Download or read book Where the South Lost the War written by Kendall D. Gott and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the collapse of the Confederate defenses at Forts Henry and Donelson, the entire Tennessee Valley was open to Union invasion and control.

Download or read book Why the South Lost the Civil War written by and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 1991-09-01 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a chronological account of the Civil War, reexamines theories for the South's defeat, and analyzes Confederate and Union military strategy

Download or read book Why the Confederacy Lost written by Gabor S. Boritt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993-10-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Civil War, someone asked General Pickett why the Battle of Gettysburg had been lost: Was it Lee's error in taking the offensive, the tardiness of Ewell and Early, or Longstreet's hesitation in attacking? Pickett scratched his head and replied, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it." This simple fact, writes James McPherson, has escaped a generation of historians who have looked to faulty morale, population, economics, and dissent as the causes of Confederate failure. These were all factors, he writes, but the Civil War was still a war--won by the Union army through key victories at key moments. With this brilliant review of how historians have explained the Southern defeat, McPherson opens a fascinating account by several leading historians of how the Union broke the Confederate rebellion. In every chapter, the military struggle takes center stage, as the authors reveal how battlefield decisions shaped the very forces that many scholars (putting the cart before the horse) claim determined the outcome of the war. Archer Jones examines the strategy of the two sides, showing how each had to match its military planning to political necessity. Lee raided north of the Potomac with one eye on European recognition and the other on Northern public opinion--but his inevitable retreats looked like failure to the Southern public. The North, however, developed a strategy of deep raids that was extremely effective because it served a valuable political as well as military purpose, shattering Southern morale by tearing up the interior. Gary Gallagher takes a hard look at the role of generals, narrowing his focus to the crucial triumvirate of Lee, Grant, and Sherman, who towered above the others. Lee's aggressiveness may have been costly, but he well knew the political impact of his spectacular victories; Grant and Sherman, meanwhile, were the first Union generals to fully harness Northern resources and carry out coordinated campaigns. Reid Mitchell shows how the Union's advantage in numbers was enhanced by a dedication and perseverance of federal troops that was not matched by the Confederates after their home front began to collapse. And Joseph Glatthaar examines black troops, whose role is entering the realm of national myth. In 1960, there appeared a collection of essays by major historians, entitled Why the North Won the Civil War, edited by David Donald; it is now in its twenty-sixth printing, having sold well over 100,000 copies. Why the Confederacy Lost provides a parallel volume, written by today's leading authorities. Provocatively argued and engagingly written, this work reminds us that the hard-won triumph of the North was far from inevitable.

Download or read book If the South Had Won the Civil War written by MacKinlay Kantor and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2001-11-03 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just a touch here and a tweak there . . . . MacKinlay Kantor, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, master storyteller, shows us how the South could have won the Civil War, how two small shifts in history (as we know it) in the summer of 1863 could have turned the tide for the Confederacy. What would have happened: to the Union, to Abraham Lincoln, to the people of the North and South, to the world? If the South Had Won the Civil War originally appeared in Look Magazine nearly half a century ago. It immediately inspired a deluge of letters and telegrams from astonished readers and became an American classic overnight. Published in book form soon after, Kantor's masterpiece has been unavailable for a decade. Now, this much requested classic is once again available for a new generation of readers and features a stunning cover by acclaimed Civil War artist Don Troiani, a new introduction by award-winning alternate history author Harry Turtledove, and fifteen superb illustrations by the incomparable Dan Nance. It all begins on that fateful afternoon of Tuesday, May 12, 1863, when a deplorable equestrian accident claims the life of General Ulysses S. Grant . . . . At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book The Confederate War written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If one is to believe contemporary historians, the South never had a chance. Many allege that the Confederacy lost the Civil War because of internal division or civilian disaffection; others point to flawed military strategy or ambivalence over slavery. But, argues distinguished historian Gary Gallagher, we should not ask why the Confederacy collapsed so soon but rather how it lasted so long. In The Confederate War he reexamines the Confederate experience through the actions and words of the people who lived it to show how the home front responded to the war, endured great hardships, and assembled armies that fought with tremendous spirit and determination.Gallagher’s portrait highlights a powerful sense of Confederate patriotism and unity in the face of a determined adversary. Drawing on letters, diaries, and newspapers of the day, he shows that Southerners held not only an unflagging belief in their way of life, which sustained them to the bitter end, but also a widespread expectation of victory and a strong popular will closely attuned to military events. In fact, the army’s “offensive-defensive” strategy came remarkably close to triumph, claims Gallagher—in contrast to the many historians who believe that a more purely defensive strategy or a guerrilla resistance could have won the war for the South. To understand why the South lost, Gallagher says we need look no further than the war itself: after a long struggle that brought enormous loss of life and property, Southerners finally realized that they had been beaten on the battlefield.Gallagher’s interpretation of the Confederates and their cause boldly challenges current historical thinking and invites readers to reconsider their own conceptions of the American Civil War.

Download or read book How the South Won the Civil War written by Heather Cox Richardson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies. The South and West equally depended on extractive industries-cotton in the former and mining, cattle, and oil in the latter-giving rise a new birth of white male oligarchy, despite the guarantees provided by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the economic opportunities afforded by expansion. To reveal why this happened, How the South Won the Civil War traces the story of the American paradox, the competing claims of equality and subordination woven into the nation's fabric and identity. At the nation's founding, it was the Eastern "yeoman farmer" who galvanized and symbolized the American Revolution. After the Civil War, that mantle was assumed by the Western cowboy, singlehandedly defending his land against barbarians and savages as well as from a rapacious government. New states entered the Union in the late nineteenth century and western and southern leaders found yet more common ground. As resources and people streamed into the West during the New Deal and World War II, the region's influence grew. "Movement Conservatives," led by westerners Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, claimed to embody cowboy individualism and worked with Dixiecrats to embrace the ideology of the Confederacy. Richardson's searing book seizes upon the soul of the country and its ongoing struggle to provide equal opportunity to all. Debunking the myth that the Civil War released the nation from the grip of oligarchy, expunging the sins of the Founding, it reveals how and why the Old South not only survived in the West, but thrived.

Download or read book How Robert E Lee Lost the Civil War written by Edward H. Bonekemper and published by Sergeant Kirkland's Press. This book was released on 1999-10 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the general view that Robert E. Lee was a military genius who staved off inevitable Confederate defeat against insurmountable odds. Instead, the author contends that Lee was responsible for the South's loss in a war it could have won. Instead, as this book demonstrates, Lee unnecessarily went for the win, squandered his irreplaceable troops, and weakened his army so badly that military defeat became inevitable. It describes how Lee's army took 80,000 casualties in Lees first fourteen months of command-while imposing 73,000 casualties on his opponents. With the Confederacy outnumbered four to one, Lee's aggressive strategy and tactics proved to be suicidal. Also described arc Lee's failure to take charge of the battlefield (such as on the second day of Gettysburg), his overly complex and ineffective battle plans (such as those at Antietam and during the Seven Days' campaign), and his vague and ambiguous orders (such as those that deprived him of Jeb Stuart's services for most of Gettysburg). Bonekemper looks beyond Lee's battles in the East and describes how Lee's Virginia-first myopia played a major role in crucial Confederate failures in the West. He itemizes Lee's refusals to provide reinforcements for Vicksburg or Tennessee in mid-1863, his causing James Longstreet to arrive at Chickamauga with only a third of his troops, his idea to move Longstreet away from Chattanooga just before Grant's troops broke through the undeemanned Confederates there, and his failure to reinforce Atlanta in the critical months before the 1864 presidential election. Bonekemper argues that Lee's ultimate failure was his prolonging of the hopeless and bloody slaughter even afterUnion victory had been ensured by a series of events: the fall of Atlanta, the re-election of Lincoln, and the fall of Petersburg and Richmond. Finally, the author explores historians' treatment of Lee, including the deification of him by failed Confederate generals attempting to resurrect their own reputations. Readers will not fred themselves feeling neutral about this stinging critique of the hero of The Lost Cause.

Download or read book Burying the Dead but Not the Past written by Caroline E. Janney and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immediately after the Civil War, white women across the South organized to retrieve the remains of Confederate soldiers. In Virginia alone, these Ladies' Memorial Associations (LMAs) relocated and reinterred the remains of more than 72,000 soldiers. Challenging the notion that southern white women were peripheral to the Lost Cause movement until the 1890s, Caroline Janney restores these women as the earliest creators and purveyors of Confederate tradition. Long before national groups such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the United Daughters of the Confederacy were established, Janney shows, local LMAs were earning sympathy for defeated Confederates. Her exploration introduces new ways in which gender played a vital role in shaping the politics, culture, and society of the late nineteenth-century South.

Download or read book Ends of War written by Caroline E. Janney and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-09-13 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Army of Northern Virginia's chaotic dispersal began even before Lee and Grant met at Appomattox Court House. As the Confederates had pushed west at a relentless pace for nearly a week, thousands of wounded and exhausted men fell out of the ranks. When word spread that Lee planned to surrender, most remaining troops stacked their arms and accepted paroles allowing them to return home, even as they lamented the loss of their country and cause. But others broke south and west, hoping to continue the fight. Fearing a guerrilla war, Grant extended the generous Appomattox terms to every rebel who would surrender himself. Provost marshals fanned out across Virginia and beyond, seeking nearly 18,000 of Lee's men who had yet to surrender. But the shock of Lincoln's assassination led Northern authorities to see threats of new rebellion in every rail depot and harbor where Confederates gathered for transport, even among those already paroled. While Federal troops struggled to keep order and sustain a fragile peace, their newly surrendered adversaries seethed with anger and confusion at the sight of Union troops occupying their towns and former slaves celebrating freedom. In this dramatic new history of the weeks and months after Appomattox, Caroline E. Janney reveals that Lee's surrender was less an ending than the start of an interregnum marked by military and political uncertainty, legal and logistical confusion, and continued outbursts of violence. Janney takes readers from the deliberations of government and military authorities to the ground-level experiences of common soldiers. Ultimately, what unfolds is the messy birth narrative of the Lost Cause, laying the groundwork for the defiant resilience of rebellion in the years that followed.

Download or read book Confederate Reckoning written by Stephanie McCurry and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-07 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. When the grandiosity of Southerners’ national ambitions met the harsh realities of wartime crises, unintended consequences ensued. Although Southern statesmen and generals had built the most powerful slave regime in the Western world, they had excluded the majority of their own people—white women and slaves—and thereby sowed the seeds of their demise.

Download or read book Dixie Betrayed written by David J. Eicher and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2009-05-30 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Eicher reveals the story of the political conspiracy, discord and dysfunction in Richmond that cost the South the Civil War. He shows how President Jefferson Davis fought not only with the Confederate House and Senate and with State Governers but also with his own vice-president and secretary of state.

Download or read book The Lost Cause written by Edward Alfred Pollard and published by . This book was released on 1866 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Bitterly Divided written by David Williams and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2010-04-16 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The little-known history of anti-secession Southerners: “Absolutely essential Civil War reading.” —Booklist, starred review Bitterly Divided reveals that the South was in fact fighting two civil wars—the external one that we know so much about, and an internal one about which there is scant literature and virtually no public awareness. In this fascinating look at a hidden side of the South’s history, David Williams shows the powerful and little-understood impact of the thousands of draft resisters, Southern Unionists, fugitive slaves, and other Southerners who opposed the Confederate cause. “This fast-paced book will be a revelation even to professional historians. . . . His astonishing story details the deep, often murderous divisions in Southern society. Southerners took up arms against each other, engaged in massacres, guerrilla warfare, vigilante justice and lynchings, and deserted in droves from the Confederate army . . . Some counties and regions even seceded from the secessionists . . . With this book, the history of the Civil War will never be the same again.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Most Southerners looked on the conflict with the North as ‘a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,’ especially because owners of 20 or more slaves and all planters and public officials were exempt from military service . . . The Confederacy lost, it seems, because it was precisely the kind of house divided against itself that Lincoln famously said could not stand.” —Booklist, starred review

