George Stoneman: A Biography of the Union General

by Ben Fuller Fordney

From the publisher:
During an 1865 raid through North Carolina, Major General George Stoneman missed capturing the fleeing Jefferson Davis only by a matter of hours, timing somewhat typical of Stoneman’s life and career.

This biography provides an in-depth look at the life and military career of Major General George Stoneman, beginning with his participation in the 2,000-mile march of the Mormon Battalion and other western expeditions.

The main body of the work focuses on his Civil War service, during which he directed the progress of the Union cavalry and led several pivotal raids on Confederate forces.

In spite of Stoneman’s postwar career as military governor of Virginia and governor of California, his life was marked by his inability to reach ultimate success in war or politics, necessitating a discussion of his weaknesses as a commander and a politician. Period photographs are included.

The Women Will Howl: The Union Army Capture of Roswell and New Manchester, Georgia, and the Forced Relocation of Mill Workers

by Mary Deborah Petite

From the publisher:
In July 1864, Union General William T. Sherman ordered the arrest and deportation of over 400 women and children from the villages of Roswell and New Manchester, Georgia. Branded traitors for their work in the cotton mills which supplied much needed material to the Confederacy, these civilians were shipped to cities in the North (already crowded with refugees) and left to fend for themselves.

This work details the little known story of the hardships these women and children endured before and—most especially—after they were forcibly taken from their homes. Beginning with the founding of Roswell, it examines the prevalent atmosphere in the area and the pre-war circumstances that created this class of women. The main focus, however, is what befell the women at the hands of Sherman’s army and what they faced once they reached Northern states such as Illinois and Indiana. An appendix details the roll of political prisoners from Sweetwater (New Manchester).

Mary Deborah Petite lives in Foster City, California.

More Than a Contest Between Armies: Essays on the Civil War Era

by James Marten and A. Kristen Foster (editors)

From the publisher:
For more than a decade, Marquette University has honored Frank L. Klement, a longtime member of its history department whose reputation as a historian was established with his “alternative view” of the Civil War, with the annual Frank L. Klement Lectures: Alternative Views of the Sectional Conflict. Lecturers are asked to examine an unexplored aspect of the Civil War or to reinterpret an important theme of the conflict, including, among others, the war’s effect on race and gender, historians’ interest in studying the experiences of representative individuals as well as communities, and the emerging field of memory studies.

From the very beginning of the series, lecturers were chosen from among the best-known Civil War historians. They are among the elite scholars responsible for the continuing popularity of the Civil War era among both academics and the interested public. The twelve essays in this anthology were lectures presented by Edward L. Ayers, William Blair, David W. Blight, Catherine Clinton, Gary W. Gallagher, J. Matthew Gallman, Lesley J. Gordon, Robert W. Johannsen, Mark E. Neely Jr., George Rable, John Y. Simon, and Joan Waugh.

In a single volume, More Than a Contest Between Armies offers readers an impressive array of topics, approaches, and perspectives certain to interest both buffs and scholars.

James Marten is professor and chair of the history department at Marquette University and founder of the Frank L. Klement Lecture Series.

A. Kristen Foster is assistant professor in the history department at Marquette University.

George Thomas: Virginian for the Union

by Christopher J. Einolf

From CWBN:
Remembered as the "Rock of Chickamauga," Thomas was so effective he became one of the most prominent Union generals and at one point was considered for overall command of the Union Army. Yet he has been eclipsed in fame by such names as Grant, Sherman, or Sheridan.

Offering vivid accounts of combat, Einolf depicts the fighting from Thomas's perspective to allow a unique look at the real experience of decision making on the battlefield. He examines the general's recurring confrontations with the Union high command to make a strong case for Thomas's integrity and competence, even as he exposes Thomas's shortcomings and poor decisions. The result is a more balanced, nuanced picture than has previously been available. Einolf also explores Thomas's schooling at West Point, early military service in the Seminole and Mexican wars, and his postwar life--notably his service as a military commander in Tennessee protecting freed slaves from the terror of the Ku Klux Klan.

Christopher J. Einolf is the author of The Mercy Factory: Refugees and the American Asylum System.

Campaign for Wilson's Creek: The Fight for Missouri Begins

by Jeffrey L. Patrick

From the publisher:
In early 1861, most Missourians hoped they could remain neutral in the upcoming conflict between North and South. In fact, a popularly elected state convention voted in March of that year that "no adequate cause" existed to compel Missouri to leave the Union. Instead, Missourians saw themselves as ideologically centered between the radical notions of abolition and secession.

By that summer, however, the situation had deteriorated dramatically. Due to the actions of politicians and soldiers such as Missouri Gov. Claiborne Jackson and Union Gen. Nathaniel Lyon, Missourians found themselves forced to take sides.

Campaign for Wilson's Creek is a fascinating story of high-stakes military gambles, aggressive leadership and lost opportunities. It is also a tale of unique military units, untried but determined commanders, colorful volunteers and professional soldiers. The first major campaign of the Civil War west of the Mississippi River guaranteed that Missourians would be engaged in a long, cruel civil war within the larger, national struggle.

Jeffrey L. Patrick is the National Park Service librarian at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield. He is the author of numerous articles on various aspects of American military history, and is the editor/coeditor of two Civil War diaries. He lives in Republic, Missouri.

Waters of Discord: The Union Blockade of Texas During the Civil War

by Rodman L. Underwood

From the publisher:
At the beginning of the American Civil War the Federal government imposed a blockade of the southern coast of the Confederate States of America, including the “dark corner of the Confederacy”—Texas. Much of the fighting in Texas during the Civil War took place in the state’s coastal counties and the adjoining Gulf of Mexico waters, and nearly all of these engagements were involved in one way or another with the Union blockade of the Texas coast.

This book examines all major blockade-related land and sea engagements in and near Texas, and also includes many minor ones. It begins with a discussion of the blockade’s creation and then concentrates on the successful Confederate efforts to evade the blockade by shipping cotton out of Mexico and, in return, receiving matériel and civilian goods through that neutral nation. The author also covers political intrigue and the spy activity with the French who had invaded Mexico. The book concludes with an analysis of the effectiveness of the Union blockade of Texas.

“excellent...well documented” — The Civil War News.

Rodman L. Underwood is also the author of Stephen Russell Mallory (2005). He lives in Port Orange, Florida.

