When This Cruel War Is over: The Civil War Letters of Charles Harvey Brewster

by David W. Blight

From the publisher:
"I am scared most to death every battle we have, but I don't think you need be afraid of my sneaking away unhurt." Thus wrote Adjutant Charles Harvey Brewster of the 10th Massachusetts to his sister Mattie in 1864, in one of over 200 letters he would pen during his four years of service.

Born and raised in Northampton, Massachusetts, Brewster was a 27-year-old store clerk when he enlisted in Company C of the 10th Massachusetts Volunteers in April 1861. During the next three and a half years he fought in many of the major battles of the Virginia campaigns - Fair Oaks, the Seven Days, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, the "Bloody Angle" at Spotsylvania - rising through the ranks to become second lieutenant and later adjutant of his regiment.

His letters, most of which were written to his mother and two sisters, record not only the horrors he witnessed on the battlefield, but also his own inner struggle with his own values, convictions and sense of manhood.

In a thoughtful and illuminating introductory essay, David W. Blight explores the evolution of Brewster's understanding of the terrible conflict in which he was engaged. Blight shows how Brewster's attitudes toward race and slavery gradually changed, in part as a result of his contact with escaped slaves and his experience recruiting black troops. He also examines the shift in Brewster's conception of courage, as the realities of war collided with the romantic ideals he had previously embraced.

This literate collection of 137 letters chronicles the experiences of an ordinary Union soldier caught up in extraordinary events. At times naive and sentimental, at times mature and realistic, Brewster's correspondence not only provides insight into the meaning of the Civil War for the average Yankee, but also testifies to the persistent power of war to attract and repel the human imagination.

From CWBN
This is the first paperback edition of a previously published hardback.

Red River

by P.G. Nagle

From the publisher:
A Creole belle, mistress of a thousand slaves in the heart of Louisiana . . .
A Texan Confederate, grieving for lost friends and family as he battles the Yankee army . . .
A Union carpenter in the Navy who dreams of piloting a Federal gunboat . . .

Their lives entwine at Belle View Plantation, where the Red River flows into the Mississippi and the Civil War becomes a maelstrom.

P. G. Nagle, "author of some of the best fiction written about Texas history" (Edward T. Cotham, Jr., author of Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston), writes with power and poignancy of a bloody campaign little chronicled but of great strategic to both North and South. The Confederate victory at Galveston harbor at the dawning of 1863 is merely a prelude to a bitter contest for control of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, which together form the Confederacy's most vital lifeline of supply and trade.

For the South, the Mississippi and the Red River afford the only viable corridor for moving the cotton it must trade for munitions, supplies, and much-needed funds from European allies. The Union seeks to cut off such external support to the South and to hasten the end of a war that has already claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides and that threatens to further debilitate a divided nation.

The Federal Navy sends a fleet of gunboats up the Red River in a daring attempt to seize control of the waterway, while on land Sibley's Brigade of Texans joins Confederate General Richard Taylor's defense of Louisiana's rich plantation country. Nagle tells the story of the struggle for dominance among the bayous and rivers of the Mississippi basin in an authoritative narrative both unflinching and compassionate, adding yet another memorable chapter to the chronicle of the Civil War fought in the Far West.

From CWBN
This is the first paperback edition of a previously published hardback.

American Civil War Guerrilla Tactics

by Sean McLachlan (Author), Gerry Embleton (Illustrator)

From the publisher:
While the giant armies of the Union and the Confederacy were fighting over cities and strategic strongholds, a large number of warriors from both sides were fighting, smaller, more personal battles. Beginning with the violent struggle known as "Bleeding Kansas," armed bands of irregular fighters began to wage war in every corner of the United States. Many of the names of their commanders have become legendary, including William Quantrill, "Bloody Bill" Anderson, and John S. Mosby, "The Grey Ghost."

To their own people they were heroes; to others they were the first of a new generation of wild west outlaw. Their tactics including robbing banks and trains, kidnapping soldiers and civilians, rustling cattle, and cutting telegraph lines. In fact, it is during the violence of the war that many of America's future outlaw legends would be born, most notably Cole Younger and Frank and Jesse James. In this book, new Osprey author Sean McLachlan explores the varied and often daring tactics employed by these famous warriors.

Sean McLachlan is an experienced Canadian author who used to study and work in the USA and is a member of a number of US historical societies. His writing is detailed with rare documentary and picture archive materials. The author lives in Madrid, Spain.

Henry Wilson and the Era of Reconstruction

by John L. Myers

From the publisher:
Already a leader of the Republican party when the Civil War began, Henry Wilson had distinguished himself as the most important Congressional figure on military and antislavery and pro-black legislation during the war.

During the Era of Reconstruction, Wilson fought to protect the rights of the newly-freed slaves, but he was opposed to the severe punishment of Confederate leaders and initially tried to be conciliatory toward President Johnson's lenient policies. Soon Wilson joined others in promoting Congress's own Reconstruction program, including the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Military Reconstruction Acts, and the impeachment of the President.

He became the Republican Party's most frequently-used campaign speaker. Long recognized as a spokesman for labor, he was also the foremost national politician promoting the cause of prohibition. He wrote the most authoritative three-volume work on the causes of the Civil War from the northern viewpoint. He was also a frequent contributor to the era's most influential religious periodical. In 1872, Wilson was rewarded for his political activities when he was nominated and elected as the country's vice-president.

John L. Myers is emeritus professor of history, State University of New York, Plattsburgh. He has previously published Henry Wilson and the Coming of the Civil War (University Press of America, 2005) and Senator Henry Wilson and the Civil War (University Press of America, 2008). He has written a large number of articles dealing with the antislavery agents of the 1830s. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

The Southern Mind Under Union Rule: The Diary of James Rumley, Beaufort, North Carolina, 1862-1865

by Judkin Browning

From the publisher:
James Rumley was nearly fifty years old when the Civil War reached the remote outer banks community of Beaufort, North Carolina. Comfortably employed as clerk of the Superior Court of Carteret County, he could only watch as a Union fleet commanded by General Ambrose Burnside snaked its way up the Neuse River in March 1862 and took control of the area.

In response to laws enacted by occupying forces, Rumley took the Oath of Allegiance, stood aside as his beloved courthouse was used for pro-Union rallies, and watched helplessly as friends and neighbors had their property seized and taken away. In public, Rumley appeared calm and cooperative, but behind closed doors he poured all his horror, disgust, and outrage into his diary.

Safely hidden from the view of military authority, he explained in rational terms how his pledge of allegiance to the invading forces was not morally binding and expressed his endless worry over seeing former slaves emancipated and empowered. This constantly surprising diary provides a rare window onto the mind of a Confederate sympathizer under the rule of what he considered to be an alien, unlawful, and "pestilent" power.

Gettysburg: A Guided Tour through History

by Randi Minetor

From the publisher:
Walk through the battlefields of Gettysburg and Antietam with those who lived and fought there. Move through time with the characters and events that shaped Washington,D.C., as we know it today. Visit the National Cemetery in Arlington following a timeline of American wars to learn more about the people who are buried there. This book brings readers face-to-face with the people and events that have shaped history and who have left their mark on some of the most popular and interesting landmarks and locations. Each of these full-size historical guides comes with two oversized Pop Out maps - one, an archival map, and the other, showing the samelocation today. A timeline runs with the text, adding context and texture to the history described.

The Colfax Massacre: The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror, and the Death of Reconstruction

by LeAnna Keith

From the publisher:
On Easter Sunday, 1873, in the tiny hamlet of Colfax, Louisiana, more than 150 members of an all-black Republican militia, defending the town's courthouse, were slain by an armed force of rampaging white supremacists. The most deadly incident of racial violence of the Reconstruction era, the Colfax Massacre unleashed a reign of terror that all but extinguished the campaign for racial equality.

LeeAnna Keith's The Colfax Massacre is the first full-length book to tell the history of this decisive event. Drawing on a huge body of documents, including eyewitness accounts of the massacre, as well as newly discovered evidence from the site itself, Keith explores the racial tensions that led to the fateful encounter, during which surrendering blacks were mercilessly slaughtered, and the reverberations this message of terror sent throughout the South. Keith also recounts the heroic attempts by U.S. Attorney J.R. Beckwith to bring the killers to justice and the many legal issues raised by the massacre. In 1875, disregarding the poignant testimony of 300 witnesses, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in U.S. v. Cruikshank to overturn a lower court conviction of eight conspirators. This decision virtually nullified the Ku Klux Klan Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871--which had made federal offenses of a variety of acts to intimidate voters and officeholders--and cleared the way for the Jim Crow era.

If there was a single historical moment that effectively killed Reconstruction and erased the gains blacks had made since the civil war, it was the day of the Colfax Massacre. LeeAnna Keith gives readers both a gripping narrative account of that portentous day and a nuanced historical analysis of its far-reaching repercussions.

From CWBN
This is the first paperback edition of a previously published hardback.

Sic Semper Tyrannis: Why John Wilkes Booth Shot Abraham Lincoln

by William L. Richter

From the publisher:
From Richard Lawrence to John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley, Jr., Americans have preferred their presidential assassins, whether failed or successful, to be more or less crazy. Seemingly, this absolves us of having to wonder where the American experiment might have gone wrong.

John Wilkes Booth has been no exception to this rule. But was he?

In a new, provocative study comprising three essays, historian William L. Richter delves into the psyche of Booth and finds him far from insane. Beginning with a modern, less adulating interpretation of President Abraham Lincoln, Richter is the first scholar to examine Booth's few known, often unfinished speeches and essays to draw a realistic mind-picture of the man who intensely believed in common American political theories of his day, and acted violently to carry them out during the time of America's greatest war.

The Reconstruction Presidents

by Brooks D. Simpson

From the publisher:
During and after the Civil War, four presidents faced the challenge of reuniting the nation and of providing justice for black Americans—and of achieving a balance between those goals. This first book to collectively examine the Reconstruction policies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes reveals how they confronted and responded to the complex issues presented during that contested era in American politics.

Brooks Simpson examines the policies of each administration in depth and evaluates them in terms of their political, social, and institutional contexts. Simpson explains what was politically possible at a time when federal authority and presidential power were more limited than they are now. He compares these four leaders' handling of similar challenges—such as the retention of political support and the need to build a Southern base for their policies—in different ways and under different circumstances, and he discusses both their use of executive power and the impact of their personal beliefs on their actions.

Although historians have disagreed on the extent to which these presidents were committed to helping blacks, Simpson's sharply drawn assessments of presidential performance shows that previous scholars have overemphasized how the personal racial views of each man shaped his approach to Reconstruction. Simpson counters much of the conventional wisdom about these leaders by persuasively demonstrating that considerable constraints to presidential power severely limited their efforts to achieve their ends.

The Reconstruction Presidents marks a return to understanding Reconstruction based on national politics and offers an approach to presidential policy making that emphasizes the environment in which a president governs and the nature of the challenges facing him. By showing that what these four leaders might have accomplished was limited by circumstances not easily altered, it allows us to assess them in the context of their times and better understand an era too often measured by inappropriate standards.

From the critics:
The historian Eric Foner has presented the Reconstruction as a failed opportunity to achieve emancipation and equality for black Americans. Here, Simpson persuasively argues that, given their circumstances, the four Reconstruction presidents generally did as well as they could. - Kirkus

A fine comparative study; recommended for all presidential collections - Library Journal

Blue & Gray Ballads

by Richard Raymond III

From the publisher:
For the first time, the entire story of the Civil War is told in poetry. Over a 40 year span of time, Richard Raymond has created a traditional rhyme and meter particularly appropriate to the telling of the Civil War story. It is a celebration of valor. Blue and Gray Ballads is a tribute to the sacrifice of the soldiers North and South, and to the steadfast women and children who gave those soldiers a reason to persevere.

The Chatfield Story: Civil War Letters and Diaries of Private Edward L. Chatfield of the 113th Illinois Volunteers

by Terry M. McCarty, Margaret Ann Chatfield McCarty

From the publisher:
Fully annotated and meticulously researched, The Chatfield Story: The Civil War Letters and Diaries of Private Edward L. Chatfield of the 113th Illinois Volunteers is a stunning personal biography that illustrates a harrowing part of American history. Resonant, wise, and suspenseful, this elegantly wrought memoir is a story of courage, pluck, and survival against seemingly insurmountable odds. Chatfield’s life as a Union private unfolds with each successive missive, an incredible account from within the Western Theater of the Civil War: Cairo, Memphis, Oxford, Holly Springs, Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, DeSoto Point, Grand Gulf, Clinton, Vicksburg, Corinth, and Brice’s Cross Roads—where disaster awaited him. Fascinating in its approach and its depth, this spellbinding story of a young man whose name and family became famous in Colorado is a marvelous tale of accomplishment—a decidedly American story that truly begs to be heard.

Terry M. McCarty and Margaret Ann Chatfield McCarty have a shared passion for history which prompted them to transcribe and research the Civil War letters and diaries written by Edward L. Chatfield, Margaret's great-granduncle. During their research, they visited many of the regions described in Chatfield's travels and pored over reams of original information contained in local civic registries and libraries. Both originally from California, they now live in Georgetown, Texas. This is their first book.

Defending South Carolina's Coast: The Civil War from Georgetown to Little River

by Rick Simmons

From the publisher:
In Defending South Carolina's Coast: The Civil War from Georgetown to Little River, area native Rick Simmons relates the often overlooked stories of the upper South Carolina coast during the Civil War.

As a base of operations for more than three thousand troops early in the war and the site of more than a dozen forts, almost every inch of the coast was affected by and hotly contested during the Civil War. From the skirmishes at Fort Randall in Little River and the repeated Union naval bombardments of Murrells Inlet to the unrealized potential of the massive fortifications at Battery White and the sinking of the USS Harvest Moon in Winyah Bay, the region's colorful Civil War history is unfolded here at last.

Escape from Andersonville: A Novel of the Civil War

by Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan

From the publisher:
An explosivenovel of the Civil War about one man's escape from a notorious Confederate prison camp - and his dramatic return to save his men.

July 1864. Union officer Nathan Parker has been imprisoned at nightmarish Andersonville prison camp in Georgia along with his soldiers. As others die around them, Nathan and his men hatch a daring plan to allow him to escape through a tunnel and make his way to Vicksburg, where he intends to alert his superiors to the imprisonment and push for military action. His efforts are blocked by higher-ups in the military, so Parker takes matters into his own hands. Together with a shady, dangerous ex-soldier and smuggler named Marcel Lafarge and a fascinating collection of cutthroats, soldiers, and castoffs, a desperate Parker organizes aprivate rescue mission to free his men before it's too late. Exciting, thoroughly researched, and dramatic, Escape from Andersonville is a Civil War novel filled with action, memorable characters, and vividly realized descriptions of the war's final year.

Walt Whitman and the Civil War: America's Poet during the Lost Years of 1860-1862

by Ted Genoways

From the publisher:
Shortly after the third edition of Leaves of Grass was published, in 1860, Walt Whitman seemed to drop off the literary map, not to emerge again until his brother George was wounded at Fredericksburg two and a half years later.

Past critics have tended to read this silence as evidence of Whitman's indifference to the Civil War during its critical early months. In this penetrating, original, and beautifully written book, Ted Genoways reconstructs those forgotten years--locating Whitman directly through unpublished letters and never-before-seen manuscripts, as well as mapping his associations through rare period newspapers and magazines in which he published. Genoways's account fills a major gap in Whitman's biography and debunks the myth that Whitman was unaffected by the country's march to war. Instead, Walt Whitman and the Civil War reveals the poet's active participation in the early Civil War period and elucidates his shock at the horrors of war months before his legendary journey to Fredericksburg, correcting in part the poet's famous assertion that the "real war will never get in the books."

On the Trail of Grant and Lee

by Frederick Trevor Hill

From the publisher:
The author of this book, Frederick Trevor Hill (1866-1930), was an American lawyer who practiced law in New York City from 1890. He wrote several novels and three books on Lincoln. His works include: The Minority (1902), The Web (1903), The Accomplice (1905), Lincoln the Lawyer (1906), Decisive Battles of the Law (1907), The Story of a Street (1908), Lincoln's Legacy of Inspiration (1909), On the Trail of Grant and Lee (1911), The Thirteenth Juror (1913), Washington: The Man of Action (1914), Tales Out of Court (1920), High School Farces (1920) and Lincoln: Emancipator of the Nation (1928).

The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861

by Stanley Harrold

From the publisher:
Within the American antislavery movement, abolitionists were distinct from others in the movement in advocating, on the basis of moral principle, the immediate emancipation of slaves and equal rights for black people.

Instead of focusing on the "immediatists" as products of northern culture, as many previous historians have done, Stanley Harrold examines their involvement with antislavery action in the South--particularly in the region that bordered the free states. How, he asks, did antislavery action in the South help shape abolitionist beliefs and policies in the period leading up to the Civil War?

Harrold explores the interaction of northern abolitionist, southern white emancipators, and southern black liberators in fostering a continuing antislavery focus on the South, and integrates southern antislavery action into an understanding of abolitionist reform culture. He discusses the impact of abolitionist missionaries, who preached an antislavery gospel to the enslaved as well as to the free. Harrold also offers an assessment of the impact of such activities on the coming of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

From CWBN
This is the first paperback edition of a previously published hardback.

Love and War, A Southern Soldier's Struggle Between Love and Duty (Paperback)

by Robert Crewdson

From the publisher:
You will never understand the Civil War until your understand its emotion. Love and War dramatically presents the real inner conflicts between love and duty. This wonderful collection of poignant letters provides a fascinating glimpse into the heart and mind of a private soldier in the Army of Northern Virginia. Madly in love with a much younger woman, he married her early in the war, and went AWOL three times in order to be with her. He survived Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, but died at the Battle of Chester Station in May 1864. Cover commentary by leading historians: James McPherson, James "Bud" Robertson, Jr. and Holt Merchant.

Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant

by Carol Berkin

From the publisher:
Here are the life stories of three women who connect us to our national past and provide windows onto a social and political landscape that is strangely familiar yet shockingly foreign.

Berkin focuses on three “accidental heroes” who left behind sufficient records to allow their voices to be heard clearly and to allow us to see the world as they did. Though they held no political power themselves, all three had access to power and unique perspectives on events of their time.

Angelina Grimké Weld, after a painful internal dialogue, renounced the values of her Southern family’s way of life and embraced the antislavery movement, but found her voice silenced by marriage to fellow reformer Theodore Weld. Varina Howell Davis had an independent mind and spirit but incurred the disapproval of her husband, Jefferson Davis, when she would not behave as an obedient wife. Though ill-prepared and ill-suited for her role as First Lady of the Confederacy, she became an expert political lobbyist for her husband’s release from prison. Julia Dent Grant, the wife of Ulysses S. Grant, was a model of genteel domesticity who seemed content with the restrictions of marriage and motherhood, even though they led to alternating periods of fame and disgrace, wealth and poverty. Only late in life did she glimpse the price of dependency.

Throughout, Berkin captures the tensions and animosities of the antebellum era and the disruptions, anxieties, and dislocations generated by the war and its aftermath.

Delia Webster And The Underground Railroad

by Randolph Paul Runyon

From the publisher:
In this captivating tale, Randolph Paul Runyon follows the trail of the first woman imprisoned for assisting runaway slaves and explores the mystery surrounding her life and work.

In September 1844, Delia Webster took a break from her teaching responsibilities at Lexington Female Academy and accompanied Calvin Fairbank, a Methodist preacher from Oberlin College, on a Saturdary drive in the country. At the end of their trip, their passengers—Lewis Hayden and his family—remained in southern Ohio, ticketed for the Underground Railroad. Webster and Fairbank returned to a near riot and jail cells. Webster earned a sentence to the state penitentiary in Frankfort, where the warden, Newton Craig, married and a father, became enamored of her and was tempted into a compromising relationship he would come to regret. Hayden reached freedom in Boston, where he became a prominent businessman, the ringleader in the courthouse rescue of a fugitive slave, and the last link in the chain of events that led to the Harpers Ferry Raid. Webster, the focal point at which these lives intersect, remains an enigma. Was she, as one contemporary noted, ""A young lady of irreproachable character""? Or, as another observed, ""a very bold and defiant kind of woman, without a spark of feminine modesty, and, withal, very shrewd and cunning""? Runyon has doggedly pursued every historical lead to bring color and shape to the tale of these fascinating characters.

The Anti-Slavery Crusade

by Jesse Macy

From the publisher:
The author of this book, Jesse Macy (1842-1919), was an American political scientist and historian of the late 19th and early 20th century, specializing in the history of American political parties, party systems, and the Civil War. He spent most of his professional career at his alma mater, Grinnell College. At age 17, he entered Iowa College. During the Civil War, he served in the Union army and he did not graduate until after the war, earning an A. B. in 1870. In 1884, he completed his Ph. D. at Johns Hopkins University.

For the next forty-two years, Macy taught history and political science at the college. He was also a leading author of political science textbooks. Professor Macy's 1896 manual on American civil government, Our Government: How it Grew, What it Does, and How it Does it, was an influential primer for university students and his 1897 The English Constitution: A Commentary on its Nature and Growth was acclaimed for providing the necessary foundation in English law to correctly understand American law.