Download or read book The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War written by John Fiske and published by Boston : Houghton, Mifflin. This book was released on 1900 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although often over-shadowed in Civil War literature by accounts of the Army of the Potomac's struggles against Robert E. Lee in Virginia and the bold Confederate invasion of the Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Western theatre of the Civil War was the scene of some of the most desperate, hard-fought and strategically important battles of the five year conflict. John Fiske's eloquent narrative begins with the seizure of the secessionist arsenal at Camp Jackson in St. Louis, MO, and follows the Union Army through its campaign to control the Mississippi River and its subsequent actions in Georgia and Tennessee. The text draws heavily on remembrances and personal journals of Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman and examines in painstaking detail not just events on the field of battle but the logistical considerations and political maneuvering that helped shape these campaigns. The result is a fascinating, informative and engrossing account of the turning of the Confederacy's left flank and the resulting defeat of the Army of the Rebellion.
Download or read book The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War Classic Reprint written by John Fiske and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-06 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Mississippi Valley, in the Civil War After an interval of some years there was a re newed call for these lectures, and in the autumn of 1895 they were given in Sanders Theatre at Har vard University. The interest thus freshly aroused led me to prepare the present volume. It contains a great deal of material that I never put into the lectures, some of it written before 1886, some of it after. The ninth chapter, on the crowning mercy of Nashville, has been added quite lately. The present volume does not belong to the series in which I have for several years been dealing with the history of the United States. Should I ever, in the course of that work, arrive at the Civil War, it will of course be treated on a very different plan from that of this book, which is a purely military narrative, restricted in its scope, and detached from the multitude of incidents which in a general history would form its context. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book The Real Horse Soldiers written by Timothy B. Smith and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2020-02-08 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This epic account is as thrilling and fast-paced as the raid itself and will quickly rival, if not surpass, Dee Brown’s Grierson’s Raid as the standard.” —Terrence J. Winschel, historian (ret.), Vicksburg National Military Park Winner, Operational/Battle History, Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award Winner, Fletcher Pratt Literary Award, Civil War Round Table of New York There were other simultaneous operations to distract Confederate attention from the real threat posed by U. S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee. Benjamin Grierson’s operation, however, mainly conducted with two Illinois cavalry regiments, has become the most famous, and for good reason: For 16 days (April 17 to May 2) Grierson led Confederate pursuers on a high-stakes chase through the entire state of Mississippi, entering the northern border with Tennessee and exiting its southern border with Louisiana. Throughout, he displayed outstanding leadership and cunning, destroyed railroad tracks, burned trestles and bridges, freed slaves, and created as much damage and chaos as possible. Grierson’s Raid broke a vital Confederate rail line at Newton Station that supplied Vicksburg and, perhaps most importantly, consumed the attention of the Confederate high command. While Confederate Lt. Gen. John Pemberton at Vicksburg and other Southern leaders looked in the wrong directions, Grant moved his entire Army of the Tennessee across the Mississippi River below Vicksburg, spelling the doom of that city, the Confederate chances of holding the river, and perhaps the Confederacy itself. Based upon years of research and presented in gripping, fast-paced prose, Timothy B. Smith’s The Real Horse Soldiers captures the high drama and tension of the 1863 horse soldiers in a modern, comprehensive, academic study. Readers will find it fills a wide void in Civil War literature.
Download or read book The Summer of 63 Vicksburg Tullahoma written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An important contribution to Civil War scholarship, offering an engrossing portrait of these important campaigns . . . this reviewer recommends it highly.” —NYMAS Review The fall of Vicksburg in July 1863 fundamentally changed the strategic picture of the American Civil War, though its outcome had been anything but certain. Union general Ulysses S. Grant tried for months to capture the Confederate Mississippi River bastion, to no avail. A bold running of the river batteries, followed by a daring river crossing and audacious overland campaign, finally allowed Grant to pen the Southern army inside the entrenched city. The long and gritty siege that followed led to the fall of the city, the opening of the Mississippi to Union traffic, and a severance of the Confederacy in two. In Tennessee, meanwhile, the Union Army of the Cumberland brilliantly recaptured thousands of square miles while sustaining fewer than six hundred casualties. Commander William Rosecrans worried the North would “overlook so great an event because it is not written in letters of blood”—and history proved him right. The Tullahoma campaign has stood nearly forgotten compared to events along the Mississippi and in south-central Pennsylvania, yet all three major Union armies scored significant victories that helped bring the war closer to an end. The public historians writing for the popular Emerging Civil War blog, speaking on its podcast, or delivering talks at its annual Emerging Civil War Symposium in Virginia always present their work in ways that engage and animate audiences. Their efforts entertain, challenge, and sometimes provoke with fresh perspectives and insights born from years of working at battlefields, guiding tours, and writing for the wider Civil War community. The Summer of ’63: Vicksburg and Tullahoma is a compilation of some of their favorites, anthologized, revised, and updated, together with several original pieces. Each entry includes helpful illustrations. This important study, when read with its companion volume The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg, contextualizes the major 1863 campaigns in what arguably was the Civil War’s turning-point summer.
