Download or read book The Lost Letters of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain written by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and published by . This book was released on 2006* with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Correspondence written by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Letters from Chamberlain to Henry S. Burrage and others, and one from Burrage to Chamberlain. One with letterhead of a monument association: "To honor the Loyal Women of 1861-1865" of which Chamberlain was chair. Subjects include fundraising, meetings, Chamberlain's health, Gen. Jonathan Prince Cilley, and Hannibal Hamlin.
Download or read book The Grand Old Man of Maine written by Jeremiah E. Goulka and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2005-10-12 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best known as the hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg and the commanding officer of the troops who accepted the Confederates' surrender at Appomattox, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828-1914) has become one of the most famous and most studied figures of Civil War history. After the war, he went on to serve as governor of Maine and president of Bowdoin College. The first collection of his postwar letters, this book offers important insights for understanding Chamberlain's later years and his place in chronicling the war. The letters included here reveal Chamberlain's perspective on military events at Gettysburg, Five Forks, and Appomattox, and on the planning of ceremonies to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Gettysburg. As Jeremiah Goulka points out in his introduction, the letters also shed light on Chamberlain's views on politics, race relations, and education, and they expose some of the personal difficulties he faced late in life. On a broader scale, Chamberlain's correspondence contributes to a better understanding of the influence of Civil War veterans on American life and the impact of the war on veterans themselves. It also says much about state and national politics (including the politics of pensions), family roles and relationships, and ideas of masculinity in Victorian America.
Download or read book Fanny Joshua written by Diane Monroe Smith and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2013 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intimate history of Civil War hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his wife, Frances Caroline Adams
Download or read book The Killer Angels written by Michael Shaara and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2004-11-02 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “remarkable” (Ken Burns), “utterly absorbing” (Forbes) Civil War classic that inspired the film Gettysburg, with more than three million copies in print “My favorite historical novel . . . a superb re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, but its real importance is its insight into what the war was about, and what it meant.”—James M. McPherson In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war. Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny.
Download or read book For Cause and Comrades written by James M. McPherson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-04-03 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War? It is to this question--why did they fight--that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--"the best Government ever made"--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my death than my disgrace." Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. "While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, "I still love my country." McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war. Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.
Download or read book Joshua L Chamberlain written by Thomas Desjardin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The largest collection of never-before published letters from and to Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain provides a foundation for a new look at the life of one of the War's most enduring legends. His life is a remarkable story of perseverance, tragedy and triumph. From an insecure young man with a considerable stutter who grew up in a small town in eastern Maine, Joshua Chamberlain rose to become a major general, recipient of the Medal of Honor, Governor of Maine and President of Bowdoin College. His writings are among the most oft-quoted of all Civil War memoirs, and he has become a legendary, even mythical historical figure. In 1995, the National Civil War Museum acquired a collection of approximately three hundred letters written by or sent to Chamberlain from his college years in 1852 to his death in 1914. Author Thomas Desjardin puts Chamberlain's words in contemporary and historical context and uses this extraordinary collection of letters to reveal – for the first time – the full and remarkable life of Joshua Chamberlain.
Download or read book Stars in Their Courses written by Shelby Foote and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 1994-06-28 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A matchless account of the Battle of Gettysburg, drawn from Shelby Foote’s landmark history of the Civil War Shelby Foote’s monumental three-part chronicle, The Civil War: A Narrative, was hailed by Walker Percy as “an unparalleled achievement, an American Iliad, a unique work uniting the scholarship of the historian and the high readability of the first-class novelist.” Here is the central chapter of the central volume, and therefore the capstone of the arch, in a single volume. Complete with detailed maps, Stars in Their Courses brilliantly recreates the three-day conflict: It is a masterly treatment of a key great battle and the events that preceded it—not as legend has it but as it really was, before it became distorted by controversy and overblown by remembered glory.
Download or read book The Lost Constitution written by William Martin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-05-15 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rare-book expert Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline, the main characters from Back Bay and Harvard Yard, are back for another treasure hunt through time. They have learned of an early, annotated draft of the Constitution, stolen and smuggled out of Philadelphia. The draft's marginal notes spell out, in shocking detail, the Founders' unequivocal intentions---the unmistakable meaning of the Bill of Rights. Peddled and purloined, trafficked and concealed for over two centuries, the lost Constitution could forever change America's history---and its future. Moreover, Congress is already at war, fighting tooth and claw over the eternally contentious Bill of Rights. When word gets out of the lost draft's existence, it launches a frenzied search, as both sides of the partisan machine believe it will reinforce their arguments. While battling politicians from both sides of the debate, Peter and Evangeline must get to the document first, because they know that if the wrong people find it, they will burn it, stripping the nation of its constitutional moorings. The search takes Peter and Evangeline into the rich history of America and New England, from Shay's Rebellion to the birth of the American industrial revolution to the march of the legendary 20th Maine in the Civil War. Past and present play off one another as the search for the draft heats up. It finally boils over on the first night of the World Series, at that Mecca of New England, Boston's fabled Fenway Park, and the truth is finally revealed....
