Download or read book The Confederate Approach on Harrisburg written by Cooper H. Wingert and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The little-known story of how Southern forces came close to invading the capital of Pennsylvania—includes photos. In June 1863, Harrisburg braced for an invasion. The Confederate troops of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell steadily moved toward the Pennsylvania capital. Capturing Carlisle en route, Ewell sent forth a brigade of cavalry under Brigadier Gen. Albert Gallatin Jenkins. After occupying Mechanicsburg for two days, Jenkins’s troops skirmished with Union militia near Harrisburg. Jenkins then reported back to Ewell that Harrisburg was vulnerable. Ewell, however, received orders from army commander Robert E. Lee to concentrate southward—toward Gettysburg—immediately. Left in front of Harrisburg, Jenkins had to fight his way out at the Battle of Sporting Hill. The following day, Jeb Stuart’s Confederate cavalry made its way to Carlisle and began the infamous shelling of its Union defenders and civilian population. Running out of ammunition and finally making contact with Lee, Stuart also retired south toward Gettysburg. In this enlightening history, author Cooper H. Wingert traces the Confederates to the gates of Harrisburg in these northernmost actions of the Gettysburg Campaign.
Download or read book Harrisburg and the Civil War written by Cooper H Wingert and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-02 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Civil War history examines the vital role played by the Pennsylvania capital and the many ways the conflict left its mark on the city and its people. Answering President Lincoln’s call for volunteers, men from across Pennsylvania swarmed Harrisburg to fight for the Union. The cityscape was transformed as soldiers camped on the lawn of the capitol, schools and churches were turned into hospitals and the local fairgrounds became the training facility of Camp Curtin. For four years, Harrisburg and its railroad hub served as a continuous facilitation site for thousands of Northern soldiers on their way to the front lines. Its vital role in the Union war effort twice placed Harrisburg in the sights of the Confederates—most famously during the Gettysburg Campaign when Southern forces neared the city's outskirts. Though civilians kept an anxious eye to the opposite bank of the Susquehanna River, Harrisburg's defenses were never breached. In Harrisburg and the Civil War, Cooper H. Wingert crafts a portrait of a capital at war, from the political climate to the interactions among the citizens and the troops.
Download or read book The Confederate Approach on Harrisburg written by Cooper H. Wingert and published by Civil War. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 1863, Harrisburg braced for an invasion as the Confederate troops of Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell steadily moved toward the Pennsylvania capital. Capturing Carlisle en route, Ewell sent forth a brigade of cavalry under Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Jenkins. After occupying Mechanicsburg for two days, Jenkins's troops skirmished with Union militia near Harrisburg. Jenkins then reported back to Ewell that Harrisburg was vulnerable. Ewell, however, received orders from army commander Lee to concentrate southward--toward Gettysburg--immediately. Left in front of Harrisburg, Jenkins had to fight his way out at the Battle of Sporting Hill. The following day, Jeb Stuart's Confederate cavalry made its way to Carlisle and began the infamous shelling of its Union defenders and civilian population. Running out of ammunition and finally making contact with Lee, Stuart also retired south toward Gettysburg. Author Cooper H. Wingert traces the Confederates to the gates of Harrisburg in these northernmost actions of the Gettysburg Campaign.
Download or read book Confrontation at Gettysburg written by John David Hoptak and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-05 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A clear and concise telling” of America’s most famous battle. “[Hoptak] has crafted a narrative that is similar to a well led tour of the battlefield” (Civil War Librarian). Fought on the first three days of July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the largest and by far the bloodiest of the Civil War. Yet the importance of this great conflagration cannot be measured in numbers alone, for Gettysburg also represented a pivotal moment in the war. The battle ended General Robert E. Lee’s second invasion of Union soil, and never again did a Confederate army reach that far north. Join historian John Hoptak as he narrates the fierce action between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac at such places as McPherson’s Ridge, the Railroad Cut, the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, Devil’s Den, Little Round Top and on Culp’s and Cemetery Hills. “His expertise comes through loud and clear in his energetic prose, combining narrative and analysis in a book that enlightens novices without boring more experienced readers.” —Historynet.com
Download or read book Dick Ewell at Carlisle written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume consists of a collection of six extensively researched essays, expanding upon the fine points of the Confederate Approach on Harrisburg.