Download or read book Fields of Blood written by William L. Shea and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-11-15 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Shea offers a gripping narrative of the events surrounding Prairie Grove, Arkansas, one of the great unsung battles of the Civil War that effectively ended Confederate offensive operations west of the Mississippi River. Shea provides a colorful account of a grueling campaign that lasted five months and covered hundreds of miles of rugged Ozark terrain. In a fascinating analysis of the personal, geographical, and strategic elements that led to the fateful clash in northwest Arkansas, he describes a campaign notable for rapid marching, bold movements, hard fighting, and the most remarkable raid of the Civil War.
Download or read book John Bachelder s History of the Battle of Gettysburg written by John Badger Bachelder and published by American Society for Training & Development. This book was released on 1997 with total page 842 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book War in the Western Theater written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2024-05-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War in the Western Theater offers fresh perspectives on pivotal Civil War events, shedding light on overlooked battles and figures, revealing untold stories that reshape our understanding of this crucial region. The Western Theater has long been pushed to the side by events in the Eastern Theater, but it was in the West where the Federal armies won the Civil War. Interest in this complex region is finally increasing, and the authors at Emerging Civil War add substantially to that growing body of literature with War in the Western Theater: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War. Dozens of entries offer fresh and insightful aspects and angles to key events that unfolded between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River. Revisit an important Confederate charge at Shiloh, discover how key decisions won (and lost) the bloody fighting at Chickamauga, and ponder how whiskey may have impacted the fighting at Corinth. Readers will walk the battlefield at Fort Blakeley outside Mobile, fight in the hellish cedars at Stones River, and mourn with a Mississippi family. Insights abound. How many students of the war knew a Confederate major, watching the riverine bombardment of Fort Donelson up close and personal, rushed to send detailed sketches of the ironclads to Gen. Robert E. Lee to warn him of this new way of fighting—and the lethal dangers it portended? And these are just a taste of what’s waiting inside. The selections herein bring together the best scholarship from Emerging Civil War’s blog, symposia, and podcast, revised and updated, together with original pieces designed to shed new light and insight on some of the most important and fascinating events that have for too long flown under the radar of history’s pens.
Download or read book Lee is Trapped and Must be Taken written by Thomas J. Ryan and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This award-winning Civil War history examines Robert E. Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg and the vital importance of Civil War military intelligence. While countless books have examined the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate Army’s retreat to the Potomac River remains largely untold. This comprehensive study tells the full story, including how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac to pursue Gen. Robert E. Lee’s retreating Army of Northern Virginia. The long and bloody battle exhausted both armies, and both faced difficult tasks ahead. Lee had to conduct an orderly withdrawal from the field. Meade had to assess whether his army had sufficient strength to pursue a still-dangerous enemy. Central to the respective commanders’ decisions was the intelligence they received about one another’s movements, intentions, and capability. The eleven-day period after Gettysburg was a battle of wits to determine which commander better understood the information he received. Prepare for some surprising revelations. The authors utilized a host of primary sources to craft this study, including letters, memoirs, diaries, official reports, newspapers, and telegrams. The immediacy of this material shines through in a fast-paced narrative that sheds significant new light on one of the Civil War’s most consequential episodes. Winner, Edwin C. Bearss Scholarly Research Award Winner, 2019, Hugh G. Earnhart Civil War Scholarship Award, Mahoning Valley Civil War Round Table
Download or read book Vicksburg Campaign written by Edwin C. Bearss and published by . This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 2219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Old Times on the Mississippi written by Mark Twain and published by . This book was released on 1876 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Port Hudson Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi written by Lawrence Lee Hewitt and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1994-09-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the evidence of the site has nearly vanished, Port Hudson, Louisiana, holds a distinct place in Civil War History. Located just north of Baton Rouge, the village was the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River and the site of the longest genuine siege in American military history. In Port Hudson, Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi, Lawrence Hewitt offers a compelling account of the Confederate occupation of Port Hudson in August, 1862, and the Union's efforts to capture the stronghold, culminating in a final unsuccessful assault in May, 1863. Throughout his study, Hewitt offers a colorful narrative account of daily life in the garrison, the commanders' strategies, and the importance of Port Hudson to the war.Wanting to strengthen their hold on Vicksburg, the Confederates begna constructing earthworks for a battery at Port Hudson in early April, 1862. By late summer, the first troops began arriving for duty. As thee soldiers fortified the bluff, they sought to avoid drawing fire from Union naval vessels already present in the area. Throughout their occupation of Port Hudson, the Confederate troops were able to hold their position tenaciously, fighting off Federal efforts to block supply ships by controlling the mouth of the Red River. The Union's failure to starve out the Confederates eventually led them to launch a direct assault on Port Hudson. This attack was unsuccessful and was followed by an equally disastrous siege. Consequently, Port Hudson did not surrender until after the capitulation of Vicksburg in 1863.Hewitt also discusses a unique outcome of this period of the war: the increased enlistment of black soldiers in northern units. According to the author, the newspaper coverage of the charge by black troops at Port Hudson proved to be vital in convincing the northern masses to accept the enlistment of nearly 180,000 black soldiers in the army before the end of the war. Port Hudson will generate renewed interest in and discussion of an important period in Civil War history among scholars and Civil War buffs alike.
