Parallels the lives of Bowen and Grant, and argues that Bowen was one of the best commanders of the Confederacy. For Civil War buffs. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This text offers a critical biography of Patrick Cleburne. It explores the sources of Cleburne's commitment to the Southern cause, his growth as a combat leader from Shiloh to Chickamauga and his emergence as one of the Confederacy's most effective field commanders.
The first book-length study of two overlooked engagements that helped turned the tide of a pivotal Civil War battle. By May of 1863, the stone wall at the base of Marye’s Heights above Fredericksburg, Virginia, loomed large over the Army of the Potomac, haunting its men with memories of slaughter from their crushing defeat there the previous December. They would assault it again with a very different result the following spring. This time the Union troops wrested the wall and high ground from the Confederates and drove west into the enemy’s rear. The inland drive stalled in heavy fighting at Salem Church. Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front is the first book to examine Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church and the central roles they played in the final Southern victory. Authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White have long appreciated the pivotal roles these engagements played in the Chancellorsville campaign, and just how close the Southern army came to grief—and the Union army to stunning success. Together they seamlessly weave their extensive newspaper, archival, and firsthand research into a compelling narrative to better understand these combats, which usually garner little more than a footnote to the larger story of Stonewall Jackson’s march and fatal wounding. Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front offers a thorough examination of the decision-making, movements, and fighting that led to the bloody stalemate at Salem Church, as Union soldiers faced the horror of an indomitable wall of stone—and an undersized Confederate division stood up to a Union juggernaut.
No military unit in all the annals of American history exceeds in reputation Robert E. Lee's illustrious Army of Northern Virginia. In ten chapters based on exhaustive research, esteemed Civil War scholar Robert K. Krick gives eloquent examination to aspects of the army ranging from biographical sketches and the best and worst books on the subject, to Confederate troop strengths and locating soldier records. He begins with two key events: Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson's mortal wounding at Chancellorsville; and Jackson's most famous quarrel with a subordinate, which resulted in the unsuccessful court martial of General Richard B. Garnett. Krick continues with chapters on James Longstreet's failure at Knoxville and the prickly relationship between Jubal A. Early and the undisciplined Valley Cavalry. His piece on Robert E. Rodes is the first complete portrait of Lee's best division commander, whose wife methodically burned all of his letters sent home, forever preventing a full-scale biography. Krick, however, has uncovered a wide array of unpublished material on Rodes to sketch him in fresh perspective. Another essay considers the life and career of Colonel R. Welby Carter - a rogue
A. P. Hill: Lee's Forgotten General is the first biography of the Confederacy's long-neglected hero whom Lee ranked next to Jackson and Longstreet. Although the name and deeds ot this gallant Virginian conspicuously punctuate the record of every major campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia, the man himself has persistently remained what Douglas Southall Freman termed an "elusive personality." William Woods Hassler, through careful and persistent research, has compiled an interesting documentary study from which emerges a balanced portrait of this distinguished but complex character. Here for the first time is detailed the romantic triangle which enmeshed Hill and McClellan, former roommates at West Point, with beauteous Nelly Marcy, reigning queen of pre-war Washington's younger set. Hill lost this contest to Nelly's parents, but he later won the hand of General John Hunt Morgan's lovely and talented sister, Dolly. And at Sharpsburg, Hill wreaked vengeance upon McClellan by his timely arrival which saved Lee from defeat at the same time it spelled McClellan's subsequent dismissal from command of the Army of the Potomac. The author traces Hill's meteoric rise from Colonel of the redoubtable Thirteenth Virginia Regiment to Major General in command of the famed Light Division. Against a "you are there" background of intimate detail, the reader follows the exploits of tempestous Ambrose Powell Hill as he welds his officers and men into fierce striking units. Where the fighing is thickests there is the red-haired, red-shirted Hill brandishing his sword and exhorting his men to victory. Sometimes the issue ends ignominiously as at Bristoe Station, but more often the outcome is glorious as at Second Manassas and Reams Station. Gray greats and near-greats stalk through these pages with vivid reality as one meets Jeb Stuart, Dorsey Pender, John Hood, Heros von Borcke, Ham Chamerlayne, Willie Pegram, Rev. J. Wm. Jones, Cadmus Wilcox, Harry Heth, J. R. Anderson, Lawrence O'Brien Branch, James Archer, Jim Lane, Thomas Wooten, Charles Field, George Tucker, Kyd Douglas, Johnston Pettigrew, Moxley Sorrel, William H. Palmer, Wade Hampton, Jube Early, Lindsay Walker, Maxcy Gregg, Sam McGowan, and others. Accompanying Hill and his commands from pre-Manassas to the final breakthrough at Petersburg, the reader relives the campaigns in the Eastern theater. At the same time the reader gains a deeper insight into the problems of command, together with an appreciation of the hardships which the Confederate soldiers endured during even the early days of the conflict. Although Powell Hill's consideration and ability won for him the unbounded respect and devotion of his troops, his proud, sensitive nature continually embroiled him with his superiors. His dispute with Longstreet following the Seven Days Battles almost culminated in a duel. Transferred to Jackson's command, Hill outspokenly quarreled with "Old Jack" until the latter's mortal wounding at Chancellorsville effected a dramatic battlefield reconciliation. As Jackson's successor, Hill performed irregularly. The author analyzes objectively the various factors which may have caused the changes in Hill's fortunes following his elevation to corps command.