Download or read book Facing Sherman in South Carolina written by Christopher G. Crabb and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2010-12-10 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major General William T. Sherman's march from Savannah, Georgia, to Columbia, South Carolina, was marked by a battle with an unrelenting enemy: the swamps of the Palmetto State. For more than two weeks, Sherman's veterans faced an unforgiving quagmire, coupled by daily skirmishes with gallant bands of outnumbered Confederates. Along the way, a ruined countryside and wrecked towns marked the path of an army unlike any "since the days of Julius Caesar." It would take an army as adept with the axe as they were with the rifle to tame the rivers, tributaries and swamps of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Join historian Chris Crabb as he traces the steps of Sherman's sixty-thousand-man army in its "amphibious march" from Beaufort to Columbia.
Download or read book Too Much for Human Endurance written by Ronald D. Kirkwood and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bloodstains are gone, but the worn floorboards remain. The doctors, nurses, and patients who toiled and suffered and ached for home at the Army of the Potomac's XI Corps hospital at the George Spangler farm in Gettysburg have long since departed. Fortunately, what they experienced there, and the critical importance of the property to the battle, has not been lost to history. Noted journalist and George Spangler farm expert Ronald D. Kirkwood brings these people and their experiences to life in "Too Much for Human Endurance": The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.Using a large array of firsthand accounts, Kirkwood re-creates the sprawling XI Corps hospital complex and the people who labored and suffered there--especially George and Elizabeth Spangler and their four children, who built a thriving 166-acre farm only to witness it nearly destroyed when war paid a bloody visit in the summer of 1863. Stories rarely if ever told about the wounded, dying, nurses, surgeons, ambulance workers, musicians, and others are weaved seamlessly through gripping and smooth-flowing prose.A host of notables spent time at the Spangler farm, including Union officers George G. Meade, Henry J. Hunt, Edward E. Cross, Francis Barlow, Francis Mahler, Freeman McGilvery, and Samuel K. Zook. Pvt. George Nixon III, great-grandfather of President Richard M. Nixon, would die there, as would Confederate Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, who fell mortally wounded at the height of Pickett's Charge. In addition to including the most complete lists ever published of the dead, wounded, and surgeons at the Spanglers' XI Corps hospital, this study breaks new ground with stories of the First Division, II Corps hospital at the Spanglers' Granite Schoolhouse.Kirkwood also establishes the often-overlooked strategic importance of the property and its key role in the Union victory. Army of the Potomac generals took advantage of the farm's size, access to roads, and central location to use it as a staging area to get artillery and infantry to the embattled front line from Little Round to Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill, often just in time to prevent a collapse and Confederate breakthrough."Too Much for Human Endurance," now in paperback, introduces readers to heretofore untold stories of the Spanglers, their farm, those who labored to save lives, and those who suffered and died there. They have finally received the recognition that their place in history deserves.
