Memoirs of Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, Chief of the Aeronautic Corps of the Army of the United States During the Civil War
Memoirs of Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, Chief of the Aeronautic Corps of the Army of the United States During the Civil War

Author: Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9780889460997

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"Although Thaddeus Lowe is a known figure to some historians, his scientific contributions such as the portable gas generators that filled his balloons and the compression ice machine that introduced artificial ice to the world, remain largely hidden. Ironically, it is very possible to find literature that references his work and his Civil War experiences, yet it is nearly impossible to read the book that this related literature is based upon ; Lowe's autobiography. This book has been prepared from one of the only known copies of Lowe's difficult-to-decipher text. It includes photographs of the inventor and his balloons as well as photos of artifacts such as correspondences (including a handwritten note from President Lincoln) and receipts. It also contains relevant maps and supplementary information to enhance understanding of Lowe's journeys and the battles he participated in"--Publisher.

Corps Commanders in Blue
Corps Commanders in Blue

Author: Ethan S. Rafuse

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2014-11-04

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 080715704X

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The outcomes of campaigns in the Civil War often depended on top generals having the right corps commanders in the right place at the right time. Mutual trust and respect between generals and their corps commanders, though vital to military success, was all too rare: Corps commanders were often forced to exercise considerable discretion in the execution of orders from their generals, and bitter public arguments over commanders' performances in battle followed hard on the heels of many major engagements. Controversies that arose during the war around the decisions of corps and army commanders-such as Daniel Sickles's disregard of George Meade's orders at the Battle of Gettysburg-continue to provoke vigorous debate among students of the Civil War. Corps Commanders in Blue offers eight case studies that illuminate the critical roles the Union corps commanders played in shaping the war's course and outcome. The contributors examine, and in many cases challenge, widespread assumptions about these men while considering the array of internal and external forces that shaped their efforts on and off the battlefield. Providing insight into the military conduct of the Civil War, Corps Commanders in Blue fills a significant gap in the historiography of the war by offering compelling examinations of the challenges of corps command in particular campaigns, the men who exercised that command, and the array of factors that shaped their efforts, for good or for ill.

A Fierce Glory
A Fierce Glory

Author: Justin Martin

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 2018-09-11

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0306825260

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On September 17, 1862, the "United States" was on the brink, facing a permanent split into two separate nations. America's very future hung on the outcome of a single battle--and the result reverberates to this day. Given the deep divisions that still rive the nation, given what unites the country, too, Antietam is more relevant now than ever. The epic battle, fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland, was a Civil War turning point. The South had just launched its first invasion of the North; victory for Robert E. Lee would almost certainly have ended the war on Confederate terms. If the Union prevailed, Lincoln stood ready to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He knew that freeing the slaves would lend renewed energy and lofty purpose to the North's war effort. Lincoln needed a victory to save the divided country, but victory would come at a price. Detailed here is the cannon din and desperation, the horrors and heroes of this monumental battle, one that killed 3,650 soldiers, still the highest single-day toll in American history. Justin Martin, an acclaimed writer of narrative nonfiction, renders this landmark event in a revealing new way. More than in previous accounts, Lincoln is laced deeply into the story. Antietam represents Lincoln at his finest, as the grief-racked president--struggling with the recent death of his son, Willie--summoned the guile necessary to manage his reluctant general, George McClellan. The Emancipation Proclamation would be the greatest gambit of the nation's most inspired leader. And, in fact, the battle's impact extended far beyond the field; brilliant and lasting innovations in medicine, photography, and communications were given crucial real-world tests. No mere gunfight, Antietam rippled through politics and society, transforming history. A Fierce Glory is a fresh and vibrant account of an event that had enduring consequences that still resonate today.

Civil War Special Forces
Civil War Special Forces

Author: Robert P. Broadwater

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-08-26

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1440830584

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This timely addition to Civil War history shares the stories of 25 unique military organizations, showing how past and future collided in the first modern war. The Civil War, of course, pitted North against South. It also pitted ancient ways of war against new, technology-inspired weaponry and tactics. In surveying the war's elite fighting units, this work covers both. The book showcases novel weapons and unorthodox strategies, including machine gunners, rocket battalions, chemical corps, the Union balloon corps, and the Confederate submarine service, all of which harnessed new technologies and were forerunners of the modern military. Chapters also cover archaic special forces, such as lancers and pikers, that had their last hurrah during this transformational conflict. Readers will also meet the fighting youth of the North Carolina Junior Reserves, the "Graybeards" of North Carolina, and the female combatants of the Nancy Harts Militia of Georgia. Going where few other studies have gone, the book fills a gap in existing Civil War literature and brings to life the stories of many of the most extraordinary units that ever served in an American army. The tales it tells will prove fascinating to Civil War and weapons buffs and to general readers alike.

