Rhode Island's Civil War Dead

Rhode Island's Civil War Dead

Author: Robert Grandchamp

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2019-11-14

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1476678715

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 Rhode Island sent 23,236 men to fight in the Civil War. They served in eight infantry regiments, three heavy artillery regiments, three regiments and one battalion of cavalry, a company of hospital guards and 10 batteries of light artillery. Hundreds more served in the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Rhode Islanders participated in nearly every major battle of the war, firing the first volleys at Bull Run, and some of the last at Appomattox. How many died in the Civil War is a question that has long eluded historians. Drawing on a 20-year study of regimental histories, pension files, letters, diaries, and visits to every cemetery in the state, award-winning Civil War historian Robert Grandchamp documents 2,217 Rhode Islanders who died as a direct result of military service. Each regiment is identified, followed by the name, rank and place of residence for each soldier, the details of their deaths and, where known, their final resting places.


All for the Union

All for the Union

Author: Elisha Hunt Rhodes

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-11-17

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0307772705

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All for the Union is the eloquent and moving diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, featured throughout Ken Burns' PBS documentary The Civil War. Rhodes enlisted into the Union Army as a private in 1861 and left it four years later as a twenty-three-year-old colonel after fighting hard and honorably in battles from Bull Run to Appomattox. Anyone who heard these diaries excerpted in The Civil War will recognize his accounts of those campaigns, which remain outstanding for their clarity and detail. Most of all, Rhodes's words reveal the motivation of a common Yankee foot soldier, an otherwise ordinary young man who endured the rigors of combat and exhausting marches, short rations, fear, and homesickness for a salary of $13 a month and the satisfaction of giving "all for the union."


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.


Sons of Providence

Sons of Providence

Author: Charles Rappleye

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2007-05-15

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 0743266889

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From the author of "American Mafioso" comes the story of the Brown brothers, leading slave merchants of Providence, Rhode Island, during the time of the American Revolution.


Colonel Edward E. Cross, New Hampshire Fighting Fifth

Colonel Edward E. Cross, New Hampshire Fighting Fifth

Author: Robert Grandchamp

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2012-11-30

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0786493224

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Edward Ephraim Cross (1832-1863) accomplished more in his short lifetime years than most men who live to be 100. By the eve of the Civil War, he had traveled from Cincinnati to Arizona working as a political reporter, travel writer, editor, trail hand, silver mine supervisor, and Indian fighter. In the summer of 1861, he became colonel of the Fighting Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers and gained fame as a fearless battlefield commander during action at Fair Oaks, Antietam, Fredricksburg, and Chancellorsville before being mortally wounded at Gettysburg. However, behind this great soldier lay a flawed man, an alcoholic with a short temper who fought a constant battle with words against immigrants, abolitionists, and others with whom he disagreed. This detailed biography presents a full portrait of this controversial and little-known figure, filling a critical gap in the literature of the northern Civil War experience.


The Last Civil War Veterans

The Last Civil War Veterans

Author: Frank L. Grzyb

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2016-04-12

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1476665222

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"It really matters very little who died last," wrote Civil War historian William Marvel, "but for some reason we seem fascinated with knowing." Drawing on a wide range of sources including correspondence with descendants, this book covers the last living Civil War veterans in each state, providing details of their wartime service as soldiers and sailors and their postwar lives as family men, entrepreneurs, politicians, frontier pioneers and honored veterans.


Union Casualties at Gettysburg

Union Casualties at Gettysburg

Author: Travis W. Busey

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2011-12-14

Total Pages: 1911

ISBN-13: 0786456183

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This reference work chronicles and categorizes more than 23,000 Union casualties at Gettysburg by generals and staff and by state and unit. Thirteen appendices also cover information by brigade, division and corps; by engagements and skirmishes; by state; by burial at three cemeteries; and by hospitals. Casualty transports, incarceration records and civilian casualty lists are also included.


A Connecticut Yankee at War

A Connecticut Yankee at War

Author: Robert Grandchamp

Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company

Published: 2019-01-05

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1455620785

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Of the many fascinating people whose lives have been nearly lost to history, George Lee Gaskell was one of the most interesting. Gaskell was a Union lieutenant, world traveler, polyglot, and politician with a keen eye for his surroundings and the natural world. His letters highlight the very human realities of his Army service that go beyond the monumental battles he fought in: Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and others. Fiercely anti-slavery and disgusted by the attitudes of some of the slaveholding planters in the South, Gaskell encountered these prejudices firsthand when he was promoted to second lieutenant and transferred to the United States Colored Troops serving in Louisiana. His remarkable story ranges from a one-room schoolhouse in Connecticut to the thriving metropolis of Zanzibar to war, life, and love on the banks of the Mississippi. Gaskell’s experiences, told through his own words in letters to his cherished sister and to his hometown newspaper, speak of an exceptional man forged in an extraordinary time.


The Reminiscences of Major General Zenas R. Bliss, 1854-1876

The Reminiscences of Major General Zenas R. Bliss, 1854-1876

Author: Zenas Randall Bliss

Publisher: Texas State Historical Assn

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13:

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The "Reminiscences" of Maj. Gen. Zenas R. Bliss are a remarkably detailed account of his army service in Texas before and after the Civil War. Many scholars consider Bliss's recollections to be one of the best from a soldier of the "Old Army." It has become a staple primary resource for Texas frontier research for the last three decades. Bliss's memoirs serve as a rare and important window into Texas' military, political, cultural, and geographical history. The memoirs cover Bliss's graduation at West Point in 1854, his antebellum service at Fort Duncan, Camp Hudson, and Fort Davis, as well as his return to the Texas frontier in 1870, and end with his duties at Fort Davis in 1876. Details also describe his capture by Texas Confederate forces in 1861, his tribulations as a prisoner of war, and his subsequent Civil War experiences as a Union regimental commander at Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and Petersburg, where he was at the battle of the Crater. For gallantry at Fredericksburg, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor. While commanding buffalo soldiers at Fort Duncan in 1870, Bliss conceived the idea of enlisting Seminole-Negro Indians from Mexico as army scouts. After successfully lobbying the departmental commander and the War Department for approval, Bliss formed the first band of Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts in August of 1870. The unit served the army with extraordinary devotion and distinction until 1912. Bliss served in Texas longer than any other army officer (twenty-three years) and rose in rank from second lieutenant to departmental commander. Possessing a keen sense of humor, an eye for detail, and a boisterous social nature, his lively account of the people and places of the antebellum and post-Civil War Texas frontier is among the very best of Texas history.