Download or read book Sickles at Gettysburg written by James A. Hessler and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2009-06-25 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Sickles is as dividing a figure in Civil War history as there is. In his masterful work . . . Hessler . . . puts him out there with all his wrinkles” (Confederate Book Review). Winner of the Robert E. Lee Civil War Roundtable of Central New Jersey’s Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award Winner of the Gettysburg Civil War Roundtable’s Distinguished Book Award By licensed battlefield guide James Hessler, this is the most deeply-researched, full-length biography to appear on this remarkable American icon. No individual who fought at Gettysburg was more controversial, both personally and professionally, than Major General Daniel E. Sickles. By 1863, Sickles was notorious as a disgraced former Congressman who murdered his wife’s lover on the streets of Washington and used America’s first temporary insanity defense to escape justice. With his political career in ruins, Sickles used his connections with President Lincoln to obtain a prominent command in the Army of the Potomac’s 3rd Corps—despite having no military experience. At Gettysburg, he openly disobeyed orders in one of the most controversial decisions in military history. Hessler’s critically acclaimed biography is a balanced and entertaining account of Sickles colorful life. Civil War enthusiasts who want to understand General Sickles’ scandalous life, Gettysburg’s battlefield strategies, the in-fighting within the Army of the Potomac, and the development of today’s National Park will find Sickles at Gettysburg a must-read. “The few other Sickles biographies available will now take a back seat to Hessler’s powerful and evocative study of the man, the general, and the legacy of the Gettysburg battlefield that old Dan left America. I highly recommend this book.”—J. David Petruzzi, coauthor of Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg
Download or read book Slavery the Underground Railroad in South Central Pennsylvania written by Cooper H Wingert and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2015-06-08 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This in-depth history examines how a stronghold of slavery in Pennsylvania became a central hub for the abolitionist cause. Much like the rest of the nation, South Central Pennsylvania has a fraught history of struggle over slavery. The institution lingered locally for more than fifty years, even as it went virtually extinct everywhere else within Pennsylvania. Gradually, abolitionist views prevailed as the region became an important destination for enslaved people escaping the south. The Appalachian Mountains and the Susquehanna River provided natural cover for fugitive, causing an influx of travel along the Underground Railroad. Locals like William Wright and James McAllister assisted these runaways while publicly advocating to abolish slavery. In this expert study, historian Cooper Wingert reveals the struggles between slavery and abolition in South Central Pennsylvania.
Download or read book Never Call Retreat written by Newt Gingrich and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 810 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling authors Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen conclude their inventive trilogy with Never Call Retreat, a remarkable answer to the great "what if" of the American Civil War: Could the South have indeed won? After his great victories at Gettysburg and Union Mills, General Robert E. Lee's attempt to bring the war to a final conclusion by attacking Washington, D.C., fails. However, in securing Washington, the remnants of the valiant Union Army of the Potomac, under the command of the impetuous General Dan Sickles, is trapped and destroyed. For Lincoln there is only one hope left: that General Ulysses S. Grant can save the Union cause. It is now August 22, 1863. Lincoln and Grant are facing a collapse of political will to continue the fight to preserve the Union. Lee, desperately short of manpower, must conserve his remaining strength while maneuvering for the killing blow that will take Grant's army out of the fight and, at last, bring a final and complete victory for the South. Pursuing the remnants of the defeated Army of the Potomac up to the banks of the Susquehanna, Lee is caught off balance when news arrives that General Ulysses S. Grant, in command of more than seventy thousand men, has crossed that same river, a hundred miles to the northwest at Harrisburg. As General Grant brings his Army of the Susquehanna into Maryland, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia maneuvers for position. Grant first sends General George Armstrong Custer on a mad dash to block Lee's path toward Frederick and with it control of the crucial B&O railroad, which moves troops and supplies. The two armies finally collide in Central Maryland, and a bloody week-long battle ensues along the banks of Monocacy Creek. This must be the "final" battle for both sides. In Never Call Retreat, Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen bring all of their critically acclaimed talents to bear in what is destined to become an immediate classic.
Download or read book Targeted Tracks written by Scott L. Mingus and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Anyone who is interested in Civil War logistics, wartime railroads, and the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania needs to read this study.” —Eric J. Wittenberg, award-winning historian and author The Civil War was the first conflict in which railroads played a major role. Although much has been written about their role in general, little has been written about specific lines. The Cumberland Valley Railroad, for example, played an important strategic role by connecting Hagerstown, Maryland to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Its location enhanced its importance during some of the Civil War’s most critical campaigns. Because of its proximity to major cities in the Eastern Theater, the Cumberland Valley Railroad was an enticing target for Confederate leaders and an invaluable resource for the Union Army. In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown used the CVRR in his fateful Harpers Ferry raid. The line was under direct threat by invading Confederates during the Antietam Campaign, and the following summer suffered serious damage during the Gettysburg Campaign. In 1864, Rebel raiders burned much of its headquarters town, Chambersburg, including the homes of many CVRR employees. The railroad was as vital to residents of the bustling and fertile Cumberland Valley as it was to the Union war effort. Targeted Tracks is grounded on the railway’s voluminous reports, the letters and diaries of local residents and Union and Confederate soldiers, official reports, and newspaper accounts. The primary sources, combined with the expertise of the authors, bring this largely untold story to life. “Mingus and Wingert have done a splendid job telling the story of the industrial, economic, social, and military history of the CVRR . . . engaging.” —Ted Alexander, chief historian (ret.), Antietam National Battlefield
Download or read book The Long Road to Gettysburg written by Jim Murphy and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1992 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the events of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 as seen through the eyes of two actual participants, nineteen-year-old Confederate lieutenant John Dooley and seventeen-year-old Union soldier Thomas Galway. Also discusses Lincoln's famous speech delivered at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.
