The West Point History of the Civil War

The West Point History of the Civil War

Author: United States Military Academy

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-10-21

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1476782628

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"Comprises six chapters of the West Point history of warfare that have been revised and expanded for the general reader"--Page vii.


Seceding from Secession

Seceding from Secession

Author: Eric J. Wittenberg

Publisher: Savas Beatie

Published: 2020-06-09

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1611215072

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A “thoroughly researched [and] historically enlightening” account of how the Commonwealth of Virginia split in two in the midst of war (Civil War News). “West Virginia was the child of the storm.” —Mountaineer historian and Civil War veteran Maj. Theodore F. Lang As the Civil War raged, the northwestern third of the Commonwealth of Virginia finally broke away in 1863 to form the Union’s 35th state. Seceding from Secession chronicles those events in an unprecedented study of the social, legal, military, and political factors that converged to bring about the birth of West Virginia. President Abraham Lincoln, an astute lawyer in his own right, played a critical role in birthing the new state. The constitutionality of the mechanism by which the new state would be created concerned the president, and he polled every member of his cabinet before signing the bill. Seceding from Secession includes a detailed discussion of the 1871 U.S. Supreme Court decision Virginia v. West Virginia, in which former Lincoln cabinet member Salmon Chase presided as chief justice over the court that decided the constitutionality of the momentous event. Grounded in a wide variety of sources and including a foreword by Frank J. Williams, former Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and Chairman Emeritus of the Lincoln Forum, this book is indispensable for anyone interested in American history.


Robert E. Lee and Me

Robert E. Lee and Me

Author: Ty Seidule

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2021-01-26

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 1250239273

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"Ty Seidule scorches us with the truth and rivets us with his fierce sense of moral urgency." --Ron Chernow In a forceful but humane narrative, former soldier and head of the West Point history department Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy—and explores why some of this country’s oldest wounds have never healed. Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhood to his service in the U.S. Army, every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who ever lived, and that the Confederates were underdogs who lost the Civil War with honor. Now, as a retired brigadier general and Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, his view has radically changed. From a soldier, a scholar, and a southerner, Ty Seidule believes that American history demands a reckoning. In a unique blend of history and reflection, Seidule deconstructs the truth about the Confederacy—that its undisputed primary goal was the subjugation and enslavement of Black Americans—and directly challenges the idea of honoring those who labored to preserve that system and committed treason in their failed attempt to achieve it. Through the arc of Seidule’s own life, as well as the culture that formed him, he seeks a path to understanding why the facts of the Civil War have remained buried beneath layers of myth and even outright lies—and how they embody a cultural gulf that separates millions of Americans to this day. Part history lecture, part meditation on the Civil War and its fallout, and part memoir, Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the deeply-held legends and myths of the Confederacy—and provides a surprising interpretation of essential truths that our country still has a difficult time articulating and accepting.


Apostles of Disunion

Apostles of Disunion

Author: Charles B. Dew

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2017-02-03

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 0813939453

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Charles Dew’s Apostles of Disunion has established itself as a modern classic and an indispensable account of the Southern states’ secession from the Union. Addressing topics still hotly debated among historians and the public at large more than a century and a half after the Civil War, the book offers a compelling and clearly substantiated argument that slavery and race were at the heart of our great national crisis. The fifteen years since the original publication of Apostles of Disunion have seen an intensification of debates surrounding the Confederate flag and Civil War monuments. In a powerful new afterword to this anniversary edition, Dew situates the book in relation to these recent controversies and factors in the role of vast financial interests tied to the internal slave trade in pushing Virginia and other upper South states toward secession and war.


Staff Ride Handbook For The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]

Staff Ride Handbook For The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Dr. Christopher Gabel

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1782899359

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Includes over 30 maps and Illustrations The Staff Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863, provides a systematic approach to the analysis of this key Civil War campaign. Part I describes the organization of the Union and Confederate Armies, detailing their weapons, tactics, and logistical, engineer, communications, and medical support. It also includes a description of the U.S. Navy elements that featured so prominently in the campaign. Part II consists of a campaign overview that establishes the context for the individual actions to be studied in the field. Part III consists of a suggested itinerary of sites to visit in order to obtain a concrete view of the campaign in its several phases. For each site, or “stand,” there is a set of travel directions, a discussion of the action that occurred there, and vignettes by participants in the campaign that further explain the action and which also allow the student to sense the human “face of battle.” Part IV provides practical information on conducting a Staff Ride in the Vicksburg area, including sources of assistance and logistical considerations. Appendix A outlines the order of battle for the significant actions in the campaign. Appendix B provides biographical sketches of key participants. Appendix C provides an overview of Medal of Honor conferral in the campaign. An annotated bibliography suggests sources for preliminary study.


The Class of 1861

The Class of 1861

Author: Ralph Kirshner

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2008-03-06

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 080932850X

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Ralph Kirshner has provided a richly illustrated forum to enable the West Point class of 1861 to write its own autobiography. Through letters, journals, and published accounts, George Armstrong Custer, Adelbert Ames, and their classmates tell in their own words of their Civil War battles and of their varied careers after the war. Two classes graduated from West Point in 1861 because of Lincoln's need of lieutenants: forty-five cadets in Ames's class in May and thirty-four in Custer's class in June. The cadets range from Henry Algernon du Pont, first in the class of May, whose ancestral home is now Winterthur Garden, to Custer, last in the class of June. “Only thirty-four graduated,” remarked Custer, “and of these thirty-three graduated above me.” West Point's mathematics professor and librarian Oliver Otis Howard, after whom Howard University is named, is also portrayed. Other famous names from the class of 1861 are John Pelham, Emory Upton, Thomas L. Rosser, John Herbert Kelly (the youngest general in the Confederacy when appointed), Patrick O'Rorke (head of the class of June), Alonzo Cushing, Peter Hains, Edmund Kirby, John Adair (the only deserter in the class), and Judson Kilpatrick (great-grandfather of Gloria Vanderbilt). They describe West Point before the Civil War, the war years, including the Vicksburg campaign and the battle of Gettysburg, the courage and character of classmates, and the ending of the war. Kirshner also highlights postwar lives, including Custer at Little Bighorn; Custer's rebel friend Rosser; John Whitney Barlow, who explored Yellowstone; du Pont, senator and author; Kilpatrick, playwright and diplomat; Orville E. Babcock, Grant's secretary until his indictment in the "Whiskey Ring"; Pierce M. B. Young, a Confederate general who became a diplomat; Hains, the only member of the class to serve on active duty in World War I; and Upton, "the class genius." The Class of 1861, which features eighty-three photographs, includes a foreword by George Plimpton, editor of theParis Review and great-grandson of General Adelbert Ames.


Tried by War

Tried by War

Author: James M. McPherson

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008-10-07

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 1440652457

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"James M. McPherson’s Tried by War is a perfect primer . . . for anyone who wishes to under­stand the evolution of the president’s role as commander in chief. Few histo­rians write as well as McPherson, and none evoke the sound of battle with greater clarity." —The New York Times Book Review The Pulitzer Prize–winning author reveals how Lincoln won the Civil War and invented the role of commander in chief as we know it As we celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, this study by preeminent, bestselling Civil War historian James M. McPherson provides a rare, fresh take on one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. Tried by War offers a revelatory (and timely) portrait of leadership during the greatest crisis our nation has ever endured. Suspenseful and inspiring, this is the story of how Lincoln, with almost no previous military experience before entering the White House, assumed the powers associated with the role of commander in chief, and through his strategic insight and will to fight changed the course of the war and saved the Union.