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 Confederate Rage Yankee Wrath written by George S Burkhardt and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2007-05-02 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative study proves the existence of a de facto Confederate policy of giving no quarter to captured black combatants during the Civil War—killing them instead of treating them as prisoners of war. Rather than looking at the massacres as a series of discrete and random events, this work examines each as part of a ruthless but standard practice. Author George S. Burkhardt details a fascinating case that the Confederates followed a consistent pattern of murder against the black soldiers who served in Northern armies after Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. He shows subsequent retaliation by black soldiers and further escalation by the Confederates, including the execution of some captured white Federal soldiers, those proscribed as cavalry raiders, foragers, or house-burners, and even some captured in traditional battles. Further disproving the notion of Confederates as victims who were merely trying to defend their homes, Burkhardt explores the motivations behind the soldiers’ actions and shows the Confederates’ rage at the sight of former slaves—still considered property, not men—fighting them as equals on the battlefield. Burkhardt’s narrative approach recovers important dimensions of the war that until now have not been fully explored by historians, effectively describing the systemic pattern that pushed the conflict toward a black flag, take-no-prisoners struggle.

Download or read book Tis Not Our War written by Paul Taylor and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-06-18 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James McPherson’s classic book For Cause & Comrades explained “why men fought in the Civil War”—and spurred countless other historians to ask and attempt to answer the same question. But few have explored why men did not fight. That’s the question Paul Taylor answers in this groundbreaking Civil War history that examines the reasons why at least 60 percent of service-eligible men in the North chose not to serve and why, to some extent, their communities allowed them to do so. Did these other men not feel the same patriotic impulses as their fellow citizens who rushed to the enlistment office? Did they not believe in the sanctity of the Union? Was freeing men held in chains under chattel slavery not a righteous moral crusade? And why did some soldiers come to regret their enlistment and try to leave the military? ’Tis Not Our War answers these questions by focusing on the thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of average civilians and soldiers. Taylor digs deep into primary sources—newspapers, diaries, letters, archival manuscripts, military reports, and published memoirs—to paint a vivid and richly complex portrait of men who questioned military service in the Civil War and to show that the North was never as unified in support of the war as portrayed in much of America’s collective memory. This book adds to our understanding of the Civil War and the men who fought—and did not fight—in it.

Download or read book Double Duty in the Civil War written by George S Burkhardt and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2009-06-10 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1861 at the age of eighteen, Edward Woolsey Bacon, a Yale student and son of well-known abolitionist minister Leonard Bacon, left his home in New Haven, Connecticut, to fight for the United States. Over the next four years Bacon served in both the Union navy and army, which gave him a sweeping view of the Civil War. His postings included being a captain’s clerk on the USS Iroquois, a hospital clerk in his hometown, a captain in the 29th Connecticut Infantry (Colored), and a major in the 117th U.S. Colored Infantry, and he described these experiences in vibrant letters to his friends and family. Historian George S. Burkhardt has compiled these letters, as well as Bacon’s diary in the impressive Double Duty in the Civil War: The Letters of Sailor and Soldier Edward W. Bacon. Bacon tells of hunting Confederate commerce raiders on the high seas, enduring the tedium of blockade duty, and taking part in riverine warfare on the Mississippi. He recalls sweating in South Carolina as an infantry officer during drill and picket duty, suffering constant danger in the battlefield trenches of Virginia, marching victoriously on fallen Richmond, and tolerating the boredom of occupation duty in Texas. His highly entertaining letters shed new light on naval affairs and reveal a close-knit family life. The narrative of his duty with black troops is especially valuable, since few first-hand accounts from white officers of the U.S. Colored Troops exist. Furthermore, his beliefs about race, slavery, and the Union cause were unconventional for the time and stand in contrast to those held by many of his contemporaries. Double Duty in the Civil War is filled with lively descriptions of the men Bacon met and the events he experienced. With Burkhardt’s careful editing and useful annotations, Bacon’s letters and diary excerpts give rare insight into areas of the Civil War that have been neglected because of a lack of available sources. Given the scarcity of eyewitness testimonies to navy life and life in African American regiments, this book is a rarity indeed.

Download or read book Civil War Eyewitnesses written by Garold Cole and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Civil War Diaries and Personal Narratives 1960 1994 written by Library of Congress and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book American Book Publishing Record written by and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fighting Means Killing written by Jonathan M. Steplyk and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2020-10-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “War means fighting, and fighting means killing,” Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest famously declared. The Civil War was fundamentally a matter of Americans killing Americans. This undeniable reality is what Jonathan Steplyk explores in Fighting Means Killing, the first book-length study of Union and Confederate soldiers’ attitudes toward, and experiences of, killing in the Civil War. Drawing upon letters, diaries, and postwar reminiscences, Steplyk examines what soldiers and veterans thought about killing before, during, and after the war. How did these soldiers view sharpshooters? How about hand-to-hand combat? What language did they use to describe killing in combat? What cultural and societal factors influenced their attitudes? And what was the impact of race in battlefield atrocities and bitter clashes between white Confederates and black Federals? These are the questions that Steplyk seeks to answer in Fighting Means Killing, a work that bridges the gap between military and social history—and that shifts the focus on the tragedy of the Civil War from fighting and dying for cause and country to fighting and killing.