Download or read book War on the Waters written by James M. McPherson and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2012-09-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war's naval campaigns and their military leaders. McPherson recounts how the Union navy's blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war's early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation. Commerce raiders sank Union ships and drove the American merchant marine from the high seas. Southern ironclads sent several Union warships to the bottom, naval mines sank many more, and the Confederates deployed the world's first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the war's most important strategic victories--as an essential partner to the army on the ground at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher, and all by itself at Port Royal, Fort Henry, New Orleans, and Memphis.
Download or read book The Civil War in Books written by David J. Eicher and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the assistance of several scholars, including James M. McPherson and Gary Gallagher, and a long-time specialist in Civil War books, Ralph Newman, David Eicher has selected for inclusion in The Civil War in Books the 1,100 most important books on the war. These are organized into categories as wide-ranging as "Battles and Campaigns," "Biographies, Memoirs, and Letters," "Unit Histories," and "General Works." The last of these includes volumes on black Americans and the war, battlefields, fiction, pictorial works, politics, prisons, railroads, and a host of other topics. Annotations are included for all entries in the work, which is presented in an oversized 8 1/2 x 11 inch volume in two-column format. Appendixes list "prolific" Civil War publishers and other Civil War bibliographies, and the works included in Eicher's mammoth undertaking are indexed by author or editor and by title. Gary Gallagher's foreword traces the development of Civil War bibliographies and declares that Eicher's annotation exceeds that of any previous comprehensive volume. The Civil War in Books, Gallagher believes, is "precisely the type of guide" that has been needed. The first full-scale, fully-annotated bibliography on the Civil War to appear in more than thirty years, Eicher's The Civil War in Books is a remarkable compendium of the best reading available about the worst conflict ever to strike the United States. The bibliography, the most valuable reference book on the subject since The Civil War Day by Day, will be essential for college and university libraries, dealers in rare and secondhand books, and Civil War buffs.
Download or read book Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 written by O. Edward Cunningham and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2009-06-25 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “May well be the best, most perceptive and authoritative account of the Battle of Shiloh.” —The Weekly Standard The bloody and decisive two-day battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862 changed the entire course of the American Civil War. The stunning Northern victory thrust Union commander Ulysses S. Grant into the national spotlight, claimed the life of Confederate commander Albert S. Johnston, and forever buried the notion that the Civil War would be a short conflict. The conflagration had its roots in the strong Union advance during the winter of 1861-1862 that resulted in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. The offensive collapsed General Johnston’s advanced line in Kentucky and forced him to withdraw all the way to northern Mississippi. Anxious to attack the enemy, Johnston began concentrating Southern forces at Corinth, a major railroad center just below the Tennessee border. His bold plan called for his Army of the Mississippi to march north and destroy General Grant’s Army of the Tennessee before it could link up with another Union army on the way to join him. On the morning of April 6, Johnston boasted to his subordinates, “Tonight we will water our horses in the Tennessee!” They nearly did so. Johnston’s sweeping attack hit the unsuspecting Federal camps at Pittsburg Landing and routed the enemy from position after position as they fell back toward the Tennessee River. Johnston’s death in the Peach Orchard, however, coupled with stubborn Federal resistance, widespread confusion, and Grant’s dogged determination to hold the field, saved the Union army from destruction. The arrival of General Don C. Buell’s reinforcements that night turned the tide of battle. The next day, Grant seized the initiative and attacked, driving the Confederates from the field. Shiloh was one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war, with nearly 24,000 killed, wounded, and missing. Edward Cunningham, a young Ph.D. candidate, researched and wrote Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 in 1966. Though it remained unpublished, many Shiloh experts and park rangers consider it the best overall examination of the battle ever written. Indeed, Shiloh historiography is just now catching up with Cunningham, who was decades ahead of modern scholarship. Now, Western Civil War historians Gary Joiner and Timothy Smith have resurrected this beautifully written, deeply researched manuscript from undeserved obscurity. Fully edited and richly annotated with updated citations and observations, original maps, and a complete order of battle and table of losses, it represents battle history at its finest.
