Download or read book Writing and Fighting the Civil War written by William B. Styple and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The 'Sunday Mercury's' correspondents wrote of contemporary events, scenes, and personalities. They did not write from hindsight, nor are they prone to exaggerate their personal roles. The practice of the old soldier over-emphasizing his actions and placing himself on center stage has resulted in wags referring to Henry Kyd Douglas' 'I Rode With Stonewall" as 'Stonewall Rides With Me.' Generals, such as Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant, made it a practice to read enemy newspapers. It has been said that General Lee, because of the skill of the Confederate spy network in the Maryland counties fronting Chesapeake Bay and the Potomic River, true, insofar as it applies to the 'Sunday Mercury, ' the information reaching Lee from this source would be a spymaster's dream" from the foreward by Edwin C. Bearss.

Download or read book Fighting for the Confederacy written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 693 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published by UNC Press in 1989, Fighting for the Confederacy is one of the richest personal accounts in all of the vast literature on the Civil War. Alexander was involved in nearly all of the great battles of the East, from First Manassas through Appomattox, and his duties brought him into frequent contact with most of the high command of the Army of Northern Virginia, including Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and James Longstreet. No other Civil War veteran of his stature matched Alexander's ability to discuss operations in penetrating detail-- this is especially true of his description of Gettysburg. His narrative is also remarkable for its utterly candid appraisals of leaders on both sides.

Download or read book Fighting for Citizenship written by Brian Taylor and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Fighting for Citizenship, Brian Taylor complicates existing interpretations of why black men fought in the Civil War. Civil War–era African Americans recognized the urgency of a core political concern: how best to use the opportunity presented by this conflict over slavery to win abolition and secure enduring black rights, goals that had eluded earlier generations of black veterans. Some, like Frederick Douglass, urged immediate enlistment to support the cause of emancipation, hoping that a Northern victory would bring about the end of slavery. But others counseled patience and negotiation, drawing on a historical memory of unfulfilled promises for black military service in previous American wars and encouraging black men to leverage their position to demand abolition and equal citizenship. In doing this, they also began redefining what it meant to be a black man who fights for the United States. These debates over African Americans' enlistment expose a formative moment in the development of American citizenship: black Northerners' key demand was that military service earn full American citizenship, a term that had no precise definition prior to the Fourteenth Amendment. In articulating this demand, Taylor argues, black Northerners participated in the remaking of American citizenship itself—unquestionably one of the war's most important results.

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 Hymns of the Republic written by S. C. Gwynne and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell comes “a masterwork of history” (Lawrence Wright, author of God Save Texas), the spellbinding, epic account of the last year of the Civil War. The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of the most compelling narratives and one of history’s great turning points. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist S.C. Gwynne breathes new life into the epic battle between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln. “A must-read for Civil War enthusiasts” (Publishers Weekly), Hymns of the Republic offers many surprising angles and insights. Robert E. Lee, known as a great general and Southern hero, is presented here as a man dealing with frustration, failure, and loss. Ulysses S. Grant is known for his prowess as a field commander, but in the final year of the war he largely fails at that. His most amazing accomplishments actually began the moment he stopped fighting. William Tecumseh Sherman, Gwynne argues, was a lousy general, but probably the single most brilliant man in the war. We also meet a different Clara Barton, one of the greatest and most compelling characters, who redefined the idea of medical care in wartime. And proper attention is paid to the role played by large numbers of black union soldiers—most of them former slaves. Popular history at its best, Hymns of the Republic reveals the creation that arose from destruction in this “engrossing…riveting” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) read.

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 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.

Download or read book The Illustrated 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 947 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 Women s War written by Stephanie McCurry and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the PEN Oakland–Josephine Miles Award “A stunning portrayal of a tragedy endured and survived by women.” —David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass “Readers expecting hoop-skirted ladies soothing fevered soldiers’ brows will not find them here...Explodes the fiction that men fight wars while women idle on the sidelines.” —Washington Post The idea that women are outside of war is a powerful myth, one that shaped the Civil War and still determines how we write about it today. Through three dramatic stories that span the war, Stephanie McCurry invites us to see America’s bloodiest conflict for what it was: not just a brothers’ war but a women’s war. When Union soldiers faced the unexpected threat of female partisans, saboteurs, and spies, long held assumptions about the innocence of enemy women were suddenly thrown into question. McCurry shows how the case of Clara Judd, imprisoned for treason, transformed the writing of Lieber’s Code, leading to lasting changes in the laws of war. Black women’s fight for freedom had no place in the Union military’s emancipation plans. Facing a massive problem of governance as former slaves fled to their ranks, officers reclassified black women as “soldiers’ wives”—placing new obstacles on their path to freedom. Finally, McCurry offers a new perspective on the epic human drama of Reconstruction through the story of one slaveholding woman, whose losses went well beyond the material to intimate matters of family, love, and belonging, mixing grief with rage and recasting white supremacy in new, still relevant terms. “As McCurry points out in this gem of a book, many historians who view the American Civil War as a ‘people’s war’ nevertheless neglect the actions of half the people.” —James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom “In this brilliant exposition of the politics of the seemingly personal, McCurry illuminates previously unrecognized dimensions of the war’s elemental impact.” —Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering

Download or read book Fighting and Writing written by Luise White and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-08 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Fighting and Writing Luise White brings the force of her historical insight to bear on the many war memoirs published by white soldiers who fought for Rhodesia during the 1964–1979 Zimbabwean liberation struggle. In the memoirs of white soldiers fighting to defend white minority rule in Africa long after other countries were independent, White finds a robust and contentious conversation about race, difference, and the war itself. These are writings by men who were ambivalent conscripts, generally aware of the futility of their fight—not brutal pawns flawlessly executing the orders and parroting the rhetoric of a racist regime. Moreover, most of these men insisted that the most important aspects of fighting a guerrilla war—tracking and hunting, knowledge of the land and of the ways of African society—were learned from black playmates in idealized rural childhoods. In these memoirs, African guerrillas never lost their association with the wild, even as white soldiers boasted of bringing Africans into the intimate spaces of regiment and regime.

Download or read book Border War written by Stanley Harrold and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1840s and 1850s, a dangerous ferment afflicted the North-South border region, pitting the slave states of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri against the free states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Aspects of this struggle--the underground railroad, enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, mob actions, and sectional politics--are well known as parts of other stories. Here, Stanley Harrold explores the border struggle itself, the dramatic incidents that comprised it, and its role in the complex dynamics leading to the Civil War.

Download or read book The Civil War s African American Soldiers Through Primary Sources written by Carin T. Ford and published by Enslow Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This middle school series brings Civil War history to life through true stories, descriptions of major events and primary source illustrations that will enhance the reader's experience.

Download or read book Armies of Deliverance written by Elizabeth R. Varon and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Armies of Deliverance, Elizabeth Varon offers both a sweeping narrative of the Civil War and a bold new interpretation of Union and Confederate war aims.

Download or read book Battle at Bull Run written by William C. Davis and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2012-06-06 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two great, untested armies were readying for the first—and what many believed would be the last—major conflict between North and South. On the eve of July 21, 1861, one Northerner wrote: “The sky is perfectly clear, the moon is full and bright, and the air was still as if it were not within a few hours to be disturbed by the roar of cannon and the shouts of contending men.” So optimistic were the people in Washington that a crowd of civilians came from the city with picnic hampers to witness the crushing defeat of the upstart “rebels.” It was, says William C. Davis, “the twilight of America’s innocence,” and the following day the mood would shatter in a battle that confounded the expectations of both sides—the first Battle at Bull Run. William C. Davis has written a compelling and complete account of this landmark conflict. The Battle at Bull Run (or Manassas) is notable for many reasons. It was a surprise victory for the Confederacy, a humiliating defeat for the Union, and the first ominous indication that a long and bloody war was inevitable. It marked the first strategic use of railroads in history, and the first time the horrors of the battle were photographed for the folks back home. It was also a training ground for some of America’s most colorful military figures: P.G.T. Beauregard, Joe Johnston, Irvin McDowell and “Stonewall” Jackson. Drawing from a wealth of material—old letters, journals, memoirs and military records—Davis brings to life a vivid and vital chapter in American history.

Download or read book The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta written by Earl J. Hess and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-05-18 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fought on July 28, 1864, the Battle of Ezra Church was a dramatic engagement during the Civil War's Atlanta campaign. Confederate forces under John Bell Hood desperately fought to stop William T. Sherman's advancing armies as they tried to cut the last Confederate supply line into the city. Confederates under General Stephen D. Lee nearly overwhelmed the Union right flank, but Federals under General Oliver O. Howard decisively repelled every attack. After five hours of struggle, 5,000 Confederates lay dead and wounded, while only 632 Federals were lost. The result was another major step in Sherman's long effort to take Atlanta. Hess's compelling study is the first book-length account of the fighting at Ezra Church. Detailing Lee's tactical missteps and Howard's vigilant leadership, he challenges many common misconceptions about the battle. Richly narrated and drawn from an array of unpublished manuscripts and firsthand accounts, Hess's work sheds new light on the complexities and significance of this important engagement, both on and off the battlefield.

Download or read book The Summer of 63 Gettysburg written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An outstanding read for anyone interested in the Civil War and Gettysburg in particular . . . innovative and thoughtful ideas on seemingly well-covered events.” —The NYMAS Review The largest land battle on the North American continent has maintained an unshakable grip on the American imagination. Building on momentum from a string of victories that stretched back into the summer of 1862, Robert E. Lee launched his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on an invasion of the North meant to shake Union resolve and fundamentally shift the dynamic of the war. His counterpart with the Federal Army of the Potomac, George Meade, elevated to command just days before the fighting, found himself defending his home state in a high-stakes battle that could have put Confederates at the very gates of the nation’s capital. The public historians writing for the popular Emerging Civil War blog, speaking on its podcast, or delivering talks at the annual Emerging Civil War Symposium at Stevenson Ridge in Virginia always present their work in ways that engage and animate audiences. Their efforts entertain, challenge, and sometimes provoke readers with fresh perspectives and insights born from years of working on battlefields, guiding tours, presenting talks, and writing for the wider Civil War community. The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg is a compilation of some of their favorites, anthologized, revised, and updated, together with several original pieces. Each entry includes original and helpful illustrations. Along with its companion volume The Summer of ’63: Vicksburg and Tullahoma, this important study contextualizes the major 1863 campaigns in what was arguably the Civil War’s turning-point summer.

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