Download or read book Military Bibliography of the Civil War Volume 4 written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 1072 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume IV: Compiled and revised by Silas Felton. 1063 pp., revised with books missed in vols. I,II, and III, regimental publications, personal narratives, biographies, campaigns and battles, Northern and Southern. Felton?s new compilation is without peer. He covers the subject from five different perspectives: Regimental Publications and Personal Narratives, Union and Confederate Biographies, General References, Armed Forces and Campaigns and Battles.And, making the work extremely useful, the last 236 pages contain a complete Index of Authors of Volumes I through IV as well as a new Index of Titles in the Revised Volume IV.Furthermore, to clear up confusion created by the multiple names often used by Confederate units during the war ? artillery batteries in particular ? which carried a state designation but were commonly known by the battery commander?s name, Felton has cited a written work with a single number designation but indexed and listed it under its common appellation to aid the researcher and eliminate confusion.

Download or read book The Civil War Round Table written by Civil War Round Table (Chicago, Ill.) and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Some Reminiscenses of Old Victoria written by Edgar Fawcett and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2020-07-18 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reproduction of the original: Some Reminiscenses of Old Victoria by Edgar Fawcett

Download or read book The English Hymn written by J. R. Watson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1997-07-10 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: D.H. Lawrence, writing of the poems that had meant most to him, said that they were `still not woven so deep in me as the rather banal Nonconformist hymns that penetrated through and through my childhood'. It is not easy to account for this, and most writing about hymns has not helped because it has concentrated on their content and function in worship and liturgy. In the present book the author tries to account for feelings like Lawrence's by examining the hymn form and its progress through the centuries from the Reformation to the present day. He begins by discussing the status of a hymn text and relates it to the demands made upon it by the needs of singing. A chronological study then traces the development of the English hymn, from the metrical psalms of the Reformation, through the seventeenth century and Isaac Watts to the Wesleys, Cowper, Toplady, and others, and then to the great flood of hymn writing that occurred during the Victorian period, together with the great success of Hymns Ancient and Modern. There are chapters on American hymnody and women's hymn writing, and sections on gospel hymns and the translation of German hymnody. A final chapter takes the story into the twentieth century, with a brief postscript on the revival of hymn writing since 1960.

Download or read book The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion 1861 65 pt 1 Surgical history written by United States. Surgeon-General's Office and published by . This book was released on 1883 with total page 1208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Bloody Autumn written by Daniel T. Davis and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2014-01-19 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “essential addition to serious students’ libraries” detailing the historic military offensive that helped sway the outcome of the American Civil War (Civil War News). In the late summer of 1864, Union General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant set one absolutely unconditional goal: to sweep Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley “clean and clear.” His man for the job: Maj. Gen. “Little Phil” Sheridan—a temperamental Irishman who’d proven himself just the kind of scrapper Grant loved. The valley had already played a major part in the war for the Confederacy as both the location of major early victories against Union attacks, and as the route used by the Army of Northern Virginia for its invasion of the North, culminating in the battle of Gettysburg. But when Sheridan returned to the Valley in 1864, the stakes heightened dramatically. For the North, the fragile momentum its war effort had gained by the capture of Atlanta would quickly evaporate. For Abraham Lincoln, defeat in the Valley could mean defeat in the upcoming election. And for the South, its very sovereignty lay on the line. Here, historians Davis and Greenwalt “weave an excellent summary of the campaign that will serve to introduce those new to the Civil War to the events of that ‘Bloody Autumn’ and will serve as a ready refresher for veteran stompers who are heading out to visit those storied fields of conflict” (Scott C. Patchan, author of The Last Battle of Winchester).

Download or read book Up and Down California in 1860 1864 written by William Henry Brewer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1974 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The journal seems to contain information for everyone regardless of one's interest...Each page of this almost six hundred page journal is crammed with facts and descriptions. So much of interest is contained in every entry that each re-reading will reveal many interesting incidents or observations not quite grasped on the first perusal....This book will be a valuable source to all students of California or United States history and to the casual readers as well.

Download or read book Staff Ride Handbook for the Overland Campaign Virginia 4 May to 15 June 1864 A Study in Operational Level Command written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Farmer s Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1866 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: