Civil War America - Böcker

Richard McMurry compares the two largest Confederate armies, assessing why Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was more successful than the Army of Tennessee. His bold conclusion is that Lee's army was a better army--not just one with a better high command. ""Sheds new light on how the South lost the Civil War.""-- American Historical Review ""McMurry's mastery of the literature is impressive, and his clear and succinct writing style is a pleasure to read. . . . Comparison of the two great rebel armies offers valuable insights into the difficulties of the South's military situation.""-- Maryland Historian |In Engines of Innovation, Holden Thorp and Buck Goldstein make the case for the pivotal role of research universities as agents of societal change. They argue that universities must use their vast intellectual and financial resources to confront global challenges such as climate change, extreme poverty, childhood diseases, and an impending worldwide shortage of clean water. They provide not only an urgent call to action but also a practical guide for our nation's leading institutions to make the most of the opportunities available to be major players in solving the world's biggest problems. A preface and a new chapter by the authors address recent developments, including innovative licensing strategies, developments in online education, and the value of arts and sciences in an entrepreneurial society.

In a careful re-examination of the historical evidence, Alan Nolan explodes many long-standing myths about Robert E. Lee and the American Civil War. The book may change readers' perceptions of the South's premier icon, as Nolan separates the Lee of reality from the Lee of mythology. The book should be of interest to general readers as well as Civil War buffs.

The Grand Army of the Republic, the largest of all Union Army veterans' organizations, was the most powerful single-issue political lobby of the late nineteenth century, securing massive pensions for veterans and helping to elect five postwar presidents from its own membership. To its members, it was also a secret fraternal order, a source of local charity, a provider of entertainment in small municipalities, and a patriotic organization. Using GAR convention proceedings, newspapers, songs, rule books, and local post records, Stuart McConnell examines this influential veterans' association during the years of its greatest strength. Beginning with a close look at the men who joined the GAR in three localities -- Philadelphia; Brockton, Massachusetts; and Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin - McConnell goes on to examine the Union veterans' attitudes towards their former Confederate enemies and toward a whole range of noncombatants whom the verterans called ""civilians"": stay-at-home townsfolk, Mugwump penion reformers, freedmen, women, and their own sons and daughters. In the GAR, McConnell sees a group of veterans trying to cope with questions concerning the extent of society's obligation to the poor and injured, the place of war memories in peacetime, and the meaning of the ""nation"" and the individual's relation to it. McConnell aruges that, by the 1890s, the GAR was clinging to a preservationist version of American nationalism that many white, middle-class Northerners found congenial in the face of the social upheavals of that decade. In effect, he concludes, the nineteenth-century career of the GAR is a study in the microcosm of a nation trying to hold fast to an older image of itself in the face of massive social change.

Historians have traditionally drawn distinctions between Ulysses S. Grant's military and political careers. In Let Us Have Peace , Brooks Simpson questions such distinctions and offers a new understanding of this often enigmatic leader. He argues that during the 1860s Grant was both soldier and politician, for military and civil policy were inevitably intertwined during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. According to Simpson, Grant instinctively understood that war was 'politics by other means.' Moreover, he realized that civil wars presented special challenges: reconciliation, not conquest, was the Union's ultimate goal. And in peace, Grant sought to secure what had been won in war, stepping in to assume a more active role in policymaking when the intransigence of white Southerners and the obstructionist behavior of President Andrew Johnson threatened to spoil the fruits of Northern victory.

The 1862 battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas was one of the largest Civil War engagements fought on the western frontier, and it dramatically altered the balance of power in the Trans-Mississippi. This study of the battle is based on research in archives from Connecticut to California and includes a pioneering study of the terrain of the sprawling battlefield, as well as an examination of soldiers' personal experiences, the use of Native American troops, and the role of Pea Ridge in regional folklore. ""A model campaign history that merits recognition as a major contribution to the literature on Civil War military operations.""-- Journal of Military History ""Shines welcome light on the war's largest battle west of the Mississippi.""-- USA Today ""With its exhaustive research and lively prose style, this military study is virtually a model work of its kind.""-- Publishers Weekly ""A thoroughly researched and well-told account of an important but often neglected Civil War encounter.""-- Kirkus Reviews ""Offers the rich tactical detail, maps, and order of battle that military scholars love but retains a very readable style combined with liberal use of recollections of the troops and leaders involved.""-- Library Journal ""This book is assured of a place among the best of all studies that have been published on Civil War campaigns.""-- American Historical Review ""Destined to become a Civil War classic and a model for writing military history.""-- Civil War History ""A campaign study of a caliber that all should strive for and few will equal.""-- Journal of American History ""An excellent and detailed book in all accounts, scholarly and readable, with both clear writing and excellent analysis. . . . Utterly essential . . . for any serious student of the Civil War.""-- Civil War News

The reconciliation of North and South following the Civil War depended as much on cultural imagination as on the politics of Reconstruction. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Nina Silber documents the transformation from hostile sectionalism to sentimental reunion rhetoric. Northern culture created a notion of reconciliation that romanticized and feminized southern society. In tourist accounts, novels, minstrel shows, and popular magazines, northerners contributed to a mythic and nostalgic picture of the South that served to counter their anxieties regarding the breakdown of class and gender roles in Gilded Age America. Indeed, for many Yankees, the ultimate symbol of the reunion process, and one that served to reinforce Victorian values as well as northern hegemony, was the marriage of a northern man and a southern woman. Southern men also were represented as affirming traditional gender roles. As northern men wrestled with their nation's increasingly global and aggressive foreign policy, the military virtues extolled in Confederate legend became more admired than reviled. By the 1890s, concludes Silber, northern whites had accepted not only a newly resplendent image of Dixie but also a sentimentalized view of postwar reunion. |Working with personal papers and diaries and contemporary reports, historian William Marvel interweaves the stories of these two celebrated Civil War battleships, from their construction to their climactic encounter off Cherbourg. Just as importantly, he illuminates the day-to-day experiences of their crews, from cabin boys to officers.

Originally published by UNC Press in 1989, Fighting for the Confederacy is one of the richest personal accounts in all of the vast literature on the Civil War. Alexander was involved in nearly all of the great battles of the East, from First Manassas through Appomattox, and his duties brought him into frequent contact with most of the high command of the Army of Northern Virginia, including Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and James Longstreet. No other Civil War veteran of his stature matched Alexander's ability to discuss operations in penetrating detail-- this is especially true of his description of Gettysburg. His narrative is also remarkable for its utterly candid appraisals of leaders on both sides. |Rescued from an archive and published only eight years ago, this private memoir by Confederate General Porter Alexander is now recognized as one of the best books by a participant in the Civil War.

The second day's fighting at Gettysburg - the assault of the Army of Northern Virginia against the Army of the Potomac on 2nd July 1863 - was probably the critical engagement of that decisive battle. In this definitive account, Harry Pfanz introduces the men and the units, examines the development of tactical plans and the deployment of troops, and discusses the roles played by the commanders' key subordinates, whose conduct has been the source of controversy. His emphasis, though, is on the battle itself.

Southerners whose communities were invaded by the Union army during the Civil War endured a profoundly painful ordeal. For most, the coming of the Yankees was a nightmare become real; for some, it was the answer to a prayer. But for all, the author argues, invasion and occupation were essential parts of the experience of defeat that helped shape the southern postwar mentality. This is a study of the occupied South, bringing to light information about the southern home front. Among the topics explored are guerrilla warfare and other forms of civilian resistance; the evolution of Union occupation policy from leniency to repression; the impact of occupation on families, churches and local government; and conflicts between southern aristocrats and poor whites. In analyzing these topics, the author examines events from the perspective not only of southerners, but also of the northern invaders and shows how the experiences of southerners differed according to their distance from a garrisoned town.

This volume explores the lives and works of nine Northern women who wrote during the Civil War period, examining the ways in which, through their writing, they engaged in the national debates of the time. Lyde Sizer shows that from the 1850 publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin through Reconstruction, these women, as well as a larger mosaic of lesser-known writers, used their mainstream writings publicly to make sense of war, womanhood, Union, slavery, republicanism, heroism, and death. Among the authors discussed are Lydia Maria Child, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sara Willis Parton (Fanny Fern), Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mary Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), Louisa May Alcott, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Although direct political or partisan power was denied to women, these writers actively participated in discussions of national issues through their sentimental novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and letters to the editor. Sizer pays close attention to how these mostly middle-class women attempted to create a ""rhetoric of unity,"" giving common purpose to women despite differences in class, race, and politics. This theme of unity was ultimately deployed to establish a white middle-class standard of womanhood, meant to exclude as well as include. |Explores the lives and works of nine Northern women who wrote during the Civil War period, examining the ways in which they engaged in the national debates of the time. Authors discussed are Lydia Maria Child, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sara Willis Parton (Fanny Fern), Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mary Abigail Dodge (Gail Hamilton), Louisa May Alcott, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

Children--white and black, northern and southern--endured a vast and varied range of experiences during the Civil War. Children celebrated victories and mourned defeats, tightened their belts and widened their responsibilities, took part in patriotic displays and suffered shortages and hardships, fled their homes to escape enemy invaders and snatched opportunities to run toward the promise of freedom. Offering a fascinating look at how children were affected by our nation's greatest crisis, James Marten examines their toys and games, their literature and schoolbooks, the letters they exchanged with absent fathers and brothers, and the hardships they endured. He also explores children's politicization, their contributions to their homelands' war efforts, and the lessons they took away from the war. Drawing on the childhoods of such diverse Americans as Jane Addams, Booker T. Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt, and on sources that range from diaries and memoirs to children's ""amateur newspapers,"" Marten examines the myriad ways in which the Civil War shaped the lives of a generation of American children. ""An original-minded, skillfully and suggestively presented history, haunting in its detailed unfolding of a war that put so many already vulnerable youngsters in danger, but elicited from some of them, as well, impressively sensitive, responsive thoughts, gestures, and deeds in what became, as this extraordinary book's title insists, their civil war.""-- Journal of American History ""James Marten's thoroughly researched and engagingly written study . . . stands as one of the most exciting studies to emerge in the last dozen years. . . . Marten has taken a topic ignored by both Civil War historians and historians of childhood and crafted an engaging, masterful, nuanced, and readable study that will not quickly leave the reader's mind or heart.""-- American Studies ""The first comprehensive account of Civil War children. . . . Thoroughly researched and nicely illustrated, The Children's Civil War will be a touchstone for historians and generalists who seek to gain a fuller understanding of life on the home front between 1861 and 1865.""-- Civil War History The Children's Civil War is a poignant and fascinating look at childhood during our nation's greatest crisis. Using sources that include diaries, memoirs, and letters, James Marten examines the wartime experiences of young people--boys and girls, black and white, northern and southern--and traces the ways in which the Civil War shaped the lives of a generation of American children. --> |Adding an important dimension to the literature on the Civil War, this book examines the wartime experiences of children--white and black, northern and southern. Marten examines letters, games, books, and toys of the period, and includes the experiences of some famous individuals including Booker T. Washington, Jane Addams, and Theodore Roosevelt to reveal the war's impact on children's lives.

The story of an authentic American hero; This acclaimed biography traces the life and times of Joshua L. Chamberlain, the professor-turned-soldier who led the Twentieth Maine Regiment to glory at Gettysburg, earned a battlefield promotion to brigadier general from Ulysses S. Grant at Petersburg, and was wounded six times during the course of the Civil War. Chosen to accept the formal Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Chamberlain endeared himself to succeeding generations with his unforgettable salutation of Robert E. Lee's vanquished army. After the war, Chamberlain went on to serve four terms as governor of his home state of Maine and later became president of Bowdoin College. He wrote prolificaly about the war, including The Passing of the Armies, a classic account of the final campaign of the Army of the Potomac.

Political dissent and guerrilla warfare within a Confederate border state; One of the most divided regions of the Confederacy, East Tennessee was the site of fierce Unionist resistance to secession, Confederate rule, and the Southern war effort. It was also the scene of unrelenting guerrilla warfare between Union and Confederate supporters, a conflict that permanently altered the region's political, economic, and social landscape. Tracing the military and political struggle for control of East Tennessee from the secession crisis through the early years of Reconstruction, Noel Fisher portrays the brutality and ruthlessness employed not only by partisan bands but also by Confederate and Union troops under constant threat of guerrilla attack and government officials frustrated by unstinting dissent.

A Gettysburg authority details two critical engagements; Harry Pfanz provides the definitive account of the fighting between the Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill - two of the most critical engagements fought at Gettysburg on 2 and 3 July 1863. He provides detailed tactical accounts of each stage of the contest and explores the interactions between - and decisions made by - generals on both sides. In particular, he illuminates Confederate lieutenant general Richard S. Ewell's controversial decision not to attack Cemetery Hill after the initial Southern victory on 1 July.

At Cedar Mountain on August 9,1862, Stonewall Jackson exercised independent command of a campaign for the last time. Robert Krick untangles the myriad original accounts by participants on both sides of the battle to offer an illuminating portrait of the Confederate general commanding his troops under the extraordinary pressures of combat. From diaries, reminiscences, letters, and newspaper articles, Krick reconstructs a vivid and detailed account of the confrontation at Cedar Mountain and Jackson's victory there. |Robert Krick untangles the myriad accounts by participants who fought the battle on both sides, and he offers an illuminating portrait of the Confederate general commanding his troops under the extraordinary pressures of combat.

A vivid account of life in Lee's army; Based on research in more than 1,200 wartime letters and diaries by more than 400 Confederate officers and enlisted men, Lee's Miserables offers a compelling social history of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during its final year, from May 1864 to April 1865. The book uses the words of the soldiers themselves to provide a richly detailed view of the army's experiences in camp, on the march, in combat, and under siege - from the battles in the Wilderness to the final retreat to Appomattox.

A soldier, his widow, and their story; The man who gave his name to the greatest failed frontal attack in American military history, George E. Pickett is among the most famous Confederate generals of the Civil War. But even today he remains imperfectly understood, a figure shrouded in Lost Cause mythology. In this carefully researched biography, Lesley Gordon moves beyond earlier studies of Pickett. By investigating how Pickett's wife LaSalle, who outlived her husband by five decades, helped control his historical image, Gordon illuminates Pickett's legend as well as his life.

Assessing the myths and facts surrounding Pickett's charge, Carol Reardon explores why this event endures so strongly in the American imagination. She demonstrates that the story told today of the charge is really an amalgam of history and memory and that the evolution of that mix has much to tell about how the past of the USA can be understood.

The American Civil War inspired a remarkable outpouring of popular literature. From 1861 to 1865, authors and publishers in both the North and the South produced a torrent of war related works, including poems, songs, children's stories, romances, novels, histories and even humorous pieces. Mining these long-neglected sources, Alice Fahs demonstrates that instead of narrowly portraying the Civil War as a clash between two great, white armies, popular literature offered a wide range of representations of the conflict and helped shape new modes of imagining the relationships of diverse individuals - including African-Americans - to the nation.

In the mountains of western North Carolina, the Civil War was fought on different terms than those found throughout most of the South. Though relatively minor strategically, incursions by both Confederate and Union troops disrupted life and threatened the social stability of many communities. Even more disruptive were the internal divisions among western Carolinians themselves. Differing ideologies turned into opposing loyalties, and the resulting strife proved as traumatic as anything imposed by outside armies. As the mountains became hiding places for deserters, draft dodgers, fugitive slaves, and escaped prisoners of war, the conflict became a more localized and internalized guerrilla war, less rational and more brutal, mean-spirited, and personal--and ultimately more demoralizing and destructive. From the valleys of the French Broad and Catawba Rivers to the peaks of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, the people of western North Carolina responded to the war in dramatically different ways. Men and women, masters and slaves, planters and yeomen, soldiers and civilians, Confederates and Unionists, bushwhackers and home guardsmen, Democrats and Whigs--all their stories are told here. |A comprehensive history of a non-combat region of the Confederacy, the 17 mountain counties of western North Carolina where loyalties were divided. This area suffered incursions by troops from both sides; attracted draft dodgers, deserters, fugitive slaves, and escaped prisoners; and experienced brutal and demoralizing internal conflicts.

In Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee Larry Daniel offers a view from the trenches of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. his book is not the story of the commanders, but rather shows in intimate detail what the war in the western theater was like for the enlisted men. Daniel argues that the unity of the Army of Tennessee--unlike that of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia--can be understood only by viewing the army from the bottom up rather than the top down.The western army had neither strong leadership nor battlefield victories to sustain it, yet it maintained its cohesiveness. The ""glue"" that kept the men in the ranks included fear of punishment, a well-timed religious revival that stressed commitment and sacrifice, and a sense of comradeship developed through the common experience of serving under losing generals.The soldiers here tell the story in their own rich words, for Daniel quotes from an impressive variety of sources, drawing upon his reading of the letters and diaries of more than 350 soldiers as well as scores of postwar memoirs. They write about rations, ordnance, medical care, punishments, the hardships of extensive campaigning, morale, and battle. While eastern and western soldiers were more alike than different, Daniel says, there were certain subtle variances. Western troops were less disciplined, a bit rougher, and less troubled by class divisions than their eastern counterparts. Daniel concludes that shared suffering and a belief in the ability to overcome adversity bonded the soldiers of the Army of Tennessee into a resilient fighting force.

The Civil War retains a powerful hold on the American imagination, with each generation since 1865 reassessing its meaning and importance in American life. This volume collects twelve essays by leading Civil War scholars who demonstrate how the meanings of the Civil War have changed over time. The essays move among a variety of cultural and political arenas - from public monuments to political campaigns to children's literature - in order to reveal important changes in how the memory of the Civil War has been employed in American life. Setting the politics of Civil War memory within a wide social and cultural landscape, this volume recovers not only the meanings of the war in various eras, but also the specific processes by which those meanings have been created. By recounting the battles over the memory of the war during the last 140 years, the contributors offer important insights about our identities as individuals and as a nation.

In the summer of 1861, Americans were preoccupied by the question of which states would join the secession movement and which would remain loyal to the Union. This question was most fractious in the border states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. In Missouri, it was largely settled at Wilson's Creek on August 10, 1861, in a contest that is rightly considered the second major battle of the Civil War. In an in-depth narrative and analysis of this important but largely overlooked battle, William Piston and Richard Hatcher combine a traditional military study of the fighting with an innovative social analysis of the soldiers who participated and the communities that supported them.

Historians often assert that Confederate nationalism had its origins in pre-Civil War sectional conflict with the North, reached its apex at the start of the war, and then dropped off quickly after the end of hostilities. Anne Sarah Rubin argues instead that white Southerners did not actually begin to formulate a national identity until it became evident that the Confederacy was destined to fight a lengthy war against the Union. She also demonstrates that an attachment to a symbolic or sentimental Confederacy existed independent of the political Confederacy and was therefore able to persist well after the collapse of the Confederate state. White Southerners redefined symbols and figures of the failed state as emotional touchstones and political rallying points in the struggle to retain local (and racial) control, Rubin argues, even as former Confederates took the loyalty oath and applied for pardons in droves.

The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 initiated a heated debate throughout the South about what Republican control of the federal government would mean for the slaveholding states. During the secession crisis of the winter of 1860-61, Southerners spoke out and wrote prolifically on the subject, publishing their views in pamphlets that circulated widely. These tracts constituted a regional propaganda war in which Southerners vigorously debated how best to react to political developments on the national level. In this valuable reference work, Jon Wakelyn has collected twenty representative examples of this long-overlooked literature. Although the pamphlets reflect deep differences of opinion over what Lincoln's intentions were and how the South should respond, all indicate the centrality of slavery to the Southern way of life and reflect a pervasive fear of racial unrest. More generally, the pamphlets reveal a wealth of information about the South's political thought and self-identity at a defining moment in American history. The twenty items included here represent the views of leaders and opinion makers throughout the slaveholding states and are fully annotated. An additional sixty-five pamphlets are listed and briefly described in an appendix.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Women defending the home front Home front and battle front merged in 1865 when General William T. Sherman occupied Savannah and then marched his armies north through the Carolinas. When Union soldiers brought war into Southern households, Northern soldiers were frequently astounded by the fierceness with which many white Southern women defended their homes. Jacqueline Glass Campbell convincingly restores these women to their role as vital players in the fight for a Confederate nation, as models of self-assertion rather than passive self-sacrifice. Campbell also investigates the complexities behind African Americans' decisions either to stay on the plantation or to flee with Union troops. Black Southerners' delight at the coming of the army of ""emancipation"" often turned to terror as Yankees plundered their homes and assaulted black women.

The role of slaves and free blacks in the politics of secession An upper South state with nearly half a million slaves and some 50,000 free blacks, Virginia witnessed a uniquely volatile convergence of slave resistance and electoral politics in the 1850s. While masters struggled with slaves, disunionists sought to join a regionwide effort to secede and moderates sought to protect slavery but remain in the Union. Arguing for a definition of political action that extends beyond the electoral sphere, William A. Link shows that the coming of the Civil War was directly connected to Virginia's system of slavery, as the tension between defiant slaves and anxious slaveholders energized Virginia politics and spurred on the impending sectional crisis.

One of the most controversial figures in nineteenth-century American history, Thaddeus Stevens is best remembered for his role as congressional leader of the radical Republicans and as a chief architect of Reconstruction. Long painted by historians as a vindictive 'dictator of Congress,' out to punish the South at the behest of big business and his own ego, Stevens receives a more balanced treatment in Hans L. Trefousse's biography, which portrays him as an impassioned orator and a leader in the struggle against slavery. Trefousse traces Stevens's career through its major phases: from his days in the Pennsylvania state legislature, when he antagonized Freemasons, slaveholders, and Jacksonian Democrats, to his political involvement during Reconstruction, when he helped author the Fourteenth Amendment and spurred on the passage of the Reconstruction Acts and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Throughout, Trefousse explores the motivations for Stevens's lifelong commitment to racial equality, thus furnishing a fuller portrait of the man whose fervent opposition to slavery helped move his more moderate congressional colleagues toward the implementation of egalitarian policies.

Few events in Civil War history have generated such deliberate myth-making as the retreat that ended at Appomattox. William Marvel shows that during the final week of the war in Virginia, Lee's troops were more numerous yet far less faithful to their cause than has been suggested: Lee himself made mistakes in this campaign, and defeat wrung from him an unusual display of fault-finding. Finally, Marvel proves accounts of the congenial intermingling of the armies at Appomattox to be shamelessly overblown and the renowned exchange of salutes to be apocryphal.