Download or read book At the Forefront of Lee s Invasion written by Robert J. Wynstra and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is about the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania through the eyes of the soldiers and civilians who experienced it"--
Download or read book Staff Ride Handbook For The Vicksburg Campaign December 1862 July 1863 Illustrated Edition written by Dr. Christopher Gabel and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes over 30 maps and Illustrations The Staff Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863, provides a systematic approach to the analysis of this key Civil War campaign. Part I describes the organization of the Union and Confederate Armies, detailing their weapons, tactics, and logistical, engineer, communications, and medical support. It also includes a description of the U.S. Navy elements that featured so prominently in the campaign. Part II consists of a campaign overview that establishes the context for the individual actions to be studied in the field. Part III consists of a suggested itinerary of sites to visit in order to obtain a concrete view of the campaign in its several phases. For each site, or “stand,” there is a set of travel directions, a discussion of the action that occurred there, and vignettes by participants in the campaign that further explain the action and which also allow the student to sense the human “face of battle.” Part IV provides practical information on conducting a Staff Ride in the Vicksburg area, including sources of assistance and logistical considerations. Appendix A outlines the order of battle for the significant actions in the campaign. Appendix B provides biographical sketches of key participants. Appendix C provides an overview of Medal of Honor conferral in the campaign. An annotated bibliography suggests sources for preliminary study.
Download or read book Maryland Voices of the Civil War written by Charles W. Mitchell and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-07 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most contentious event in our nation's history, the Civil War deeply divided families, friends, and communities. Both sides fought to define the conflict on their own terms -- Lincoln and his supporters struggled to preserve the Union and end slavery, while the Confederacy waged a battle for the primacy of local liberty or "states' rights." But the war had its own peculiar effects on the four border slave states that remained loyal to the Union. Internal disputes and shifting allegiances injected uncertainty, apprehension, and violence into the everyday lives of their citizens. No state better exemplified the vital role of a border state than Maryland -- where the passage of time has not dampened debates over issues such as the alleged right of secession and executive power versus civil liberties in wartime. In Maryland Voices of the Civil War, Charles W. Mitchell draws upon hundreds of letters, diaries, and period newspapers to portray the passions of a wide variety of people -- merchants, slaves, soldiers, politicians, freedmen, women, clergy, civic leaders, and children -- caught in the emotional vise of war. Mitchell reinforces the provocative notion that Maryland's Southern sympathies -- while genuine -- never seriously threatened to bring about a Confederate Maryland. Maryland Voices of the Civil War illuminates the human complexities of the Civil War era and the political realignment that enabled Marylanders to abolish slavery in their state before the end of the war.
Download or read book The Great Invasion written by Jacob Hoke and published by . This book was released on 1959 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book William Barksdale CSA written by John Douglas Ashton and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-03-05 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An aggressive and colorful personality, William Barksdale was no stranger to controversy. Orphaned at 13, he succeeded as lawyer, newspaper editor, Mexican War veteran, politician and Confederate commander. During eight years in the U.S. Congress, he was among the South's most ardent defenders of slavery and advocates for states' rights. His emotional speeches and altercations--including a brawl on the House floor--made headlines in the years preceding secession. His fiery temper prompted three near-duels, gaining him a reputation as a brawler and knife-fighter. Arrested for intoxication, Colonel Barksdale survived a military Court of Inquiry to become one of the most beloved commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia. His reputation soared with his defense against the Union river crossing and street-fighting at Fredericksburg, and his legendary charge at Gettysburg. This first full-length biography places his life and career in historical context.
