To bring the sweeping story of the Gettysburg Campaign to life, talented contemporary photographers--some dressed in period-authentic uniforms--participated in 150th Civil War reenactment events across the country. The magic of modern digital photography is skillfully combined with rare 1860s personal portraits of soldiers, along with historic photos of the gruesome aftermath of this gigantic 19th century battle. The visual approach is fresh and unprecedented yet the voices from the battle are the heart of this big book. Thousands of pages of original letters, journals and diaries were combed from dozens of historic collections to create a remarkable eyewitness narrative. Here is the soldiers' story of Gettysburg--in their own words. The lavish production offers a stunning new perspective on the most famous battle of the American Civil War.
“Emphasize[s] the role of Winfield Scott Hancock . . . [and] the Second Corps in plugging the gap and saving the day for the Union.” —Gettysburg Magazine On the afternoon of July 2, 1863, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet struck the Union left flank with a massive blow that collapsed Dan Sickles’ advanced position in the Peach Orchard and rolled northward, tearing open a large gap in the center of the Federal line on Cemetery Ridge. Fresh Confederates from A. P. Hill’s Corps advanced toward the mile-wide breach, where Southern success would split the Army of the Potomac in two. The fate of the Battle of Gettysburg hung in the balance. Despite the importance of the position, surprisingly few Union troops were available to defend Cemetery Ridge. Major General Winfield S. Hancock’s veteran Second Corps had been whittled from three divisions to less than one after Gibbon’s division was sucked into earlier fighting and Caldwell’s command was shattered in the Wheatfield. With little time and few men, Hancock determined to plug the yawning gap. Reprising Horatio at the Bridge, the gallant commander cobbled together various commands and refused to yield the precious acres in Plum Run ravine. The swirling seesaw fighting lasted for hours and included hand-to-hand combat and personal heroics of which legends are made. The Second Day at Gettysburg expands on David Shultz and David Wieck’s critically acclaimed earlier work The Battle Between the Farm Lanes. This completely revised and expanded study, which includes new photographs, original maps, and a self-guided tour of the fighting, is grounded in extensive research and unmatched personal knowledge of the terrain.
In this unique series the Civil War comes vividly to life. Here an eyewitness accounts--many available for the first time in decades--by generals, journalist, and ordinary foot soldiers, both blue and gray, who relive the conflict in all its terrible glory. Each volume brings you a human perspective on the war--its most decisive battles, its most remarkable personalities. Gettysburg: Two Eyewitness Accounts is American history at its finest--and a reading experience you will never forget. In some ways it epitomized the entire war: three hot days in July filled with missed opportunities, great courage, inconsistent leadership, and horrific, relentless carnage. In rare volume we see the battle from both sides, as experienced by two very different combatants, one Union and the other Confederate. From Little Round Top to Devil's Den to Pickett's Charge, Lt. Frank A. Haskell and Col. William C. Oates, one in a meticulous hindsight and the other still feverish with war, re-create three days that changed American history. Here are the momentous decisions of Lee, Longstreet, and Meade. Here are the fatal maneuverings of the forces in the field. And here, in descriptions unmatched in Civil War literature, is all the heartbreak and triumph of Gettysburg.
John Hough’s superbly readable historical novel, the revealing coming-of-age story of two young brothers fighting in the civil War, evokes the hardships and camaraderie of ordinary soldiers and civilians set against the bloody drama of the battle of Gettysburg. • Brilliant characters: raised by their abolitionist father on martha’s Vineyard, eighteen-year-old Luke and sixteenyear- old Thomas Chandler volunteer for the union. They join the Army of the Potomac in Virginia and take part in the long march north in June, 1863, to intercept General Lee. Luke writes home to rose, their black Cape Verdean housekeeper, with whom he shares a secret that Thomas discovers on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg. The truth enrages Thomas and causes a rift between the brothers. When the battle is over, only one will survive. • A classic in the making: Seen the Glory re-creates the Civil War experience as vividly as the classic novel The Killer Angels. The soldiers of the storied 20th massachusetts regiment, the sullen Southerners they march past, the hopeful freedmen and worried slaves, the terrified residents of Gettysburg, the battle-hardened Confederate soldiers are all rendered with brilliant realism and historical accuracy.
This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.
“An amazingly talented writer . . . NOT ONE AMONG THEM WHOLE is a magnificently harrowing trip into the bloody horrors of the battle of Gettysburg, populated with unforgettable characters and written with stunning precision and beauty.” -- Taylor Polites, author of THE REBEL WIFE"At first glance it resembles THE KILLER ANGELS and COLD MOUNTAIN -- and its artistry rivals those great novels. But it explores a deeper heart of darkness than even the shambles exhausted surgeons have to deal with after Gettysburg. A terrific achievement." -- David Poyer, author of A COUNTRY OF OUR OWN and THE SHILOH PROJECTIt is the summer of 1863, and the greatest battle ever fought on American soil is in full tilt. Southern Pennsylvania has become one great grinding stone and thousands of dead or dying are its grist. In this tilted landscape, reputations are made, careers are ruined, and men and women are driven to the brink in the wake of two armies intent on killing one another. Yet opportunity is everywhere... For the privates and officers who fight the battle, it's a kill or be killed world, with salvation or damnation just a bullet away... For the surgeons laboring over the many wounded, opportunity knocks at the bloody tables, where the price of a man's life is all too often an arm or a leg. The cost to the surgeons, however, will be even higher... For one undertaker in particular, the dead are a canvas, and his ability to make a body reflect the living individual is nothing short of uncanny. For Jupiter Jones, the burgeoning dead themselves are the opportunity... And finally, for one teenage former slave, alive only because his father had the courage to bury him, opportunity comes in the form of a ten-year-old boy with a creel and only one shoe, who may or may not be a ghost... In the summer of 1863, humanity itself is under siege. What happens amid the carnage and human flotsam of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, will be unholy, unnerving, and all but unbearable, with only this certain: not one among them will escape unscathed.
A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.
The Sword of Lincoln is the first authoritative, accessible, single-volume history of the Army of the Potomac from a renowned Civil War historian. From Bull Run to Gettysburg to Appomattox, the Army of the Potomac repeatedly fought -- and eventually defeated -- Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. Jeffry D. Wert, one of our finest Civil War historians, brings to life the battles, the generals, and the common soldiers who fought for the Union and ultimately prevailed. The Army of the Potomac endured a string of losses under a succession of flawed commanders -- McClellan, Burnside, and Hooker -- until at Gettysburg it won a decisive battle under a new commander, General George Meade. Within a year the Army of the Potomac would come under the overall leadership of the Union's new general-in-chief, Ulysses S. Grant. Under Grant the army would finally trap and defeat Lee and his forces. Wert's history draws on letters and diaries, some previously unpublished, to show us what army life was like. Throughout the book Wert shows how Lincoln carefully monitored the operations of the Army of the Potomac, learning as the war progressed, until he found in Grant the commander he'd long sought. Perceptive in its analysis and compellingly written, The Sword of Lincoln is the finest modern account of the army that was central to the Civil War.
