted Robert E. Lee. A string of battlefield victories through 1862 had culminated in the spring of 1863 with Lee’s greatest victory yet: the battle of Chancellorsville. Propelled by the momentum of that supreme moment, confident in the abilities of his men, Lee decided to once more take the fight to the Yankees and launched this army on another invasion of the North. An appointment with destiny awaited in the little Pennsylvania college town of Gettysburg. Historian Dan Welch follows in the footsteps of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac as the two foes cat-and-mouse their way northward, ultimately clashing in the costliest battle in North American history. Based on the Gettysburg Civil War Trails, and packed with dozens of lesser-known sites related to the Gettysburg Campaign, The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign offers the ultimate Civil War road trip. “Orrison and Welch have created something different. Historians must search for innovative ways to engage the public on the battle’s relevance. This book offers a new experience for tourists—one that enriches their visit to the site of one of the most consequential battles in American history.” —Matt Arendt, TCU, for Gettysburg Magazine “Shows a deep knowledge of the subject and the style of writing is clear and easy to follow . . . buy this book!” —Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy

Download or read book The Gettysburg Address written by Abraham Lincoln and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2022-11-29 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complete text of one of the most important speeches in American history, delivered by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln arrived at the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to remember not only the grim bloodshed that had just occurred there, but also to remember the American ideals that were being put to the ultimate test by the Civil War. A rousing appeal to the nation’s better angels, The Gettysburg Address remains an inspiring vision of the United States as a country “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Download or read book Mobile Bay and the Mobile Campaign written by Chester G. Hearn and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-06-21 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Civil War, both sides understood that closing the South's ports would halt the introduction of war materiel to the industrially weak region. Though the North captured New Orleans in 1862, they did not attack the Confederate navy in Mobile Bay or the city of Mobile, Alabama, until 1864. The two-year delay allowed much needed supplies to enter the Confederacy and changed the face of the ensuing Mobile Campaign, as technological advances in ships submarines, mines and fortification made a striking difference in the fighting. This book examines the politics, preparations, leaders, and battles that made the Mobile Campaign a microcosm of the overall conduct of the Civil War.