Download or read book Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine written by Thomas A. Desjardin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-29 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fought amid rocks and trees, in thick blinding smoke, and under exceedingly stressful conditions, the battle for the southern slope of Little Round Top on July 2, 1863 stands among the most famous and crucial military actions in American history, one of the key engagements that led to the North's victory at Gettysburg. In this powerfully narrated history, Maine historian Tom Desjardin tells the story of the 20th Maine Regiment, the soldiers who fought and won the battle of Little Round Top. This engaging work is the culmination of years of detailed research on the experiences of the soldiers in that regiment, telling the complete story of the unit in the Gettysburg Campaign, from June 21 through July 10, 1863. Desjardin uses more than seventy first-hand accounts to tell the story of this campaign in critical detail. He brings the personal experiences of the soldiers to life, relating the story from both sides and revealing the actions and feelings of the men from Alabama who tried, in vain, to seize Little Round Top. Indeed, ranging from the lowest ranking private to the highest officers, this book explores the terrible experiences of war and their tragic effect. Following the regiment through the campaign enables readers to understand fully the soldiers' feelings towards the enemy, towards citizens of both North and South, and towards the commanders of the two armies. In addition, this book traces the development of the legend of Gettysburg, as veterans of the fight struggle to remember, grasp, and memorialize their part in the largest battle ever fought on the continent. With a new preface and updated maps and illustrations, Stand Firm Ye Boys of Maine offers a compelling account of one of the most crucial small engagements of the Civil War.
Download or read book All for the Union written by Elisha Hunt Rhodes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-11-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All for the Union is the eloquent and moving diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, featured throughout Ken Burns' PBS documentary The Civil War. Rhodes enlisted into the Union Army as a private in 1861 and left it four years later as a twenty-three-year-old colonel after fighting hard and honorably in battles from Bull Run to Appomattox. Anyone who heard these diaries excerpted in The Civil War will recognize his accounts of those campaigns, which remain outstanding for their clarity and detail. Most of all, Rhodes's words reveal the motivation of a common Yankee foot soldier, an otherwise ordinary young man who endured the rigors of combat and exhausting marches, short rations, fear, and homesickness for a salary of $13 a month and the satisfaction of giving "all for the union."
Download or read book The World Will Never See the Like written by John L. Hopkins and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2023-11-06 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The largest gathering of Union and Confederate veterans ever held was front-page news throughout the country. “[It] will be talked about and written about as long as the American people boast of the dauntless courage of Gettysburg,” declared a woman who accompanied her father to the reunion. But as the years passed, the memorable event was all but forgotten. John Hopkins’s The World Will Never See the Like: The Gettysburg Reunion of 1913 goes a long way toward making sure the world will remember. The 1913 Gettysburg reunion is a story of 53,000 old comrades and former foes reunited, and of the tension, even half a century later, between competing narratives of reconciliation and remembrance. For seven days the old soldiers lived under canvas in stifling heat on a 280-acre encampment run by the U.S. Army. They swapped stories, debated still-simmering controversies about the battle, and fed tall tales to gullible reporters. On July 3, the aging survivors of Pickett’s Division and the Philadelphia Brigade shook hands across the wall on Cemetery Ridge in the reunion’s climactic photo op. Some of the battle’s leading personalities attended, including Union III Corps commander Dan Sickles, who at 92 was still eager to explain to anyone who would listen the indispensable role he claimed to have played in the Union victory. Also present was Helen Dortch Longstreet, the widow of Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, who devoted her life and considerable energies to defending the reputation of her general. Both wrote articles from the reunion that were syndicated in newspapers across the country. There was even a cameo appearance by a young and as-yet unknown cavalry officer named George S. Patton Jr. Hopkins fills his marvelous account with detail from the letters, diaries, and published accounts of Union and Confederate veterans, the extensive archival records of the reunion’s organizers, and the daily stories filed by the scores of reporters who covered it. The World Will Never See the Like offers the first full story of this extraordinary event’s genesis and planning, the obstacles overcome on the way to making it a reality, its place in the larger narrative of sectional reunion and reconciliation, and the individual stories of the veterans who attended. Every reader interested in Gettysburg will find this a welcome addition to their library.
Download or read book The Doom of Reconstruction written by Andrew L. Slap and published by Reconstructing America (Hardco. This book was released on 2006 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Election of 1872 the conflict between President U. S. Grant and Horace Greeley has been typically understood as a battle for the soul of the ruling Republican Party. In this innovative study, Andrew Slap argues forcefully that the campaign was more than a narrow struggle between Party elites and a class-based radical reform movement. The election, he demonstrates, had broad consequences: in their opposition to widespread Federal corruption, Greeley Republicans unintentionally doomed Reconstruction of any kind, even as they lost the election. Based on close readings of newspapers, party documents, and other primary sources, Slap confronts one of the major questions in American political history: How, and why, did Reconstruction come to an end? His focus on the unintended consequences of Liberal Republican politics is a provocative contribution to this important debate.
