The Second Vermont Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 1861-1865

by Paul G. Zeller

From the publisher:
The many regiments that fought in the Civil War each had their own stories to tell about what they saw, smelled, tasted, heard and felt while serving in war. Most of these stories have been lost, but those that survive are compelling accounts of a dark time in our nation's history. The Second Vermont Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the Old Vermont Brigade saw its first combat at the Battle of Bull Run and fought on to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. This work views the war from the eyes of the junior officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates that made up the regiment, and draws from their service, pension and court-martial records, and personal letters and diaries to portray the men as they were in battle, on the march, and in camp. Some were heroes, like Private William W. Noyes, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Spotsylvania, and others were not, like Private George E. Blowers, who was publicly executed for desertion. A roster of the 1,858 men who served in the Second Vermont is also provided. Richly illustrated.

The Third Battalion Mississippi Infantry and the 45th Mississippi Regiment: A Civil War History

by David Williamson

From the publisher:
This is an accounting of the experiences of the soldiers of Hardcastle's 3rd Battalion Mississippi Infantry from enlistment to the end of the war. It includes their mid-war incarnation as the 45th Mississippi Regiment and the role they played in Cleburne's fabled division during almost every major engagement of the Army of Tennessee. Told as much as possible from the point of view of the soldier, the book shows what motivated the original volunteers to join and continue fighting to the end.

"A labor of love...valuable" --The Civil War News

"An exhaustive study that cannot fail to impress the reader with the amount of research involved, mostly based on primary source material...detailed accounts of the battles and skirmishes...important...Williamson is to be congratulated...very complete" --Civil War Courier.

Freelance writer David Williamson is a graduate of the University of Akron (B.A.) and Tulane University (Ph.D.). He lives in Mississippi. --North & South

Baseball's First Inning: A History of the National Pastime Through the Civil War

by William J. Ryczek

From the publisher:
This history of America's pastime describes the evolution of baseball from early bat and ball games to its growth and acceptance in different regions of the country. The New York clubs (i.e., the Atlantics, Excelsiors and Mutuals) are a primary focus, serving as examples of how the sport became more sophisticated and popular. The author compares theories about many of baseball's "inventors," exploring the often fascinating stories of several of baseball's oldest founding myths. The impact of the Civil War on the sport is discussed and baseball's unsteady path to becoming America's national game is analyzed at length.

The 25th North Carolina Troops in the Civil War: History and Roster of a Mountain-Bred Regiment

by Carroll C. Jones

From the publisher:
This historical account covers the 25th Regiment North Carolina Infantry Troops during the Civil War. Farmers and farmers' sons left their mountain homesteads to enlist with the regiment at Asheville in July and August 1861 and to defend their homeland from a Yankee invasion. The book chronicles the unit's defensive activities in the Carolina coastal regions and the battlefield actions at Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Plymouth, Richmond and Petersburg. In addition, casualty and desertion statistics are included, along with a complete regimental roster and 118 photos, illustrations, and maps.

Engineering consultant Carroll C. Jones is a North Carolina native and Civil War enthusiast.

Women in the Civil War: Extraordinary Stories of Soldiers, Spies, Nurses, Doctors, Crusaders, and Others

by Larry G. Eggle

From the publisher:
When the Civil War broke out, women answered the call for help. They broke away from their traditional roles and served in many capacities, some of them even going so far as to disguise themselves as men and enlist in the army. Estimates of such women enlistees range from 400 to 700. About 60 women soldiers were known to have been killed or wounded. More than sixty women who fought or who served the Union or Confederacy in other ways are featured. Among them are Sarah Thompson, the Union spy and nurse who brought down the famous raider John Hunt Morgan; Elizabeth Van Lew, the Union spy instrumental in the largest prison break of the war; Sarah Malinda Blalock, who fought for the Confederacy as a soldier and then for the Union as a guerrilla raider; Dr. Mary Walker, a doctor for the Union and the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for Civil War service; and Jennie Hodgers, the longest serving woman soldier (and the only woman to receive a soldier's pension).

The Second United States Sharpshooters in the Civil War: A History and Roster

by Gerald L. Earley

From the publisher:
The Second U.S. Sharpshooters was a hodgepodge regiment, composed of companies raised in several New England states. The regiment was trained for a specific mission and armed with specially ordered breech-loading target rifles. This book covers the origin, recruitment, training, and battle record of the regiment and features 32 photographs, four battlefield maps, and a regimental roster.