Download or read book Valley Thunder written by Charles R. Knight and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2010 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles R. Knight's 'Valley Thunder' is the first full-length account in more than three decades to examine the combat at New Market on May 15, 1864--the battle that opened the pivotal 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who set in motion the wide-ranging operation to subjugate the South in 1864, intended to attack the Confederacy on multiple fronts so it could no longer "take advantage of interior lines." One of the keys to success in the Eastern Theater was control of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategically important and agriculturally abundant region that helped feed Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Grant tasked Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, a German immigrant with a mixed fighting record, and a motley collection of units numbering some 10,000 men to clear the Valley and threaten Lee's left flank. Opposing Sigel was John C. Breckinridge, a former vice president and now Confederate major general who assembled a scratch command to repulse the invading Federals. Included within the ranks of his 4,500-man army were cadets from the Virginia Military Institute under the direction of VMI Commandant of Cadets Lt. Col. Scott Ship, who had marched eighty miles in just four days to fight Sigel. When the two armies faced off at New Market, Breckinridge boldly announced, "I shall advance on him. We can attack and whip them here and we will do it!" As the general rode by the cadets he shouted, "Gentlemen, I trust I will not need your services today; but if I do, I know you will do your duty." The sharp fighting seesawed back and forth during a drenching rainstorm, and was not concluded until the cadets were dramatically inserted into the battle line to repulse a Federal attack and launch one of their own. The Confederate victory drove Union forces from the Valley, but they would return, reinforced and under new leadership, within a month. Before being repulsed, these Federals would march over the field at New Market and capture Staunton, burn VMI in Lexington (partly in retaliation for the cadets' participation at New Market), and very nearly capture Lynchburg. Operations in the Valley on a much larger scale that summer would permanently sweep the Confederates from the "Bread Basket of the Confederacy." 'Valley Thunder: The Battle of New Market' is based upon years of primary research and a firsthand appreciation of the battlefield terrain. Knight's balanced and objective approach includes a detailed examination of the complex prelude leading up to the day of battle. His entertaining prose introduces a new generation of readers to a wide array of soldiers, civilians, and politicians who found themselves swept up in one of the war's most gripping engagements. About the Author: Charles R. Knight is a native of Richmond, Virginia. He is a former Historical Interpreter at New Market Battlefield State Historical Park, and currently serves as the curator of the Douglas MacArthur Memorial. Charlie has written articles for various Civil War and railroad publications, including Blue & Gray, Classic Trains, and NRHS Bulletin. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia, with his wife and son.
Download or read book Caught in the Maelstrom written by Clint Crowe and published by . This book was released on 2017-07-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sad plight of the Five Civilized Tribes the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole during America s Civil War is both fascinating and often overlooked in the literature. From 1861-1865, the Indians fought their own bloody civil war on lands surrounded by the Kansas Territory, Arkansas, and Texas. Clint Crowe s magisterial Caught in the Maelstrom: The Indian Nations in the Civil War reveals the complexity and the importance of this war within a war, and explains how it affected the surrounding states in the Trans-Mississippi West and the course of the broader war engulfing the country. The onset of the Civil War exacerbated the divergent politics of the five tribes and resulted in the Choctaw and Chickasaw contributing men for the Confederacy and the Seminoles contributing men for the Union. The Creeks were divided between the Union and the Confederacy, while the internal war split apart the Cherokee nation mostly between those who followed Stand Watie, a brigadier general in the Confederate Army, and John Ross, who threw his majority support behind the Union cause. Throughout, Union and Confederate authorities played on divisions within the tribes to further their own strategic goals by enlisting men, signing treaties, encouraging bloodshed, and even using the hard hand of war to turn a profit. Crowe s well-written study is grounded upon a plethora of archival resources, newspapers, diaries, letter collections, and other accounts. Caught in the Maelstrom examines every facet of this complex and fascinating story in a manner sure to please the most demanding reader."
Download or read book Call Out the Cadets written by Sarah Kay Bierle and published by Emerging Civil War. This book was released on 2019 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Battle of New Market, though a smaller conflict, represented a crucial moment in the Union's offensive movements in the spring of 1864 and became the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The results of the battle between Franz Sigel and John C. Breckinridge - with the Virginia Military Institute Cadets pushing the conflict in the Confederates' favor - altered the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and the course of the American Civil War in Virginia."--Provided by publisher.