No single group of men at West Point--or possibly any academy--has been so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846. The names are legendary: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, and George Stoneman. The class fought in three wars, produced twenty generals, and left the nation a lasting legacy of bravery, brilliance, and bloodshed. This fascinating, remarkably intimate chronicle traces the lives of these unforgettable men--their training, their personalities, and the events in which they made their names and met their fates. Drawing on letters, diaries, and personal accounts, John C. Waugh has written a collective biography of masterful proportions, as vivid and engrossing as fiction in its re-creation of these brilliant figures and their pivotal roles in American history.
A historian's investigation of the life and times of Gen. George Gordon Meade to discover why the hero of Gettysburg has failed to achieve the status accorded to other generals of the conflict.
Winner of the Civil War Round Table of New York’s Fletcher Pratt Literary Award Winner of the Austin Civil War Round Table’s Daniel M. & Marilyn W. Laney Book Prize Winner of an Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award “A superb account” (The Wall Street Journal) of the longest and most decisive military campaign of the Civil War in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which opened the Mississippi River, split the Confederacy, freed tens of thousands of slaves, and made Ulysses S. Grant the most important general of the war. Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River. It prevented the Union from using the river for shipping between the Union-controlled Midwest and New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Union navy tried to take Vicksburg, which sat on a high bluff overlooking the river, but couldn’t do it. It took Grant’s army and Admiral David Porter’s navy to successfully invade Mississippi and lay siege to Vicksburg, forcing the city to surrender. In this “elegant…enlightening…well-researched and well-told” (Publishers Weekly) work, Donald L. Miller tells the full story of this year-long campaign to win the city “with probing intelligence and irresistible passion” (Booklist). He brings to life all the drama, characters, and significance of Vicksburg, a historic moment that rivals any war story in history. In the course of the campaign, tens of thousands of slaves fled to the Union lines, where more than twenty thousand became soldiers, while others seized the plantations they had been forced to work on, destroying the economy of a large part of Mississippi and creating a social revolution. With Vicksburg “Miller has produced a model work that ties together military and social history” (Civil War Times). Vicksburg solidified Grant’s reputation as the Union’s most capable general. Today no general would ever be permitted to fail as often as Grant did, but ultimately he succeeded in what he himself called the most important battle of the war—the one that all but sealed the fate of the Confederacy.
On the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, the most important moment in LGBTQ history—depicted by the people who influenced, recorded, and reacted to it. June 28, 1969, Greenwich Village: The New York City Police Department, fueled by bigoted liquor licensing practices and an omnipresent backdrop of homophobia and transphobia, raided the Stonewall Inn, a neighborhood gay bar, in the middle of the night. The raid was met with a series of responses that would go down in history as the most galvanizing period in this country's fight for sexual and gender liberation: a riotous reaction from the bar's patrons and surrounding community, followed by six days of protests. Across 200 documents, Marc Stein presents a unique record of the lessons and legacies of Stonewall. Drawing from sources that include mainstream, alternative, and LGBTQ media, gay-bar guide listings, state court decisions, political fliers, first-person accounts, song lyrics, and photographs, Stein paints an indelible portrait of this pivotal moment in the LGBT movement. In The Stonewall Riots, Stein does not construct a neatly quilted, streamlined narrative of Greenwich Village, its people, and its protests; instead, he allows multiple truths to find their voices and speak to one another, much like the conversations you'd expect to overhear in your neighborhood bar. Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the moment the first brick (or shot glass?) was thrown, The Stonewall Riots allows readers to take stock of how LGBTQ life has changed in the US, and how it has stayed the same. It offers campy stories of queer resistance, courageous accounts of movements and protests, powerful narratives of police repression, and lesser-known stories otherwise buried in the historical record, from an account of ball culture in the mid-sixties to a letter by Black Panther Huey P. Newton addressed to his brothers and sisters in the resistance. For anyone committed to political activism and social justice, The Stonewall Riots provides a much-needed resource for renewal and empowerment.
This study is a historical analysis of Confederate Major General John S. Bowen’s delaying action during the Battle of Port Gibson. This research looks at how a numerically inferior force can successfully delay a numerically superior force. This American Civil War battle during the Vicksburg Campaign pitted Bowen’s diminutive forces against the numerically superior Union forces under Major General Ulysses S. Grant. The resulting delaying action on 1 May 1863 is referred to as the Battle of Port Gibson. This successful Confederate delaying action has been overlooked in many historical contexts. Most historians emphasize Grant’s audacity in conducting an amphibious operation south of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Confederate perspective is often referred to as a gamble. Yet, against the odds, Bowen masterfully deployed his numerically inferior force to delay a Union force four times larger. Bowen’s forces effectively utilized the terrain to buy precious time for the arrival of additional reinforcements from the Vicksburg garrison. Bowen welded his composite division into a formidable fighting force. Confederate battle tactics were characterized by a strong sense of urgency and superb leadership. Bowen yielded to superior Union forces after a protracted day of bitter fighting.