Gerald L. Earley is a lifelong student of the Civil War and has personally visited all the major battlefields of the Second U.S. Sharpshooters. He is a graduate of Wichita State University and a veteran of the Vietnam War.

The Essential Lincoln: Speeches and Correspondence

by Orville Vernon Burton

From the publisher:
Edited by the author of The Age of Lincoln (2007), this anthology calls attention to Lincoln’s devotion to constitutional law and the principles of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Besides the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address, which respectively exhort and admonish an American people rent by civil war, Burton chooses orations and letters that Lincoln composed with persuasive intent. The election speeches he picks represent Lincoln balancing his antislavery convictions and his ambition to win before deeply prejudiced constituencies. The wartime public messages reflect Lincoln’s transition from disclaiming abolition of slavery to effecting emancipation, and his public letters defend controversial policies, such as the suspension of habeas corpus. Burton’s focus compels him to omit Lincoln’s military missives, a defensible decision for introducing readers to Lincoln-on-democracy and one that creates space for examples of private correspondence that express his famed compassion. Every collection needs some Lincoln unmediated, a library requirement that this set of 29 selections ably meets.

“Orville Vernon Burton notes that ‘Lincoln chose his words deliberately,’ and so does Burton. His introductions and editorial notes are concise, lively, and reliable, and Lincoln’s words, as always, are gripping, brilliant, and deeply moving. There have been many collections of Lincoln’s writings, but this slender, thoughtfully selected compendium more than lives up to its title: essential.” —Harold Holzer, co-chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

The 10th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War: A History and Roster

by Dennis W. Belcher

From the publisher:
The 10th Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry waged battle for the Union for three years during the Civil War, ranging from its home state to Atlanta. This work is filled with personal accounts, including 25 war-time letters written by the men of the regiment, and official records of the regiment's activities, which included action at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. The regiment began the war with 867 men, suffered a 40-percent casualty rate at Chickamauga, and helped break Confederate lines at Jonesboro. At the end of the war only 140 men staggered home in victory. This title features more than 60 photos, 14 maps, rosters and descriptions of the unit's soldiers.

Dennis Belcher has a Ph. D. from Mississippi State University and is a descendent of a member of the 10th Kentucky Infantry. He has been working on the history of the 10th Kentucky Infantry for eight years and operates the Web site www.tenthkentuckyinfantry.org.

Creating the John Brown Legend: Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass, Child and Higginson in Defense of the Raid on Harpers Ferry

by Janet Kemper Beck

From the publisher:
One of the triggering events of the Civil War helped divide a nation but also launched a cannonade of persuasive essays and propaganda. Early press reaction to John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry ranged from indignant horror in the South to stunned disbelief in the North. Brown's supporters wielded great power with their pens: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Lydia Maria Child. This book explores the moment when literature and history collided and literature rewrote history. This volume features 30 photographs, maps, proclamations and broadsides and a detailed timeline of events surrounding the raid.

Janet Kemper Beck teaches English at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, and is a member of the Thoreau Society and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society.

Colonel Worthington's Shiloh: the Tennessee Campaign, 1862, by an officer of the Ohio Volunteers

by T. Worthington

From the publisher:
This an account of the battle of Shiloh by one who was present as a colonel of the Ohio Volunteer infantry, but it is also much more than that. In every line of this book the reader feels the anger and vitriol of a deeply offended man. This work transcends history to become an exposure-according to the author's viewpoint-of incompetence, double dealing and cover-up on behalf of the senior officers of the Union Army. The particular target of Worthington's accusation is his superior officer W. T. Sherman. Certainly the two men were enemies-a situation which for Worthington, as the subordinate officer, was to have disastrous consequences. It is now recognised that Worthington's own conduct during the battle itself was exemplary, contributing much to the benefit of the Union action. Nevertheless, Sherman court martialled Worthington after the battle and he was cashiered from the service. Notwithstanding the illegality of his trial and its subsequent over turning by Lincoln himself, Sherman, in concert with Grant, ensured Worthington was never reinstated. This is a vital analysis of a Civil War battle with no holds barred and a story of great injustice done to a man of principle.

Civil War in the Ozarks: Revised Edition

by Phillip Steele and Steve Cottrell

From the publisher:
During the Civil War, the Ozarks were a bitter battleground between the Blue and Gray. This region experienced warfare of a rough style, unique in its ferocity to the struggles of the other fighting states. The combats that took place in this area involved colorful individuals who would later garner both fame and notoriety in the history of the Old West. In this revised edition of Civil War in the Ozarks, Steve Cottrell and the late Phillip W. Steele extensively researched and chronicled, in new detail, the battles that took place in the Ozarks during the Civil War. With additional commentary from contemporary experts and primary sources, this enhanced edition provides new insight into the Civil War in this area.