Download or read book The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-22 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “well-reasoned and timely” (Booklist) essay collection interrogates the Lost Cause myth in Civil War historiography. Was the Confederacy doomed from the start in its struggle against the superior might of the Union? Did its forces fight heroically against all odds for the cause of states’ rights? In reality, these suggestions are an elaborate and intentional effort on the part of Southerners to rationalize the secession and the war itself. Unfortunately, skillful propagandists have been so successful in promoting this romanticized view that the Lost Cause has assumed a life of its own. Misrepresenting the war’s true origins and its actual course, the myth of the Lost Cause distorts our national memory. In The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, nine historians describe and analyze the Lost Cause, identifying ways in which it falsifies history—creating a volume that makes a significant contribution to Civil War historiography. “The Lost Cause . . . is a tangible and influential phenomenon in American culture and this book provides an excellent source for anyone seeking to explore its various dimensions.” —Southern Historian

Download or read book After Lincoln written by A. J. Langguth and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Lincoln's assassination, his "team of rivals" was left adrift. President Andrew Johnson, a former slave owner from Tennessee, was challenged by radical Republicans in Congress, who wanted to punish the defeated South. When Johnson's policies placated the rebels at the expense of the black freed men, radicals in the House impeached him for trying to fire Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Even William Seward, Lincoln's closest ally in his cabinet, seemed to waver. By the 1868 election, united Republicans nominated Ulysses Grant, Lincoln's winning Union general. The night of his victory, Grant lamented to his wife, "I'm afraid I'm elected." His attempts to reconcile Southerners with the Union and to quash the rising Ku Klux Klan were undercut by implacable Southern resistance and by corruption during his two terms.--From publisher description.

Download or read book The Night the War Was Lost written by Charles L. Dufour and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Long before the Confederacy was crushed militarily, it was defeated economically," writes Charles L. Dufour. He contends that with the fall of the critical city of New Orleans in spring 1862 the South lost the Civil War, although fighting would continueøfor three more years. On the Mississippi River, below New Orleans, in the predawn of April 24, 1862, David Farragut with fourteen gunboats ran past two forts to capture the South's principal seaport. Vividly descriptive, The Night the War Was Lost is also very human in its portrayal of terrified citizens and leaders occasionally rising to heroism. In a swift-moving narrative, Dufour explains the reasons for the seizure of New Orleans and describes its results.

Download or read book Still Fighting the Civil War written by David Goldfield and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the updated edition of his sweeping narrative on southern history, David Goldfield brings this extensive study into the present with a timely assessment of the unresolved issues surrounding the Civil War's sesquicentennial commemoration. Traversing a hundred and fifty years of memory, Goldfield confronts the remnants of the American Civil War that survive in the hearts of many of the South's residents and in the national news headlines of battle flags, racial injustice, and religious conflicts. Goldfield candidly discusses how and why white southern men fashioned the myths of the Lost Cause and Redemption out of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and how they shaped a religion to canonize the heroes and deify the events of those fateful years. He also recounts how groups of blacks and white women eventually crafted a different, more inclusive version of southern history and how that new vision competed with more traditional perspectives. The battle for southern history, and for the South, continues—in museums, public spaces, books, state legislatures, and the minds of southerners. Given the region's growing economic power and political influence, understanding this war takes on national significance. Through an analysis of ideas of history and memory, religion, race, and gender, Still Fighting the Civil War provides us with a better understanding of the South and one another.