Download or read book James Longstreet and the American Civil War written by Harold M. Knudsen and published by Savas Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Civil War is often called the first “modern war.” Sandwiched between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, it spawned a host of “firsts” and is considered a precursor to the larger and more deadly 20th century wars. Confederate Gen. James Longstreet made overlooked but profound modern contributions to the art of war. Retired Lt. Col. Harold M. Knudsen explains what Longstreet did and how he did it in James Longstreet and the American Civil War: The Confederate General Who Fought the Next War. Initially, commanders on both sides extensively utilized Napoleonic tactics that were obsolete because of the advent of the rifled musket and better artillery. Some professional army officers worked to improve tactics, operations, and strategies. On the Confederate side, a careful comparison of Longstreet’s body of work in the field to modern military doctrine reveals several large-scale innovations. Longstreet understood early that the tactical defense was generally dominant over the offense, which was something few grasped in 1862. Longstreet’s thinking demonstrated a clear evolution that began on the field at First Manassas in July 1861, developed through the bloody fighting of 1862, and culminated in the brilliant defensive victory at Fredericksburg that December. The lethality with which his riflemen and artillery mowed down repeated Union assaults hinted at what was to come in World War I. Longstreet’s ability to launch and control powerful offensives was on display at Second Manassas in August 1862. His assault plan at Chickamauga in Georgia the following September was similar, if not the forerunner to, World War II tactical-level German armored tactics. Other areas show progressive applications with artillery, staff work, force projection, and operational-level thinking. Longstreet was not the sole agent of modern change away from the Napoleonic method, but his contributions were significant and executed on a large scale. They demonstrated that he was a modern thinker unparalleled in the Confederate Army. Unfortunately, many Civil War students have a one-sided view of Longstreet, whose legacy fell victim to bitter postwar Southern politics when “Old Pete” supported Reconstruction bills, accepted postings with the Grant Administration, and criticized Robert E. Lee. Many modern writers continue to skew the general’s legacy. This book draws heavily upon 20th century U.S. Army doctrine, field training, staff planning, command, and combat experience and is the first serious treatment of Longstreet’s generalship vis-a-vis modern warfare. Not everyone will agree with Knudsen’s conclusions, but it will now be impossible to write about the general without referencing this important study.
Download or read book Gettysburg Heroes written by Glenn W. LaFantasie and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-05 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War generation saw its world in ways startlingly different from our own. In these essays, Glenn W. LaFantasie examines the lives and experiences of several key personalities who gained fame during the war and after. The battle of Gettysburg is the thread that ties these Civil War lives together. Gettysburg was a personal turning point, though each person was affected differently. Largely biographical in its approach, the book captures the human drama of the war and shows how this group of individuals—including Abraham Lincoln, James Longstreet, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, William C. Oates, and others—endured or succumbed to the war and, willingly or unwillingly, influenced its outcome. At the same time, it shows how the war shaped the lives of these individuals, putting them through ordeals they never dreamed they would face or survive.
Download or read book Companion to an Untold Story written by Marcia Aldrich and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2012-09-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Marcia Aldrich’s friend took his own life at the age of forty-six, they had known each other many years. As part of his preparations for death, he gave her many of his possessions, concealing his purposes in doing so, and when he committed his long-contemplated act, he was alone in a bare apartment. In Companion to an Untold Story, Aldrich struggles with her own failure to act on her suspicions about her friend’s intentions. She pieces together the rough outline of his plan to die and the details of its execution. Yet she acknowledges that she cannot provide a complete narrative of why he killed himself. The story remains private to her friend, and out of that difficulty is born another story— the aftershocks of his suicide and the author’s responses to what it set in motion. This book, modeled on the type of reference book called a “companion,” attempts to find a form adequate to the way these two stories criss-cross, tangle, knot, and break. Organized alphabetically, the entries introduce, document, and reflect upon how suicide is so resistant to acceptance that it swallows up other aspects of a person’s life. Aldrich finds an indirect approach to her friend’s death, assembling letters, objects, and memories to archive an ungrievable loss and create a memorial to a life that does not easily make a claim on public attention. Intimate and austere, clear eyed and tender, this innovative work creates a new form in which to experience grief, remembrance, and reconciliation.
Download or read book Through Blood Fire written by Mark Nesbit and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 1996-04-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • Includes all of Chamberlain's known wartime letters • Shows his transformation from college professor to major general • Original writings placed into context by historian Mark Nesbitt In July 1862 Joshua Chamberlain, a family man and respected professor at Bowdoin College in Maine, joined the fight to preserve the Union. His wartime service was exemplary; he is perhaps best remembered for his outstanding leadership at Gettysburg. At all times, however, he fought bravely and well, even at Petersburg in 1864 where he received the wound that was to torment him until his death in 1914. Throughout his time in the field, Chamberlain wrote letters of recommendation to his superiors, letters of condolence to the families of soldiers killed while under his command, and letters to his family at home. All are well written, revealing the professor's educated background and elegant prose. Nesbitt's notes set the scene, place Chamberlain's writings within the larger context of the war, and make clear the General's sterling character and his sacrifices for the country he loved.