The Camden Expedition of 1864 and the Opportunity Lost by the Confederacy to Change the Civil War

by Michael J. Forsyth

From the publisher:
The Confederacy had a great opportunity to turn the Civil War in its favor in 1864, but squandered this chance when it failed to finish off a Union army cornered in Louisiana because of concerns about another Union army coming south from Arkansas. The Confederates were so confused that they could not agree on a course of action to contend with both threats, thus the Union offensive advancing from Arkansas saved the one in Louisiana and became known to history as the Camden Expedition.

The Camden Expedition is intriguing because of the “might-have-beens” had the key players made different decisions. The author contends that if Frederick Steele, commander of the Federal VII Army Corps, had not received a direct order from General Ulysses S. Grant to move south, disaster would have befallen not only the Army of the Gulf in Louisiana but the entire Union cause, and possibly would have prevented Abraham Lincoln from winning reelection.

“Well-researched and very readable account...maps are excellent and a valuable order of battle and campaign chronology are included...fine study...this exciting account of the Camden Expedition will convince readers that there are still good stories to be found ‘west of the river’” — The Civil War News

“Scholarly...recommended” — Colorado Libraries

“Compelling...Forsyth is an excellent military author” — The Journal of America’s Military Past

A lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, Michael J. Forsyth is also the author of The Red River Campaign of 1864 and the Loss by the Confederacy of the Civil War (2002).

Reminiscences of Major General Zenas R. Bliss, 1854-1876: From the Texas Frontier to the Civil War and Back Again

by Thomas T. Smith, Jerry D. Thompson, Robert Wooster, and Ben E. Pingenot (Editors)

From the publisher:
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.

COL. THOMAS T. SMITH, Garrison Commander, Fort Riley, Kansas, is the author of The Old Army in Texas. JERRY D. THOMPSON, Regents Professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, is the author of numerous publications, including Civil War and Revolution on the Rio Grande Frontier. ROBERT WOOSTER, Joe Frantz Professor of History at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, is the author of many books, including Frontier Crossroads: Fort Davis and the West. BEN E. PINGENOT, deceased, was the author of many books, including Siringo.

Senator Henry Wilson and the Civil War

By John L. Myers

From the publisher:
This biography shows that by the beginning of the Civil War, Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson had established himself as one of the leaders of the Republican party. Together with Abraham Lincoln and Henry B. Stanton, Wilson ranks as one of the three most important civilian figures that contributed to creating and sustaining the military. As Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, he introduced and succeeded in passing most of the necessary legislation to obtain and to support an army, including the Enrollment Act of 1863.

Wilson, more than any other politician was responsible for influencing the successful passage of antislavery legislation during the Civil War years. Contemporary newspapers gave him the primary credit for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, which was the most important abolition step prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. When free Black men were admitted to the army, Wilson worked hard to obtain equal pay for them. Late in the war, he played a major role in the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau. Among his other legendary achievements, Wilson used his influential position to support Clara Barton, enabling her to aid wounded soldiers. He also introduced and succeeded in having passed legislation creating the Congressional Medal of Honor and establishing the National Academy of Science.

John L. Myers is Emeritus Professor of History, State University of New York, Plattsburgh. In 2005, he published Henry Wilson and the Coming of the Civil War (University Press of America). He has written a large number of articles dealing with the antislavery agents in the 1830s. His received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

The Badax Tigers: From Shiloh to the Surrender with the 18th Wisconsin Volunteers

by Nanzig Thomas

From the publisher:
This intimate unit history of the Badax Tigers chronicles the experiences of Company C of the 18th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry during the entire Civil War as seen through the eyes of Private Thomas Jefferson Davis. Davis's letters provide an extraordinarily complete picture of a typical Federal volunteer company in the Civil War and are supplemented by newspaper articles and letters of other soldiers.

Thomas P. Nanzig holds degrees in higher education administration/counseling from Michigan State University and The College of William and Mary and in the library and archival studies from the University of Michigan. He is currently a history and genealogy collections editor with Bell & Howell Information and Learning in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is also the president of the Ann Arbor Civil War Round Table.

From CWBN:
This is the first paperback edition of a hardcover book.

Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe

by Thomas Dilorenzo

From the publisher:
What if you were told that the revered leader Abraham Lincoln was actually a political tyrant who stifled his opponents by suppressing their civil rights? What if you learned that the man so affectionately referred to as the “Great Emancipator” supported white supremacy and pledged not to interfere with slavery in the South? Would you suddenly start to question everything you thought you knew about Lincoln and his presidency?

You should.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, who ignited a fierce debate about Lincoln’s legacy with his book The Real Lincoln, now presents a litany of stunning new revelations that explode the most enduring (and pernicious) myths about our sixteenth president. Marshaling an astonishing amount of new evidence, Lincoln Unmasked offers an alarming portrait of a political manipulator and opportunist who bears little resemblance to the heroic, stoic, and principled figure of mainstream history.

Did you know that Lincoln . . .

• did NOT save the union? In fact, Lincoln did more than any other individual to destroy the voluntary union the Founding Fathers recognized.

• did NOT want to free the slaves? Lincoln, who did not believe in equality of the races, wanted the Constitution to make slavery “irrevocable.”

• was NOT a champion of the Constitution? Contrary to his high-minded rhetoric, Lincoln repeatedly trampled on the Constitution—and even issued an arrest warrant for the chief justice of the United States!

• was NOT a great statesman? Lincoln was actually a warmonger who manipulated his own people into a civil war.

• did NOT utter many of his most admired quotations? DiLorenzo exposes a legion of statements that have been falsely attributed to Lincoln for generations—usually to enhance his image.

In addition to detailing Lincoln’s offenses against the principles of freedom, equality, and states’ rights, Lincoln Unmasked exposes the vast network of academics, historians, politicians, and other “gatekeepers” who have sanitized his true beliefs and willfully distorted his legacy. DiLorenzo reveals how the deification of Lincoln reflects a not-so-hidden agenda to expand the size and scope of the American state far beyond what the Founding Fathers envisioned—an expansion that Lincoln himself began.

The hagiographers have shaped Lincoln’s image to the point that it has become more fiction than fact. With Lincoln Unmasked, DiLorenzo shows us an Abraham Lincoln without the rhetoric, lies, and political bias that have clouded a disastrous president’s enduring damage to the nation.