Steve Cottrell, who is also the author of Civil War in the Indian Territory, Civil War in Texas and New Mexico Territory, and Civil War in Tennessee, is a Civil War historian and former high-school teacher. Phillip W. Steele was a renowned folklorist and historian who wrote many books about the Ozarks, including Ozark Tales and Superstitions, Outlaws and Gunfighters of the Old West, The Last Cherokee Warriors, Starr Tracks: Belle and Pearl Starr, The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse and Frank James, and Two Longs and a Short: An Ozark Boyhood Remembered.

No Peace for the Wicked: Northern Protestant Soldiers and the American Civil War

by David Rolfs

From the publisher:
In the spring of 1861, young men throughout the Northern states rallied around the Union flag, eager to punish the Confederate renegades who had brazenly inaugurated civil war by firing on Fort Sumter. Often driven by their Protestant religious beliefs, many northern soldiers believed they were enlisting in a just war to save their Christian government from a "wicked" Southern rebellion.

These Protestant soldiers' faith was severely tested by the hardships and tragedies they experienced in the Civil War. The vast majority easily justified their wartime service by reminding themselves and their loved ones that they were engaged in a holy cause to preserve the world's only Christian republic. Others were genuinely haunted by the horrific violence of a seemingly endless civil war, and began to entertain serious doubts about their faith.

The first comprehensive work of its kind, David Rolfs' No Peace for the Wicked sheds new light on the Northern Protestant soldiers' religious worldview and the various ways they used it to justify and interpret their wartime experiences. Drawing extensively from the letters, diaries and published collections of hundreds of religious soldiers, Rolfs effectively resurrects both these soldiers' religious ideals and their most profound spiritual doubts and conflicts. No Peace for the Wicked also explores the importance of "just war" theory in the formulation of Union military strategy and tactics, and examines why the most religious generation in U.S. history fought America's bloodiest war.

David Rolfs earned his doctorate at Florida State University and is currently an instructor of history at Maclay College Preparatory School in Tallahassee, Florida.

Wars within a War: Controversy and Conflict over the American Civil War

by Joan Waugh (Editor), Gary W. Gallagher (Editor)

From the publisher:
The twelve essays in Wars within a War explore the internal stresses that posed serious challenges to the viability of the opposing sides in the Civil War as well as some of the ways in which wartime disputes and cultural fissures carried over into the postwar years and beyond.

Comprised of contributions from leading scholars, this volume extends the discussion of controversies far past the death of the Confederacy in the spring of 1865. Contributors address, among other topics, Walt Whitman's poetry, the handling of the Union and Confederate dead, the treatment of disabled and destitute northern veterans, Ulysses S. Grant's imposing tomb, and Hollywood's long relationship with the Lost Cause narrative.

Reflecting a variety of approaches and methodologies, these essays provide a starting point for anyone interested in how Americans have argued about the prosecution, meaning, and memory of the war.

Mystic Fire: A Bonanza (Novel)

by Monette L. Bebow-Reinhard

From the publisher:
The Cartwrights are back, yet this novel is a departure from the author's adventurous earlier work, FELLING OF THE SONS. The theme of MYSTIC FIRE novel is a darker one: Slavery and the Civil War. Then our country was torn apart with strong feelings on all sides. Which Cartwright sons will enlist? Who will stay behind? What of the "mystical" and ghostly doings that have become such a part of the culture with death all around. Which Cartwright will be haunted by a ghost?

Flags of Civil War Missouri

by Glenn Dedmondt

From the publisher:
Flags awaken incredibly powerful and patriotic emotions. Throughout the 1860s, scores of Missouri secession flags, state guard flags, and battle flags unfurled over the ranks of men defending their homelands against invading soldiers from the North. Symbolizing the way of life the men of Missouri sought to protect, these flags provide a unique index to the history of the Civil War in this western state.

From the stirring banner borne by the First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, which serves as a significant reminder of the Camp Jackson massacre, to the famed flag Brig. Gen. Joseph O. Shelby never surrendered, each Missouri ensign represents a moment in history.

This comprehensive study of Missouri's Civil War-era flags presents more than fifty authentic flags, along with a history of the origins and the units they represented. The emblems, materials, construction, and dimensions of each flag are also included. From the state secession flags of 1861 to the flags of the Missouri State Guard and the Audrain County Flag of the Second Missouri Infantry Regiment, this examination is a true tribute to the men who bore these colors and is certain to be cherished by Civil War experts, genealogists, and students of military history.

Praise for Glenn Dedmondt's previous books: "An excellent research tool for historians, professional or hobbyist." --Today's Librarian

Compelled to Fight, The Seccession Crisis in Rockbridge County, Virginia

by Thomas Rittenburg

From the publisher:
The American Civil War continues to stir passion and fascination for many readers and historians. While there are hundreds of books about the war itself there are hardly any that delve into the mysteries of why a once united country at peace with itself and the world went to war-a war that has not been exceeded on this continent for its destruction or slaughter. In Compelled to Fight the causes of the Civil War are examined through Rockbridge County, Virginia, a microcosm of ante bellum Virginia and touches upon why this Union loving people in the most critical Southern border state abandoned hope of compromise and cast their lot with the slaveholding South. Read this book and you will understand why Virginia seceded.

Abraham Lincoln: His Life and Times: An Illustrated History

by Editors of Time Magazine

From the publisher:
This richly illustrated volume celebrates Abraham Lincoln by exploring the fascinating life and times of the president who saved the Union. Here, in more than 160 little-seen photos and illustrations, is a great nation still young and rapidly transforming. Here is the growth of the frontier and the Indian and Mexican wars; the advent of the telegram and the railroad; the battle over states' rights that erupted into the Civil War. And here in all its passion, complexity and tragedy, is the life story of the wise, visionary President who summoned America's founding ideals to keep the nation united.

John Bankhead Magruder: A Military Reappraisal

by Thomas M. Settles

From the publisher:
Of all the major figures of the Civil War era, Confederate general John Bankhead Magruder is perhaps the least understood. The third-ranking officer in Virginia's forces behind Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston, Magruder left no diary, no completed memoirs, no will, not even a family Bible. There are no genealogical records and very few surviving personal papers. It is not surprising, then, that much existing literature about Magruder is incorrect. In John Bankhead Magruder, an exhaustive biography that reflects more than thirty years of painstaking archival research, Thomas M. Settles remedies the many factual inaccuracies surrounding this enigmatic man and his military career.

Settles traces Magruder's family back to its seventeenth-century British American origins, describes his educational endeavors at the University of Virginia and West Point, and details his early military career and his leading role as an artillerist in the war with Mexico. Tall, handsome, and flamboyant, Magruder earned the nickname "Prince John" from his army friends and was known for his impeccable manners and social brilliance. When Virginia seceded in April of 1861, Prince John resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and offered his services to the Confederacy.

Magruder won the opening battle of the Civil War at Big Bethel. And later, in spite of severe shortages of weapons and supplies and a lack of support from Jefferson Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, Samuel Cooper, and Joseph E. Johnston, Prince John, with just 13,600 men, he was able to hold his position on the Peninsula for a month against George B. McClellan's 105,000 man Federal army. This successful stand when Richmond was exceedingly vulnerable, was, according to Settles, John Magruder's greatest contribution to the Confederacy.

Following the Seven Days' battles, however, Magruder was harshly criticized for being too slow at Savage Station, then too rash at Malvern Hill and was transferred to command the District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. There he skillfully recaptured the port of Galveston in early 1863 and held it for the Confederacy until the end of the war. After the war, he joined the Confederate exodus to Mexico but eventually returned to the United States, living in New York City and New Orleans before settling in Houston, where he died on February 18, 1871.

John Bankhead Magruder offers fresh insight into many aspects of the general's life and legacy, including his alleged excesses, his relationships within his family, and the period between Magruder's death and his memorialization into the canon of Lost Cause mythology. With engaging prose and impressive research, Settles brings this vibrant Civil War figure to life.

For more than thirty-five years, Thomas M. Settles has been a professor of history at San Antonio College in San Antonio, Texas.

The Black Brigade of Cincinnati

by Peter H. Clark

From the publisher:
The Black Brigade of Cincinnati: Being a Report of Its Labors and a Muster-roll of its Members: Together with Various Orders Speeches etc. Relating To It. Gale Archival Editions: On Demand are digital copies of rare and out-of-print historical content. Delivered where and when you need them, Gale Archival Editions arrive complete with original fonts, marks, notations, punctuation and spelling, giving you the feeling of owning the original work. These images of original works—from the world's leading libraries—include everything from books to pamphlets, many with original illustrations, indexes, maps and other annotations. Sourced from Joseph Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana: A Dictionary of Books Relating to America from its Discovery to the Present Time (1868-1936), the Sabin American Civil War Collection includes thousands of titles on all topics related to the Civil War experience.

Commanding Lincoln's Navy: Union Naval Leadership During the Civil War

by Stephen R. Taaffe

From the publisher:
The Union Navy played a vital role in winning the Civil War by blockading Confederate ports, cooperating with the Union Army in amphibious assaults, and controlling the Mississippi River and its tributaries. President Lincoln understood, however, that the Navy was not as important, militarily and politically, to the war effort as the Army, so he delegated authority to his Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, who divided the Navy into six squadrons and hand-picked their commanders. This book examines Welles selections and why he appointed them. While noting that the officers records, character, and abilities were of primary importance, Taaffe acknowledges that political connections, seniority, and availability were also factored into the selections. He demonstrates that Welles appointments improved markedly as the war continued and as he gained a better understanding of the Navy and its officer corps. Taaffe contends that Welles eventual success in picking effective squadron commanders contributed greatly to Union victory.
Stephen R. Taaffe is a professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX. He holds MA and PhD degrees from Ohio University. He is also the author of the award-winning Commanding the Army of the Potomac, The Philadelphia Campaign, and MacArthur's Jungle War.

The War in Words: Reading the Dakota Conflict through the Captivity Literature

by Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola

From the publisher:
The War in Words is the first book to study the captivity and confinement narratives generated by a single American war as it traces the development and variety of the captivity narrative genre. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola examines the complex 1862 Dakota Conflict (also called the Dakota War) by focusing on twenty-four of the dozens of narratives that European Americans and Native Americans wrote about it. This six-week war was the deadliest confrontation between whites and Dakotas in Minnesota’s history. Conducted at the same time as the Civil War, it is sometimes called Minnesota’s Civil War because it was—and continues to be—so divisive.

The Dakota Conflict aroused impassioned prose from participants and commentators as they disputed causes, events, identity, ethnicity, memory, and the all-important matter of the war’s legacy. Though the study targets one region, its ramifications reach far beyond Minnesota in its attention to war and memory. An ethnography of representative Dakota Conflict narratives and an analysis of the war’s historiography, The War in Words includes new archival information, historical data, and textual criticism.

Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola is a professor of English and the director of the William G. Cooper Jr. Honors Program in English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is the editor of Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives and the coauthor of The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550–1900.

Gentleman and Soldier: A Biography of Wade Hampton III

by Edward G. Longacre

From the publisher:
Winner of the Douglas Southall Freeman History Award, Gentleman and Soldier is the first biography in more than fifty years of Wade Hampton III (1818–1902), a Confederate general whose life provides a unique, sweeping insight into the entire history of the Civil War in the South. Hampton was a leading citizen of South Carolina before the war and the highest-ranking cavalry leader on either side during the war. He fought in a remarkable number of battles from Antietam to Gettysburg to Bentonville and after the war served as governor of South Carolina and in the U.S. Senate.

Hampton’s life, however, was one of dramatic contradictions. He was the quintessential slave owner who nonetheless questioned the ethical underpinnings of the “peculiar institution.” He was a prewar spokesperson for national unity but became an avid secessionist. He condemned violence and abhorred dueling, but he probably killed more opponents in battle than any other general with the possible exception of Nathan Bedford Forrest. He “redeemed” South Carolina from Reconstruction but then extended more political benefits to African Americans than any other Democratic governor in the postwar South. For more than forty years he gave selflessly of himself to his state and his community, not only when wealthy but also when teetering on the abyss of poverty.

Edward G. Longacre has written twenty-three books on the Civil War. His book The Cavalry at Gettysburg, available in a Bison Books edition, won the Fletcher Pratt Award as the best book of Civil War nonfiction. He is also the author of Pickett, Leader of the Charge and Lee's Cavalrymen, a main selection of the History Book Club.

Sister States, Enemy States: The Civil War in Kentucky and Tennessee

by Kent Dollar, Larry Whiteaker, and W. Calvin Dickinson (Editors)

From the publisher:
The fifteenth and sixteenth states to join the United States of America, Kentucky and Tennessee were cut from a common cloth—the rich region of the Ohio River Valley. Abounding with mountainous regions and fertile farmlands, these two slaveholding states were as closely tied to one another, both culturally and economically, as they were to the rest of the South.

Yet when the Civil War erupted, Tennessee chose to secede while Kentucky remained part of the Union. The residents of Kentucky and Tennessee felt the full impact of the fighting as warring armies crossed back and forth across their borders. Due to Kentucky’s strategic location, both the Union and the Confederacy sought to control it throughout the war, while Tennessee was second only to Virginia in the number of battles fought on its soil. Additionally, loyalties in each state were closely divided between the Union and the Confederacy, making wartime governance—and personal relationships—complex.

In Sister States, Enemy States: The Civil War in Kentucky and Tennessee, editors Kent T. Dollar, Larry H. Whiteaker, and W. Calvin Dickinson explore how the war affected these two crucial states, and how they helped change the course of the war. Essays by prominent Civil War historians, including Benjamin Franklin Cooling, Marion Lucas, Tracy McKenzie, and Kenneth Noe, add new depth to aspects of the war not addressed elsewhere.

The collection opens by recounting each state’s debate over secession, detailing the divided loyalties in each as well as the overt conflict that simmered in East Tennessee. The editors also spotlight the war’s overlooked participants, including common soldiers, women, refugees, African American soldiers, and guerrilla combatants. The book concludes by analyzing the difficulties these states experienced in putting the war behind them.

The stories of Kentucky and Tennessee are a vital part of the larger narrative of the Civil War. Sister States, Enemy States offers fresh insights into the struggle that left a lasting mark on Kentuckians and Tennesseans, just as it left its mark on the nation.

Kent T. Dollar is assistant professor of history at Tennessee Technological University and author of Soldiers of the Cross: Confederate Soldier-Christians and the Impact of War on their Faith.

Larry H. Whiteaker is professor emeritus of history at Tennessee Technological University and author of The Individual and Society in America.

W. Calvin Dickinson is professor emeritus of history at Tennessee Technological University and coauthor of Tennessee Tales the Textbooks Don’t Tell.

Bleeding Borders: Race, Gender, and Violence in Pre-Civil War Kansas

by Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel

From the publisher:
In Bleeding Borders, Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel offers a fresh, multifaceted interpretation of the quintessential sectional conflict in pre-Civil War Kansas. Instead of focusing on the white, male politicians and settlers who vied for control of the Kansas territorial legislature, Oertel explores the crucial roles Native Americans, African Americans, and white women played in the literal and rhetorical battle between proslavery and antislavery settlers in the region. She brings attention to the local debates and the diverse peoples who participated in them during that contentious period.

Oertel begins by detailing the settlement of eastern Kansas by emigrant Indian tribes and explores their interaction with the growing number of white settlers in the region. She analyzes the attempts by southerners to plant slavery in Kansas and the ultimately successful resistance of slaves and abolitionists. Oertel then considers how crude frontier living conditions, Indian conflict, political upheaval, and sectional violence reshaped traditional Victorian gender roles in Kansas and explores women's participation in the political and physical conflicts between proslavery and antislavery settlers.

Oertel goes on to examine northern and southern definitions of "true manhood" and how competing ideas of masculinity infused political and sectional tensions. She concludes with an analysis of miscegenation--not only how racial mixing between Indians, slaves, and whites influenced events in territorial Kansas, but more importantly, how the fear of miscegenation fueled both proslavery and antislavery arguments about the need for civil war.

As Oertel demonstrates, the players in Bleeding Kansas used weapons other than their Sharpes rifles and Bowie knives to wage war over the extension of slavery: they attacked each other's cultural values and struggled to assert their own political wills. They jealously guarded ideals of manhood, womanhood, and whiteness even as the presence of Indians and blacks and the debate over slavery raised serious questions about the efficacy of these principles. Oertel argues that, ultimately, many Native Americans, blacks, and women shaped the political and cultural terrain in ways that ensured the destruction of slavery, but they, along with their white male counterparts, failed to defeat the resilient power of white supremacy.

Moving beyond a conventional political history of Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Borders breaks new ground by revealing how the struggles of this highly diverse region contributed to the national move toward disunion and how the ideologies that governed race and gender relations were challenged as North, South, and West converged on the border between slavery and freedom.

A native of Kansas City, Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel is an associate professor of history at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.

From CWBN
This book's exact release date is unknown but falls within this month.

The Historical Atlas of the Civil War

by John MacDonald

From the publisher:
The social, political and military history of the American Civil War explored in colorful detail.

Over 100 stunning, full color maps and charts show the major battles of the conflict, supported by engaging text and beautiful illustrations and archive photographs.

Including the key events and battles of the war, from the initial conflict at Bull Run to the last major engagement at Five Forks.

Jayhawkers: The Civil War Brigade of James Henry Lane

by Bryce D. Benedict

From the publisher:
No person excited greater emotion in Kansas than James Henry Lane, the U.S. senator who led a volunteer brigade in 1861-62. In fighting numerous skirmishes, liberating hundreds of slaves, burning portions of four towns, and murdering half a dozen men, Lane and his brigade garnered national attention as the saviors of Kansas and the terror of Missouri.

This first book-length study of the "jayhawkers," as the men of Lane's brigade were known, takes a fresh look at their exploits and notoriety. Bryce Benedict draws on a wealth of previously unexploited sources, including letters by brigade members, to dramatically re-create the violence along the Kansas-Missouri border and challenge some of the time-honored depictions of Lane's unit as bloodthirsty and indiscriminately violent.

Bringing to life an era of guerillas, bushwhackers, and slave stealers, Jayhawkers also describes how Lane's brigade was organized and equipped and provides details regarding staff and casualties. Assessing the extent to which the jayhawkers followed accepted rules of warfare, Benedict argues that Lane set a precedent for the Union Army's eventual adoption of "hard" tactics toward civilians.

Bryce Benedict served for twenty-one years in the U.S. Army and Kansas National Guard and is now lead defense counsel for the Kansas State Self Insurance Fund. His historical articles have appeared in the Plains Guardian, the newspaper of the Kansas National Guard.

Great Things Are Expected of Us: The Letters of Colonel C. Irvine Walker, 10th South Carolina Infantry, C.S.A.

by William Lee White and Charles Denny Runion (Editors)

From the publisher:
Great Things Are Expected of Us is a fascinating collection of letters written by Lt. Col. Irvine Walker to his fiancé as he fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War's Western Theater from May 1862 until April 1865. This correspondence offers candid, revealing insights into the mind of a man whose devotion to the Southern cause was matched only by his desire to maintain the status befitting his high station in society.

A South Carolinian who fought in the Army of Tennessee, Walker was a quintessential representative of what historian Peter Carmichael has described as the "last generation of the Old South." Walker viewed his participation in the war as the perfect opportunity to live up to the idealized sense of manhood championed by the men of his class and to defend its way of life.

Not only do the letters provide firsthand accounts of the military campaigns in which Walker participated, they also show the war from a uniquely human perspective. Writing with passion and literary verve, the young officer was refreshingly open yet careful to present himself and his fellow soldiers in a positive way. He was quick to defend his friends, but he could be scathing in his criticism of others. Of particular interest is his defense of General Braxton Bragg, a commander whom many have maligned but whom Walker greatly admired.

Making these letters even more fascinating are the postwar corrections and commentary that Walker added when he had his letters transcribed decades after the conflict. Also included is an appendix containing Walker's accounts of his participation in the battles of Franklin and Nashville. These various elements, along with the editors' introduction and annotations, make Great Things Are Expected of Us a significant contribution to the Voices of the Civil War series and to our understanding of the Confederate elites and the war in the West.

William Lee White is a park ranger at Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park. Charles Denny Runion is the owner of Better Insurance Schools in Atlanta.

State of Rebellion

by Richard Zuczek

From the publisher:
This is a chronicle of postwar resistance in the Palmetto State. State of Rebellion recounts the volatile course of Reconstruction in the state that experienced the longest, largest, and most dynamic federal presence in the years immediately following the Civil War.

Richard Zuczek examines the opposition of conservative white South Carolinians to the Republican-led program and the federal and state governments' attempts to quell such resistance. Contending that the issues that had driven secession - the relationship of the states to the federal government and the status of African Americans - remained unresolved even after Northern victory, Zuczek describes the period from 1865 to 1877 as a continuation of the struggle that began in 1861. He argues that Republican efforts failed primarily because of an organized, coherent effort by white Southerners committed to white supremacy.

Zuczek details the tactics - from judicial and political fraud to economic coercion, terrorism, and guerrilla activity - employed by conservatives to nullify the African American vote, control African American labor, and oust northern Republicans from the state. He documents the federal government's attempt to quash the conservative challenge but shows that, by 1876, white opposition was so unified, widespread, and well armed that it passed beyond government control.

Richard Zuczek is an associate professor of government and history at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. He is editor of the two-volume Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era and coauthor of Andrew Johnson: A Biographical Companion.

