Anne J. Bailey - Böcker

And Keep Moving On is the first book to see the Virginia campaign of spring 1864 as Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee saw it: a single, massive operation stretching hundreds of miles. The story of the campaign is also the story of the demise of two great armies. The scale of casualties and human suffering that the campaign inflicted makes it unique in U.S. history. Mark Grimsley's study, however, is not just another battle book. Grimsley places the campaign in the political context of the 1864 presidential election; appraises the motivation of soldiers; appreciates the impact of the North’s sea power advantage; questions conventional interpretations; and examines the interconnections among the major battles, subsidiary offensives, and raids.

"The fall of Atlanta in September 1864 was an important strategic and psychological victory for the war-weary North, virtually assuring that the Union would win the Civil War while assisting Lincoln in his reelection efforts. This concise volume by McMurry . . . closely examines this significant military campaign, places the struggle in its social and political contexts, and includes useful topical appendices and a bibliographical essay. Given its brevity, focus, and the author's unique insights, this readable and well-documented volume will be welcomed by Civil War enthusiasts and scholars alike."-Library Journal

Much of the Civil War west of the Mississippi was a war of waiting for action, of foraging already stripped land for an army that supposedly could provision itself, and of disease in camp, while trying to hold out against Union pressure. There were none of the major engagements that characterized the conflict farther east. Instead, small units of confederate cavalry and infantry skirmished with Federal forces in Arkansas, Missouri, and Louisiana, trying to hold the western Confederacy together. The many units of Texans who joined this fight had a second objective - to keep the enemy out of their home state by placing themselves "between the enemy and Texas." Historian Anne J. Bailey studies one Texas unit, Parsons's Cavalry Brigade, to show how the war west of the Mississippi was fought. Historian Norman D. Brown calls this "the definitive study of Parsons's Cavalry Brigade; the story will not need to be told again." Exhaustively researched and written with literary grace, "Between the Enemy and Texas" is a "must" book for anyone interested in the role of mounted troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department.

Texas was a land of change in the nineteenth century. Different flags flew in Texas skies during this period, but horse racing remained the most popular sport under each banner. Settlers from the United States started jockey clubs and Thoroughbred horse races in the cities, while sprint racing for a quarter mile with horses of dubious ancestry reigned in the small towns and rural areas. Whether a man enjoyed short distance sprints or the longer heats of Thoroughbreds, it was clear that Texans preferred racing above all other pastimes.   As Stephen F. Austin brought his first colonists to Texas, race tracks drew huge crowds back east with crowds larger than 60,000 gathering at places like the Union Course on Long Island, New York.  As settlers moved west, they took their love of the track with them.  This book looks at the two types of racing popular in Texas from the arrival of American settlers to the beginning of the twentieth century—Thoroughbreds and quarter running horses. The new immigrants formalized racing to fit the mold practiced at the established tracks found in the eastern states. In 1903 gambling on horse racing became illegal across Texas and eventually much of the nation. The Golden Age of organized racing ended. Texans, and their love of horses, though, remains.  Anne Bailey’s Texas Turf recalls that bygone era when the most popular sport in in the state was betting on the ponies, and explores an often overlooked aspect of the Lone Star story.