The twenty-one profiles of Confederate generals in this volume chronicle the South's war effort. Familiar leaders such as Lee, Jackson, and Stuart are each covered, as are the notorious Nathan Bedford Forrest, Episcopalian bishop Leonidas Polk, and John C. Breckinridge, who ran against Lincoln in 1860 and briefly served in the U.S. Senate. With the same accessible style of the first volume, Jones shows how the outcome of battles, campaigns, and even entire theaters often depended on individual commanders.
Duane’s decision to set out on his own to join Bragg’s army at Tullahoma proves to be a mistake when a rapid chain of events carries him to Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in its winter camp around Fredericksburg. As 1863 stretches into summer, the army moves north into Pennsylvania. Duane finds himself crossing the valley at Gettysburg in a great charge against the Union Center on Cemetery Ridge.
Richard Wesley Cole was a seventh-generation American whose family got caught up in America's Civil War. He enlisted as a foot soldier with the 3rd Mississippi State Infantry in October 1863 and, less than a year later, became a horseman with George's Regiment, Mississippi Cavalry, which later became the 5th Mississippi Cavalry in General Nathan Bedford Forrest's Cavalry Department. Richard proudly rode with Forrest until Richard was killed on 12 April 1864, at the Battle of Fort Pillow in Lauderdale County, Tennessee. Richard's story is a history of his family, a partial history of the 5th Mississippi Cavalry, the 22nd Mississippi Infantry, and the 30th Mississippi Infantry, and is a history of the war itself seen through the eyes of Richard and his family. When news reached Black Hawk, Mississippi, that Confederate troops in South Carolina had fired on Fort Sumter, the men and boys of the village were excited about the possibility of war with the North and bragged that if war came, it wouldn't be long before the Yankees were defeated and sent scurrying back home. The men and boys misunderstood what war would be like, but Richard's wife, Eliza, didn't and her worst fears would be realized as the war decimated her family. Eight days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, a volunteer state militia company was formed in Black Hawk. Richard's oldest son, a son-in-law, and two future sons-in-law enlisted with the company. Richard's second son ran away from home in February 1862 and joined the Confederate Army. Eight months later, Richard left home for the war. Richard and his family lived through the most tumultuous period in our Nation's history. They experienced firsthand the hardships and horrors of a nation at war with itself and it affected them for the rest of their lives.
Moving and elegantly written, this study is riveting history: a gripping portrait of two men, whose friendship forged under fire on the Civil War's greatest battlefields, would set the stage for the crucial final year of the war.
Some 100,000 soldiers fought in the April 1862 battle of Shiloh, and nearly 20,000 men were killed or wounded; more Americans died on that Tennessee battlefield than had died in all the nation’s previous wars combined. In the first book in his new series, Steven E. Woodworth has brought together a group of superb historians to reassess this significant battleandprovide in-depth analyses of key aspects of the campaign and its aftermath. The eight talented contributors dissect the campaign’s fundamental events, many of which have not received adequate attention before now. John R. Lundberg examines the role of Albert Sidney Johnston, the prized Confederate commander who recovered impressively after a less-than-stellar performance at forts Henry and Donelson only to die at Shiloh; Alexander Mendoza analyzes the crucial, and perhaps decisive, struggle to defend the Union’s left; Timothy B. Smith investigates the persistent legend that the Hornet’s Nest was the spot of the hottest fighting at Shiloh; Steven E. Woodworth follows Lew Wallace’s controversial march to the battlefield and shows why Ulysses S. Grant never forgave him; Gary D. Joiner provides the deepest analysis available of action by the Union gunboats; Grady McWhineydescribes P. G. T. Beauregard’s decision to stop the first day’s attack and takes issue with his claim of victory; and Charles D. Grear shows the battle’s impact on Confederate soldiers, many of whom did not consider the battle a defeat for their side. In the final chapter, Brooks D. Simpson analyzes how command relationships—specifically the interactions among Grant, Henry Halleck, William T. Sherman, and Abraham Lincoln—affected the campaign and debunks commonly held beliefs about Grant’s reactions to Shiloh’s aftermath. The Shiloh Campaign will enhance readers’ understanding of a pivotal battle that helped unlock the western theater to Union conquest. It is sure to inspire further study of and debate about one of the American Civil War’s momentous campaigns.
Reunited with Captain Marshalton and Johnny Applebee following the battle at Gettysburg, Duane journeys with them to become part of General David Birney’s division of the Army of the Potomac. But the spring campaigns begin and a decision is put on hold. TOWARD THE END OF THE SEARCH follows Duane’s experience through the horrible slaughter during the weeks from The Wilderness, to Spotsylvania Court House, to Cold Harbor. There events and a letter about his pa send him from the war to return homeward in the company of Jonah Christopher, the young son of a Yankee sutler.
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
Since the Antebellum days there has been a tendency to view the South as martially superior to the North. In the years leading up to the Civil War, Southern elites viewed Confederate soldiers as gallant cavaliers, their Northern enemies as mere brutish inductees. An effort to give an unbiased appraisal, this book investigates the validity of this perception, examining the reasoning behind the belief in Southern military supremacy, why the South expected to win, and offering an cultural comparison of the antebellum North and South. The author evaluates command leadership, battle efficiency, variables affecting the outcomes of battles and campaigns, and which side faced the more difficult path to victory and demonstrated superior strategy.
Duane Kincade was a farm boy in the Ozark countryside. His dog was his close his close friend. His Pa was his best friend. That spring of 1861 was a season marred by the opening of war as a nation split in two. Disappearing into the fabric of a distant conflict was the father whose absence became increasingly unbearable to the son who loved him so much. ON THE EVE OF CONFLICT is the story of that boy’s experiences and eventual decision to go in search of his father. It is the beginning of a journey which will put him on the road to war and eventually carry him into midst of the conflict.