From the critics:
Emotionally, the text gains energy from DiLorenzo's claim that a "cult" of biographers and Civil War historians conceals the historical Lincoln from the public, but if this cabal exits, it is unable to stanch a steady flow of anti-Lincoln books. However, general readers are accustomed to noncritical admiration of Lincoln and might be motivated by DiLorenzo's assertive, free-swinging style into exploring the validity of his argument. - Booklist

But Lincoln is not DiLorenzo's real target; he saves his most vitriolic bombast for the scholars who dominate American universities (most notably Eric Foner) and who, he charges, are "cover-up artists" and "propagandists." DiLorenzo accuses them of using their Lincoln mythology to advocate big government and ther "imperialistic" and "totalitarian" policies. DiLorenzo accuses the "cultists" of having a political agenda. He may well be hoisted by his own petard. - Publishers Weekly

From CWBN:
This is the first paperback edition of a hardcover book.

Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia

by Aaron Sheehan-Dean

In the first comprehensive study of the experience of Virginia soldiers and their families in the Civil War, Aaron Sheehan-Dean captures the inner world of the rank-and-file. He challenges earlier arguments that middle- and lower-class southerners gradually withdrew their support for the Confederacy because their class interests were not being met. Instead he argues that Virginia soldiers continued to be motivated by the profound emotional connection between military service and the protection of home and family, even as the war dragged on.

Aaron Sheehan-Dean is assistant professor of history at the University of North Florida. He is editor of Struggle for a Vast Future: The American Civil War and The View from the Ground: The Experience of Civil War Soldiers.

Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney

by James F. Simon

From the publisher:
The clashes between President Abraham Lincoln and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney over slavery, secession, and the president's constitutional war powers went to the heart of Lincoln's presidency. James Simon, author of the acclaimed What Kind of Nation -- an account of the battle between President Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall to define the new nation -- brings to vivid life the passionate struggle during the worst crisis in the nation's history, the Civil War. The issues that underlaid that crisis -- race, states' rights, and the president's wartime authority -- resonate today in the nation's political debate.

Lincoln and Taney's bitter disagreements began with Taney's Dred Scott opinion in 1857, when the chief justice declared that the Constitution did not grant the black man any rights that the white man was bound to honor. In the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln attacked the opinion as a warped judicial interpretation of the Framers' intent and accused Taney of being a member of a pro-slavery national conspiracy.

In his first inaugural address, President Lincoln insisted that the South had no legal right to secede. Taney, who administered the oath of office to Lincoln, believed that the South's secession was legal and in the best interests of both sections of the country.

Once the Civil War began, Lincoln broadly interpreted his constitutional powers as commander in chief to prosecute the war, suspending the writ of habeas corpus, censoring the mails, and authorizing military courts to try civilians for treason. Taney opposed every presidential wartime initiative and openly challenged Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeascorpus. He accused the president of assuming dictatorial powers in violation of the Constitution. Lincoln ignored Taney's protest, convinced that his actions were both constitutional and necessary to preserve the Union.

Almost 150 years after Lincoln's and Taney's deaths, their words and actions reverberate in constitutional debate and political battle. Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney tells their dramatic story in fascinating detail.

From the critics:
Simon's focus on Lincoln and Taney makes for a dramatic, charged narrative and the focus on presidential war powers makes this historical study extremely timely. - Publishers Weekly

From CWBN:
This short book, an easy read, will best be enjoyed by readers who know little of Lincoln or Taney. The parallel stroytelling structure, alternating biographical chapters, will wear thin for those already versed in Lincoln's background. The book is an enjoyable read, trading analytical depth for drama and color.

This is the first paperback edition of a hardcover book.

American Civil War Fortifications: The Mississippi and River Forts, Vol. 3

by Adam Hook

From the publisher:
The Mississippi River played a decisive role in the American Civil War. The Confederate fortifications that controlled the lower Mississippi valley were put to the test in the lengthy Federal campaign of 1862-63. Vicksburg was a fortress city, known as the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy," whose capture is often seen as the key to victory in the war.

This book explores the fortifications of the river valley, focusing on Vicksburg and its defenses which boasted a network of forts, rifle pits, and cannon embrasures surrounding the city and examining the strengths and weaknesses of the fortifications when under siege. Also examined are numerous other fortified strongholds, including New Orleans, Port Hudson, New Madrid and, forts Henry and Donelson, all lavishly illustrated with full color artwork and cutaways.

Ron Field is Head of History at the Cotswold School in Burton-on-the-Water. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1982 and taught history at Piedmont High School in California from 1982 to 1983. He was associate editor of the Confederate Historical Society of Great Britain from 1983 to 1992. He is an internationally acknowledged expert on US military history, and was elected a Fellow of the Company of Military Historians, based in Washington, DC, in 2005.

The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction

by Mark E., Jr. Neely

From the publisher:
The Civil War is often portrayed as the most brutal war in America's history, a premonition of twentieth-century slaughter and carnage. In challenging this view, Mark E. Neely, Jr., considers the war's destructiveness in a comparative context, revealing the sense of limits that guided the conduct of American soldiers and statesmen.

Neely begins by contrasting Civil War behavior with U.S. soldiers' experiences in the Mexican War of 1846. He examines Price's Raid in Missouri for evidence of deterioration in the restraints imposed by the customs of war; and in a brilliant analysis of Philip Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley campaign, he shows that the actions of U.S. cavalrymen were selective and controlled. The Mexican war of the 1860s between French imperial forces and republicans provided a new yardstick for brutality: Emperor Maximilian's infamous Black Decree threatened captured enemies with execution. Civil War battles, however, paled in comparison with the unrestrained warfare waged against the Plains Indians. Racial beliefs, Neely shows, were a major determinant of wartime behavior.

Destructive rhetoric was rampant in the congressional debate over the resolution to avenge the treatment of Union captives at Andersonville by deliberately starving and freezing to death Confederate prisoners of war. Nevertheless, to gauge the events of the war by the ferocity of its language of political hatred is a mistake, Neely argues. The modern overemphasis on violence in Civil War literature has led many scholars to go too far in drawing close analogies with the twentieth century's "total war" and the grim guerrilla struggles of Vietnam.

Love amid the Turmoil: The Civil War Letters of William and Mary Vermilion

by Donald C. Elder

From the publisher:
“The letters of William and Mary Vermilion provide a unique glimpse into the changes the war inflicted on men, women, and family relationships . . . [they] offer a rich discussion of the politics of the home front in two states as well as the progress of military action, expecially in the Western theatre. . . . This is a welcome complement to the literature on the Civil War’s impact on gender and marriage.”—Choice

“What a find! This remarkable cache of Civil War letters reveals a companionate marriage of two literate, caring individuals who explore the meaning of their love and the meaning of the war that has separated them. Well illustrated and well documented, the book's pages take the reader from honesty and sensitivity to disappointment and despair. Elder proves that historical documents can be more compelling than fiction.” —Glenda Riley, Alexander M. Bracken Professor, Ball State University

William Vermilion (1830-1894) served as a captain in Company F of the 36th Iowa Infantry from October 1862 until September 1865. Although he was a physician in Iconium in south central Iowa at the start of the war, after it ended he became a noted lawyer in nearby Centerville; he was also a state senator from 1869 to 1872. Mary Vermilion (1831-1883) was a schoolteacher who grew up in Indiana; she and William married in 1858. In this volume historian Donald Elder pro-vides a careful selection from the hundreds of supportive, informative, and heart-wrenching letters that they wrote each other during the war—the most complete collection of letters exchanged between a husband and a wife during the Civil War.

Donald Elder is professor of history and chair of the department at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. He is also the editor of A Damned Iowa Greyhound: The Civil War Letters of William Henry Harrison Clayton (Iowa, 1998) and author of Out from behind the Eight-Ball: The History of Project Echo.

Iowa's Forgotten General: Matthew Mark Trumbull and the Civil War

by Kenneth L. Lyftogt

From the publisher:
Matthew Mark Trumbull was a Londoner who immigrated at the age of twenty. Within ten years of his arrival in America, he had become a lawyer in Butler County, Iowa; two years later a member of the state legislature; and two years after that a captain in the Union Army. By the end of the Civil War, he was a brevet brigadier general, and in his later years he was an author and lecturer. Kenneth Lyftogt’s biography details the amazing life of this remarkable man, also shedding light on the histories of the Third Iowa Volunteer Infantry and the Ninth Iowa Volunteer Cavalry.

Kenneth Lyftogt is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Northern Iowa. He has walked all the major battlefields of the Civil War and participated in reenactments. He is editor of Left for Dixie and the author of From Blue Mills to Columbia: Cedar Falls and the Civil War (Iowa, 1993) and the novel Road Freaks of Trans-Amerika.

Seventh Rhode Island Infantry in the Civil War

by Robert Grandchamp

From the publisher:
With over an 80 percent casualty rate by the war’s end, the Seventh Rhode Island participated in some of the fiercest battles of the Civil War. From its muster in the fall of 1862 through the death of the Seventh’s last surviving veteran in 1939, this regimental history records the story of the Seventh Rhode Island, a regiment which was among the last of the three years’ volunteers. Compiled primarily from firsthand sources such as letters and diaries, it follows the Seventh from Providence, Rhode Island, through the swamps of the Mississippi to the grueling Overland Campaign, providing a gripping historical narrative in the words of those who were actually present.

Appendices contain a list of casualties suffered by the regiment, a detailed Role of Honor and a division of enlistments by town. Period photographs, portraits and sketches complete this fascinating tale of the Seventh Rhode Island.

Robert Grandchamp is the author of numerous articles on Rhode Island’s Civil War past. A student at Rhode Island College in Providence. he resides in Warwick.

Elizabeth City, North Carolina and the Civil War: A History of Battle and Occupation

by Alex Christopher Meekins

From the publisher:
An account of a little-known theater of the Civil War.

In February of 1862, a Union naval force captured Elizabeth City. This fascinating history characterizes the overall situation in the notheastern North Carolina, where secessionists and Union sympathizers tangled right up until the Battle of Appomattox.

The First Louisiana Special Battalion: Wheat’s Tigers in the Civil War

by Gary Schreckengost

From the publisher:
From the little-known Filibuster Wars to the Civil War battlefield of Gaines’ Mill, this volume details the fascinating story of one of the South’s most colorful military units, the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion, aka Wheat’s Tigers.

Beginning with a brief look at the Filibuster Wars (a set of military attempts to annex Latin American countries into the United States as slave states), the work takes a close look at the men who comprised Wheat’s Tigers: Irish immigrant ship hands, New Orleans dock workers and Filibuster veterans. Commanded by one of the greatest antebellum filibusterers, Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, the Tigers quickly distinguished themselves in battle through their almost reckless bravery, proving instrumental in Southern victories at the battles of Front Royal, Winchester and Port Republic. An in-depth look at Battle of Gaines’ Mill, in which Wheat’s Tigers suffered heavy casualties, including their commander, completes the story.

Appendices provide a compiled roster of the Wheat’s Tigers, a look at the 1st Louisiana’s uniforms and a copy of Wheat’s report about the Battle of Manassas. Never-before-published photographs are also included.

Author and historian Gary Schreckengost lives in Elm, Pennsylvania. An infantry officer in the Army Reserves, his work has been published in American Civil War Magazine, World War II Magazine, Field Artillery Journal and Armor Magazine.

On Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War

by Anthony W. Lee

From the publisher:
Soon after Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book was published, in 1866, it became the Civil War's best-known visual record and helped define how viewers, then and in subsequent generations, would come to know the war.

Gardner's classic also became foundational in the history of American photography, combining, for the first time, words and images in a sophisticated and moving account. This book, written by the art historian Anthony W. Lee and the literary scholar Elizabeth Young, interprets the story of the war as told by Gardner, unraveling his careful choice of words and images and the complicated play between them, and understanding them against the backdrop of the literary and photographic cultures of the American antebellum and Reconstruction eras.

This book presents a unique study of a pivotal American historical document, approaching it from the perspective of visual studies as well as American literature and history.

"Lee and Young have admirably elucidated this foundational volume in the history of American photography by developing references that emerge from prior readings of these images, as well as thoughtfully producing new ways of seeing the landscapes Gardner presents. The book makes available to a wide audience one of the most important photographic records of any war and certainly the most interesting visual record of the American Civil War. This is superior scholarship."--Shirley Samuels, author of Facing America: Iconography and the Civil War

Their Patriotic Duty: The Civil War Letters of the Evans Family of Brown County, Ohio

by Robert F. Engs

From the publisher:
Many of the farm families in the river country of southern Ohio sent fathers, husbands, and sons to fight and die in the Civil War. Few families have bequeathed a record of that experience as remarkable as that created by the Evans Family: an extraordinary collection of letters that offers a unique portrait of life both on the homefront and on the frontlines.

From his homestead near Ripley on the Ohio River, patriarch Andrew Evans sent two sons to war, and from 1862 to 1866, father and sons wrote each other hundreds of letters. Called 'the soldier's letters" by the family, this cache lay untouched in a barn until the 1980s, when Robert Engs was invited to edit them. Here are 273 family letters, most between Andrew and son Samuel, that draw us into the complicated lives of a Midwestern family not just suffering the dislocations of war, but also experiencing-and describing in intimate detail-the sorrows and occasional joys of rural life in 19th century America.

From the frontlines with the 70th Ohio and, later, as an officer commanding a unit of "colored troops," Samuel writes of the horrors of Shiloh, of the loneliness and fear patrolling Union lines in Tennessee. Andrew writes of the seasons of rural life, of illness and deaths in the family, of the complicated politics of this borderland where abolitionists and "Copperhead" pro-slavery voices shared daily debates. One of the very few collections of Civil War letters from homefront and frontlines, this meticulously edited book is an engrossing chronicle of war and peace, family and country, and an indispensable addition to the history of the Civil War.

Robert F. Engs is Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. His other books include Educating the Disenfranchised: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute, 1939-1893; Freedom’s First Generation: Black Hampton, Virginia; and, with Randall E. Miller, The Birth of the Grand Old Party: The Republicans’ First Generation.

A Damned Iowa Greyhound: The Civil War Letters of William Henry Harrison Clayton

by Donald C. Elder III

From the publisher:
William Henry Harrison Clayton was one of nearly 75,000 soldiers from Iowa to join the Union ranks during the Civil War. Possessing a high school education and superior penmanship, Clayton served as a company clerk in the 19th Infantry, witnessing battles in the trans-Mississippi theater. His diary and his correspondence with his family in Van Buren County form a unique narrative of the day-to-day soldier life as well as an eyewitness account of critical battles and a prisoner-of-war camp.

Clayton participated in the siege of Vicksburg and took part in operations against Mobile, but his writings are unique for the descriptions he gives of lesser-known but pivotal battles of the Civil War in the West. Fighting in the Battle of Prairie Grove, the 19th Infantry sustained the highest casualties of any federal regiment on the eld. Clayton survived that battle with only minor injuries, but he was later captured at the Battle of Stirling's Plantation and served a period of ten months in captivity at Camp Ford, Texas.

Clayton's writing reveals the complicated sympathies and prejudices prevalent among Union soldiers and civilians of that period in the country's history. He observes with great sadness the brutal effects of war on the South, sympathizing with the plight of refugees and lamenting the destruction of property. He excoriates draft evaders and Copperheads back home, conveying the intra-sectional acrimony wrought by civil war. Finally, his racist views toward blacks demonstrate a common but ironic attitude among Union soldiers whose efforts helped lead to the abolition of slavery in the United States.

From CWBN:
This is the paper edition of an earlier hardback release.

Diehard Rebels: The Confederate Culture of Invincibility

by Jason Phillips

From the publisher:
Insight into the mindset of the Confederacy’s most unyielding soldiers

Well into the final months of the Civil War, countless Confederate soldiers earnestly believed that victory lay just around the corner. How could this be? Jason Phillips reveals the deeply ingrained attitudes that shaped the reality of these diehards not only during the war but in the subsequent era, when the myth of the Lost Cause was born.

Much is known about what Confederate soldiers fought for; far less is understood about why they fought on despite long odds and terrible costs. Drawing on soldiers’ letters and diary entries from 1863 to 1865, Diehard Rebels explains how religious dogma and perceptions of Union barbarity and ineptitude affirmed in many soldiers a view of an indomitable South. Within the soldiers’ closely circumscribed world, other elements reinforced convictions that the South was holding its own against great but surmountable odds. Close comradeship and disorienting combat conditions were factors, says Phillips, as well as conclusions drawn from images and experiences contradicting the larger reality, such as battlefields littered with enemy corpses and parade-ground spectacles of Confederate military splendor.

Troops also tended to perceive the course of the war in far-off theaters, the North, and overseas in positive ways. In addition, diehards were both consumers and conduits of rumors, misinformation, and propaganda that allowed them to envision a war that was rosier than the truth but still believable. Instead of crippling diehards after defeat, old notions of southern superiority helped them uphold southern honor. The central elements of Confederate invincibility fueled white southern defiance after surrender and evolved into the Lost Cause.

Jason Phillips is an assistant professor of history at Mississippi State University. He has also taught at Texas A&M University.

From Blue Mills to Columbia: Cedar Falls and the Civil War

by Kenneth L. Lyftogt

From the publisher:
Historian Kenneth Lyftogt introduces us to the volunteer soldiers of the Pioneer Grays and Cedar Falls Reserves infantry companies and in turn examines Iowa’s role in the Civil War. Many of these soldiers served the Union for the duration of the war, from the early fighting in Missouri to Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Sherman’s destructive marches through Georgia and the Carolinas. Their letters home are Lyftogt’s primary sources, as are editorials and articles published in the Cedar Falls Gazette.

Kenneth Lyftogt is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Northern Iowa. He has walked all the major battlefields of the Civil War and participated in reenactments. He is editor of Left for Dixie and the author of Iowa's Forgotten General: Matthew Mark Trumbull and the Civil War (Iowa, 2007) and the novel Road Freaks of Trans-Amerika.

Courage Under Fire: Profiles in Bravery from the Battlefields of the Civil War

by Wiley Sword

From the publisher:
Through diaries and letter written on the battlefield, in camps, and on the deathbeds of soldiers from north and south, Wiley Sword writes about more than the Civil War. He writes of the complex working of a soldier’s mind coming to grips with life and death in a time when his country was at war with itself.

On Aug. 3, 1864, Illinois Lieutenant Frank Curtiss was ordered by his commander to take the 127th Illinois Infantry into a charge of the fortified Rebel lines. He knew certain death was in store for him and his men. He also knew little tactical superiority would be gained for lives lost and refused to do it.

Confederate Brigadier General Patrick Cleburne, one of the South's greatest military tacticians, left diaries showing he was striving to refine his methods to save lives while winning battles.

And then there is the Rhode Island Regiment's Major Sullivan Ballou who, in 1861 on the eve of the battle of Bull Run who wrote of courage and dedication to his cause.

Wiley Sword constructs a picture of the military mind that still resonates in today's wars.

WILEY SWORD is the author of several Civil War histories, including Mountains Touched with Fire and Southern Invincibility. He is a Fletcher Pratt Prize Award-winner and has been nominated numerous other prizes, including the Pulitzer. He lives in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Lines of Contention: Political Cartoons of the Civil War

by J. G. Lewin and P.J. Huff

From the publisher:
The political turmoil of the Civil War Era has been analyzed many times, but one area of this period's history is often overlooked: a large body of humorous, clever, and scathing editorial cartoons from publications such as Harper's Weekly, Vanity Fair, Punch, and Leslie's Illustrated.

In Lines of Contention, the best of these cartoons has finally been collected into one place to illuminate the social, political, and cultural climate of Civil War—Era America. The cartoons have been pulled from both sides of the fence and provide insight into the incidents and opinions surrounding the war as well as the mind-sets and actions of all the major figures. Lines of Contention presents a unique history of the Civil War and its participants.

Small Arms at Gettysburg: Infantry and Cavalry Weapons in America's Greatest Battle

by Joseph G. Bilby

From the publisher:
The three-day battle of Gettysburg has probably been the subject of more books and articles than any other comparable event. Surprisingly, until this work, no one has analyzed the firearms and other individual soldier's weapons used at Gettysburg in any great detail. The battle was a watershed, with military weapons technologies representing the past, present, and future--sabers, smoothbores, rifles, and breechloaders--in action alongside each other, providing a unique opportunity to compare performance and use, as well as determining how particular weapons and their deployment affected the outcome and course of the battle.

Small Arms at Gettysburg: Infantry and Cavalry Weapons in America's Greatest Battle covers all of the individual soldier's weapons--muskets, rifle-muskets, carbines, repeaters, sharpshooter arms, revolvers, and swords--providing a detailed examination of their history and development, technology, capabilities, and use on the field at Gettysburg. Here we learn that the smoothbore musket, although beloved by some who carried it, sang its swan song, the rifle-musket began to come into its own, and the repeating rifle, although tactically mishandled, gave a glimpse of future promise. This is the story of the weapons and men who carried them into battle during three days in July 1863.

Joseph G. Bilby served as a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1966-1967. He is a columnist for Civil War News, assistant curator at the National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey, and is author of A Revolution in Arms: A History of the First Repeating Rifles, also available from Westholme.

Shiloh and Corinth: Sentinels of Stone

by Timothy T. Isbell

From the publisher:
On April 6 and 7, 1862, at Shiloh a desperate battle between surprised Union forces and attacking Confederates ushered in the carnage that would mark the Civil War. At the Hornet's Nest, in the Peach Orchard, across Rea's Field and Hell's Hollow more than 20,000 men were killed, wounded, or reported missing in the fierce fighting. There were more casualties in two days at Shiloh than in all the previous American wars combined.

The Confederacy's defeat at Shiloh led to the Union occupation of Corinth, Mississippi, a crucial railhead for supplying campaigning armies. As part of the South's last great offensive in October 1862, Confederates tried but failed to retake this fortified town.

Shiloh and Corinth: Sentinels of Stone examines the brave deeds performed by soldiers of the North and South. Approximately 93 striking photographs and accompanying histories bring the battlefields to life, from Shiloh and Savannah, Tennessee, to Iuka and Corinth, Mississippi. The book chronicles the deaths of Albert Sidney Johnston and W. H. L. Wallace, the first victories of Ulysses S. Grant's military career, the failures of Earl Van Dorn, the torment of William Rosecrans, and the angst of Sterling Price. Shiloh and Corinth: Sentinels of Stone leads the reader to the present-day landscapes where America learned the Civil War would be long and bloody.

This combination of text with color photographs captures the landscapes and monuments of two Civil War battlefields:

-Offers the only photography/history book on the Shiloh campaign
-Details stories of towns, communities, and battlefields sometimes neglected by historians
-Includes over 90 full-color images by an award-winning photojournalist
-Complements the author's two previous books Gettysburg: Sentinels of Stone and Vicksburg: Sentinels of Stone

From CWBN:
The exact day of release for this November title is unknown.

The Civil War Veterans of San Diego: Including Citations to Genealogical Research Sources in San Diego, California

by Barbara Palmer

From the publisher:
A study was conducted to indentify Civil War veterans who migrated to San Diego, California, after the war. Nearly 2,000 veterans were identified, mostly Union veterans from the Northern States. For example: 281 were born in New York, 251 in Ohio, 172 in Pennsylvania, and 112 in Indiana.

This book includes tombstone inscriptions and cemetery office records for the veterans and their wives, where available. Veteran intake records for the Heintzleman and Datus Coon G.A.R. posts give city or state of birth, Civil War unit and rank, length of service, where discharged, date of application to the San Diego G.A.R., age at time of application, occupation, death dates, and burial locations, where available. An all name index includes state of birth and state of the veteran's first enlistment (which often varied), allowing a determination of individual migration patterns over time. A guide to research in San Diego includes sources for military, church, census, vital, probate, cemetery, and other records. Cemetery histories and maps are also included.

From CWBN:
The exact day of release for this November title is unknown.

Rhett Butler's People

by Donald McCaig

From the publisher:
Fully authorized by the Margaret Mitchell estate, Rhett Butler's People is the astonishing and long-awaited novel that parallels the Great American Novel, Gone with the Wind. Twelve years in the making, the publication of Rhett Butler's People marks a major and historic cultural event.

Through the storytelling mastery of award-winning writer Donald McCaig, the life and times of the dashing Rhett Butler unfold. Through Rhett's eyes we meet the people who shaped his larger than life personality as it sprang from Margaret Mitchell's unforgettable pages: Langston Butler, Rhett's unyielding father; Rosemary, his steadfast sister; Tunis Bonneau, Rhett's best friend and onetime slave; Belle Watling, the woman for whom Rhett cared for long before he met Scarlett O'Hara at Twelve Oaks Plantation, on the fateful eve of the Civil War.

Of course, there is Scarlett. Katie Scarlett O'Hara, the headstrong, passionate woman whose life is inextricably entwined with Rhett's: more like him than she cares to admit; more in love with him than she'll ever know…

Brought to vivid and authentic life by the hand of a master, Rhett Butler's People fulfills the dreams of those whose imaginations have been indelibly marked by Gone with the Wind.

Donald McCaig is the award-winning author of Jacob's Ladder, designated "the best civil war novel ever written" by The Virginia Quarterly. People magazine raved, "Think Gone with the Wind, think Cold Mountain." It won the Michael Shaara Award for Civil War Fiction and the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction.

"Rhett Butler's People covers the period from 1843 to 1874, nearly two decades more than are chronicled in Gone with the Wind. Readers will…get inside Rhett's head as he meets and courts Scarlett O'Hara in one of the most famous love affairs of all time." --The New York Times

"McCaig is a bred-in-the-bones storyteller." -Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Geraldine Brooks

Donald McCaig is the award-winning author of Jacob’s Ladder designated “the best civil war novel ever written” by The Virginia Quarterly. People magazine raved “Think Gone With the Wind, think Cold Mountain.” It won the Michael Sharra Award for Civil War Fiction and the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction.

Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction

by Mitchell Snay

From the publisher:
After the American Civil War, several movements for ethnic separatism and political self-determination significantly shaped the course of Reconstruction. The Union Leagues, which began during the war to support the northern effort, spread to the South after the war and mobilized African Americans to fight for their political rights and economic security. Opposing the Leagues was the Ku Klux Klan, which used intimidation and violence to maintain the political and economic hegemony of southern whites. Founded in 1858 as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, the Irish-American Fenians sought to liberate Ireland from English rule.

Mitchell Snay provides a compelling comparison of these seemingly disparate groups in Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites, illuminating the contours of nationalism during Reconstruction. Despite their separate and often opposing goals, the Fenians, Union Leagues, and the Klan, Snay reveals, shared many characteristics.

To various extents, they were secret societies that sought to advance their mission through both political and extra-political means. Both the League and the Klan employed elaborate rites of initiation and secret passwords common to nineteenth-century fraternal organizations. They also shared a similar political culture of secrecy, conspiracy, and countersubversion. All three groups were quasi-military in structure and activities and shared a desire for the control of land.

Among the three organizations, Snay shows, the Fenians provide the clearest case of nationalist aspirations along the lines of ethnicity, though the rise of racial consciousness among both southern whites and blacks also might be seen as expressions of ethnic nationalism. According to Snay, the political culture of Reconstruction encouraged the nationalist ambitions of these groups, but channeled their separatist impulses along civil rather than ethnic lines by focusing on questions of freedom, citizenship, and suffrage. In addition, the Republican emphasis on color-blind equality limited overt expressions of national identities based solely on ethnicity or race.

Unlike southern whites and blacks, Irish Americans are seldom mentioned in Reconstruction histories. By joining the Fenians with freedpeople and southern whites, Snay seeks to assert their central relevance to the dynamics of nationalism during Reconstruction and offers a highly original analysis of Reconstruction as an Age of Capital and an Age of Emancipation where categories of race, class, and gender--as well as nationalism--were fluid and contested.

From CWBN:
The exact day of release for this November title is unknown.

Lee and Grant at Appomattox

by MacKinlay Kantor

From the publisher:
From a Pulitzer Prize winner comes the story of an unforgettable moment in American history: the historic meeting between General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant that ended the Civil War.

MacKinlay Kantor captures all the emotions and the details of those few days: the aristocratic Lee’s feeling of resignation; Grant’s crippling headaches; and Lee’s request—which Grant generously allowed—to permit his soldiers to keep their horses so they could plant crops for food.

The Civil War Paintings of Mort Kunstler, Vol. 3: The Gettysburg Campaign

by Mort Kunstler

From the publisher:
For nearly thirty years, Mort Kunstler has focused his considerable artistic talent on interpreting the Civil War. In crafting his work to reflect poignant moments or critical instances of the conflict, he has turned to leading historians and scholars -- such as Henry Steele Commager, James McPherson, William C. Davis, and James I. Robertson Jr. -- for informative details that he has then translated on canvas to create an indelible image of this defining ordeal in America's history. More than 160 of these images -- supplemented by preliminary sketches, early studies, and photographs of works in progress -- are the basis for the four volumes in this series.

Kunstler has also explored the human side of this national struggle. Thus he has produced thoughtful studies of leaders at decisive moments, instances of daily camp life for the soldiers, and those early romantic notions that it would be a bloodless war, predicated on the belief that a show of inner strength would prevail.

Historian James I. Robertson Jr. recently noted, "Among the handful who truly sense the human, indelible element of that war is Mort Kunstler. That alone goes far in explaining why he is the premier Civil War artist of our time, if not of all time....His subjects are always widely appealing to the eye and to the mind. [He] pursues accuracy to an extent that would make some historians blush."

In the past twenty years, Kunstler's portfolio has been published in twelve books, including companion pieces for the epic films Gettysburg and Gods and Generals. These paintings are reproduced here along with a lively history of the war.

Mort Kunstler is the reigning dean of American historical artists. No other artist has illustrated so many events in America with such authenticity and drama, from cave-dwelling Native Americans to the space program. He has had numerous one-man exhibitions at galleries such as the Hammer Galleries in New York City. He also was the subject of a one-hour special on A&E Network's Time Machine. His previous books include Images of the Civil War, Gettysburg, Jackson and Lee, and The Civil War Art of Mort Kunstler. He lives in Oyster Bay, New York.

Women in the American Civil War

by Lisa Tendrich Frank, Editor

From the publisher:
This fascinating work tells the untold story of the role of women in the Civil War, from battlefield to home front.

Soldiering for Glory: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Frank Schaller, Twenty-second Mississippi Infantry

Edited by Mary W. Schaller and Martin N. Schaller

From the publisher:
Confederate colonel Frank Schaller lived a life of grand ambition, driven to attain rank, fortune, a good marriage, and some measure of redemption in the eyes of his German family. Edited by Mary W. Schaller and Martin N. Schaller, his correspondence from the 1860s follows his battlefield experiences, his machinations for advancement, and his courtship of Sophie Sosnowski of Columbia, South Carolina.

Schaller emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1855 and began the career as a military science instructor that would lead him to North Carolina and the Hillsborough Military Academy in 1861. His training in Germany and his combat experience with the French army in the Crimean War made him a candidate for quick advancement once the Civil War began. From the time of North Carolina's secession in 1861 until his being wounded at Shiloh in April 1862, Schaller advanced rapidly from lieutenant to colonel. But after Shiloh his consistent—and somewhat conspicuous—medical complaints kept him from combat while he worked to maintain his rank as regimental commander of the Twenty-second Mississippi Infantry and pursue marriage into a prominent family.

Though largely a peripheral figure in the great conflict, Schaller reveals much in his correspondence about military actions and the inner workings of the Confederate officer corps. The critical views of this disciplined European military commander on the quality and training of his American volunteer soldiers is particularly telling. He recounts his firsthand perspectives on the Battle of Shiloh, the retreat from Nashville, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the defeat at Gettysburg. His letters to Sophie Sosnowski also detail the nature of courtship practices in the war-torn South.

The story is completed in the editors' epilogue as they chronicle Schaller's marriage to Sosnowski, resignation from the Confederate ranks, and relocation to Athens, Georgia, where he taught briefly and then resumed his odyssey until his death in 1881. Schaller's letters portray life and culture in the Confederacy as witnessed by an immigrant eager to find personal success and glory in America.

Mary W. Schaller is the author or editor of fifteen previous books and plays, including Papa Was a Boy in Gray: Memories of Confederate Veterans Related by Their Living Daughters.

A descendant of Frank Schaller, Martin N. Schaller is a retired U.S. Navy officer and technology executive. The Schallers live in Burke, Virginia.

From CWBN:
This is a very well written (and edited) collection featuring the life struggles of a Jewish German Rebel officer whose early career embraced the CSA's Polish Brigade. Considering that one of the co-authors here is descended from Frank Schaller, the tone of this work is refreshingly critical. Schaller is rarely taken at his own self-worth and yet the reader develops a sympathy and curiosity that keeps the pages turning. Well worth a piece of your leisure-reading schedule.

Abraham Lincoln, The Illustrated Edition: The Prairie Years and The War Years

by Carl Sandburg, Edward C. Goodman (editor)

From the publisher:
Originally published in six volumes, which sold more than one million copies, Carl Sandburg’s Pulitzer Prize winner Abraham Lincoln won praise as the most noteworthy historical biography of his generation. He later distilled his monumental creation into one volume that critics and readers alike consider his greatest work of nonfiction.

Magnificently produced, this special abridged and illustrated edition features foil stamping on the spine, an imitation cloth case, high quality paper, and collaged endpapers in four-color sepia. More than 250 engaging and often rare historical photos, along with descriptive captions, allow readers to visualize Lincoln’s journey from country lawyer to perhaps the most influential and beloved president of the United States. The fascinating pictures—many in color—provide a very intimate glimpse into Lincoln’s world. You’ll see his personal handwritten copy of the Gettysburg address, the gun that tragically ended his life, as well as a variety of rarely-viewed paraphernalia and personal effects. The images come from such notable artists as the esteemed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, Joseph Boggs Beale, Currier and Ives, and Alexander Gardner.

Three Came Home

by Edward Aronoff

From the publisher:
On April first, just a few days before Lee surrenders at Appomattox, Colonel Raymond Rutherford is wounded at the battle of Five Forks. Although in great pain he soldiers on until he can no longer march and is hospitalized. He misses the surrender and seeing that all his brigade is gone starts out for his home in North Carolina. On his way home he has a violent encounter with a deserter. He is rescued by a young widow in an encounter that will change his life forever.

Edward Aronoff is the author of several Civil War books including the award-winning Betrayal at Gettysburg. He has also authored The Pagliacci Affair, Last Chance, The Hawaiian Affair, and Harold and Joe.

Lincoln's Christianity

by Michael Burkhimer

From the publisher:
After listening to Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, many in the audience were stunned. Instead of a positive message about the coming Union victory, the president implicated the entire country in the faults and responsibility for slavery. Using Old Testament references, Lincoln explained that God was punishing all Americans for their role in the calamity with a bloody civil war.

These were surprising words from a man who belonged to no church, did not regularly attend services, and was known to have publicly and privately questioned some of Christianity's core beliefs. But Lincoln's life was one with supreme sadness--the death of his first fiancee, the subsequent loss of two of his sons--and these events, along with the chance encounter with a book in Mary Todd's father's library, The Christian's Defense, are all part of the key to understanding Lincoln's Christianity. Biblical quotations soon entered his speeches--a point noted by Stephen Douglas in their debates--but it is unclear whether Lincoln's use of scripture was a signal that American politicians should openly embrace religion in their public lives, or a rhetorical tool to manipulate his audience, or a result of a personal religious transformation. After his death both secular and religious biographers claimed Lincoln as one of their own, touching off a controversy that remains today.

In Lincoln's Christianity, Michael Burkhimer examines the entire history of the president's interaction with religion--accounts from those who knew him, his own letters and writings, the books he read--to reveal a man who did not believe in orthodox Christian precepts (and might have had a hard time getting elected today) yet, by his example, was a person and president who most truly embodied Christian teachings.

"Abraham Lincoln's religious beliefs is a controversial subject and not without its pitfalls, but Mr. Burkhimer has succeeded eminently."-- Edward Steers, author of Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Major General Robert E. Rodes of the Army of Northern Virginia: A Biography

by Darrell L. Collins

From the publisher:
Jedediah Hotchkiss, Stonewall Jackson's renowned mapmaker, expressed the feelings of many contemporaries when he declared that Robert Rodes was the best division commander in the Army of Northern Virginia. This well-deserved accolade is all the more remarkable considering that Rodes, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and a prewar railroad engineer, was one of a very few officers in Lee's army to rise so high without the benefit of a West Point education.

Major General Robert E. Rodes of the Army of Northern Virginia: A Biography, is the first deeply researched scholarly biography on this remarkable Confederate officer.

From First Manassas in 1861 to Third Winchester in 1864, Rodes served in all the great battles and campaigns of the legendary Army of Northern Virginia. He quickly earned a reputation as a courageous and inspiring leader who delivered hard-hitting attacks and rock steady defensive efforts. His greatest moment came at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, when he spearheaded Stonewall Jackson's famous flank attack that crushed the left wing of General Hooker's Army of the Potomac.

Rodes began the conflict with a deep yearning for recognition and glory, coupled with an indifferent attitude toward religion and salvation. When he was killed at the height of his glorious career at Third Winchester on September 19, 1864, a trove of prayer books and testaments were found on his corpse.

Based upon exhaustive new research, Darrell Collins's new biography breathes life into a heretofore largely overlooked Southern soldier. Although Rodes' widow consigned his personal papers to the flames after the war, Collins has uncovered a substantial amount of firsthand information to complete this compelling portrait of one of Robert E. Lee's most dependable field generals.

Darrell L. Collins is the author of several books on the Civil War, including General William Averell's Salem Raid: Breaking the Knoxville Supply Line (1999) and Jackson's Valley Campaign: The Battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic (The Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders Series, 1993). A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Darrell and his wife Judith recently relocated to Conifer, Colorado.

From CWBN:
The exact day of release for this November title is not known.