Lincoln's Flying Spies
Lincoln's Flying Spies

Author: Gail Jarrow

Publisher: Calkins Creek Books

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 1590787196

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Discusses a corps of balloonists led by Thaddeus Lowe during the Civil War who spied on the Confederate Army.

Wild Rose
Wild Rose

Author: Ann Blackman

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2005-06-07

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 158836481X

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For sheer bravado and style, no woman in the North or South rivaled the Civil War heroine Rose O’Neale Greenhow. Fearless spy for the Confederacy, glittering Washington hostess, legendary beauty and lover, Rose Greenhow risked everything for the cause she valued more than life itself. In this superb portrait, biographer Ann Blackman tells the surprising true story of a unique woman in history. “I am a Southern woman, born with revolutionary blood in my veins,” Rose once declared–and that fiery spirit would plunge her into the center of power and the thick of adventure. Born into a slave-holding family, Rose moved to Washington, D.C., as a young woman and soon established herself as one of the capital’s most charming and influential socialites, an intimate of John C. Calhoun, James Buchanan, and Dolley Madison. She married well, bore eight children and buried five, and, at the height of the Gold Rush, accompanied her husband Robert Greenhow to San Francisco. Widowed after Robert died in a tragic accident, Rose became notorious in Washington for her daring–and numerous–love affairs. But with the outbreak of the Civil War, everything changed. Overnight, Rose Greenhow, fashionable hostess, become Rose Greenhow, intrepid spy. As Blackman reveals, deadly accurate intelligence that Rose supplied to General Pierre G. T. Beauregard written in a fascinating code (the code duplicated in the background on the jacket of this book). Her message to Beauregard turned the tide in the first Battle of Bull Run, and was a brilliant piece of spycraft that eventually led to her arrest by Allan Pinkerton and imprisonment with her young daughter. Indomitable, Rose regained her freedom and, as the war reached a crisis, journeyed to Europe to plead the Confederate cause at the royal courts of England and France. Drawing on newly discovered diaries and a rich trove of contemporary accounts, Blackman has fashioned a thrilling, intimate narrative that reads like a novel. Wild Rose is an unforgettable rendering of an astonishing woman, a book that will stand with the finest Civil War biographies.

Flights of Imagination
Flights of Imagination

Author: Sonja Dümpelmann

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2014-09-19

Total Pages: 579

ISBN-13: 0813935849

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In much the same way that views of the earth from the Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s led indirectly to the inauguration of Earth Day and the modern environmental movement, the dawn of aviation ushered in a radically new way for architects, landscape designers, urban planners, geographers, and archaeologists to look at cities and landscapes. As icons of modernity, airports facilitated the development of a global economy during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, reshaping the way people thought about the world around them. Professionals of the built environment awoke to the possibilities offered by the airports themselves as sites of design and by the electrifying new aerial perspective on landscape. In Flights of Imagination, Sonja Dümpelmann follows the evolution of airports from their conceptualization as landscapes and cities to modern-day plans to turn decommissioned airports into public urban parks. The author discusses landscape design and planning activities that were motivated, legitimized, and facilitated by the aerial view. She also shows how viewing the earth from above redirected attention to bodily experience on the ground and illustrates how design professionals understood the aerial view as simultaneously abstract and experiential, detailed and contextual, harmful and essential. Along the way, Dümpelmann traces this multiple dialectic from the 1920s to the land-camouflage activities during World War II, and from the environmental and landscape planning initiatives of the 1960s through today.

Astride Two Worlds
Astride Two Worlds

Author: Barton C. Hacker

Publisher: Smithsonian Institution

Published: 2016-05-03

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 1935623923

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By the middle of the nineteenth century, industrialization and military-technological innovation were beginning to alter drastically the character and conditions of warfare as it had been conducted for centuries. Occurring in the midst of these far-reaching changes, the American Civil War can justly be labeled both the last great preindustrial war and the first major war of the industrial age. Industrial capacity attained new levels of military significance as transportation improved, but in this, as in many other respects, the Civil War was distinctly transitional. Smoothbore artillery still dominated the battlefield, horse-drawn wagons and pack mules still carried the main logistic burden, seamstresses still outnumbered sewing-machine operators. Astride Two Worlds addresses the various causes and consequences of technological change for the course and outcome of the American Civil War.

Yorktown, Virginia
Yorktown, Virginia

Author: Wilford Kale

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2018-10-22

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 143966563X

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Yorktown's history is often overshadowed by its pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. The site of the British surrender has held several victory commemorations over the past two hundred years. Yorktown also was a thriving colonial port and the site of one of the biggest Union blunders in the Civil War. During Reconstruction, former slaves created a vibrant community called Slabtown on the edge of the hamlet. In the 1930s, the National Park Service began preserving the battlefield; what was for decades a sleepy village is now dominated by tourism, and nearby modern military installations have helped to give it new life. Join author Wilford Kale as he reveals the many facets of Yorktown.