Wild, Wicked, Wartime Wilmington

by Robert J. Cooke

From the publisher:
When America went to war with itself, Wilmington was North Carolina's largest city. From the imposing grandeur of the Bellamy Mansion that overlooked a busy harbor, to the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad, which at the time boasted the longest rail line in the world, the port city was a bustling example of Southern industry. But when conflict came, the city became a pivotal player in the Confederate government's war efforts.

Paddy's Hollow boasted more than thirty saloons, while murders happened with alarming frequency. Prostitutes offered their services to the thousands of soldiers passing through town, while civilian and military authorities tried to keep a lid on it all. Local police were woefully inadequate to keep the peace against rioting troops who had witnessed the horrors of places like Chickamauga and Gettysburg. Doctors performed heroically to save lives, fighting disease, battlefield disfigurements, and death with too little of every kind of medicine and supplies. Civilians, railroads, and military officials all competed for too few resources, while offshore the Union blockade of what became the last open port of the Confederacy grew tighter with each passing day.

Robert J. Cooke's ten years of research has resulted in a picture of Wilmington that more closely resembles the Wild West's Dodge City than it does some genteel antebellum city.

Robert J. Cooke is a New Yorker by birth and an avid historian by nature. He relocated to Wilmington, N.C. after retirement. Cooke is a former tour guide at several Cape Fear area historical sites, while continuing with his interest in local Civil War history. Robert J. Cooke has also contributed articles and stories to several books, journals and magazines. The result of more than a decade of research, "Wild, Wicked Wartime Wilmington" is his first book.

Civil War Yacht: Chronicles of the Schooner America

by Thomas R. Neblett

From the publisher:
From the race of the 100 Guinea Cup 1851, to a personal yacht, to an espionage boat for the Confederacy, to a blockader for the Union Navy, the trodden decks of this black schooner carries many stories.

The yacht America transports the reader from a shipyard in New York City across the Atlantic to the famous race of the Royal Yacht Squadron Queens Cup of 1851, now known as the Americas Cup Race. She became known as the Yankee schooner, raced with European yachts for several years, and in 1861 mysteriously sailed into Savannah, Georgia, carrying British colors and the Royal Victoria Yacht Clubs burgee. The Civil war had just begun. As the fifth owner, Henry Decie, an Irishman, becomes acquainted with the Jefferson Davis Administration. The yacht was prostituted to transport two Confederate officers to England. One officer was to serve as a secret emissary for President Davis, while the other officer was to purchase/build abroad iron-clad warships.

Henry Decie and his yacht, re-named Camilla, are captained across the Atlantic, to react with the Confederate urgent fares. However, he took time to race at the Isle of Wight.

Decie left the Confederate officers unceremoniously and sailed to Dixie - stopping at the Cape de Verdes, maybe to avoid Mason and Slidell. The yacht disappeared between late 1861 and early 1862. She had been scuttled by the Confederates in a creek hideaway. She was found and rescued by the Union Navy vessels far upriver beyond Jacksonville, Florida. America's celebrated life doesnt terminate in England, soon she was flying the colors of the USN as a naval blockader. For a little schooner her activities are full of intrigue. She is a proven winner of the waves, and holds an extremely important place in American yachting history.

Duty And Honor (Novel)

by Michael J. Deeb

From the publisher:
In the summer of 1862, the United States is torn by Civil War, and what was supposed to be a short conflict has turned into a bloody campaign on both sides. Teenage farm boy Michael Drieborg lives with his family in Michigan and longs to join the cause, but he can't justify abandoning his parents or the farm.

But fate intercedes one Saturday morning on the family's weekly visit to town. Michael saves a young boy from being bullied. Unfortunately, he strikes the bully-the son of the town's banker-and is arrested and charged with assault. He was given two choices: go to jail or join a Union cavalry unit being formed in Grand Rapids. Against the wishes of his parents, Michael leaves home and marches to war.

Thus begins the story of a naïve farm boy's journey to becoming a seasoned Union cavalryman. From the harshness of training camp and the intrigues of Washington DC to falling in love with a congressman's daughter and the horrific reality of leading troops into battle, Duty and Honor reveals one man's dignity and sacrifice in the midst of tragic upheaval.

Chancellorsville and Gettysburg: An Eyewitness Account of the Pivotal Battles of the Civil War

by Abner Doubleday

From the publisher:
Although best-known as the inventor of baseball, Abner Doubleday was also a Union General during the Civil War. This is General Doubleday's firsthand account of the pivotal battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.

With 40 pages of maps and original Civil War photos.

The Shiloh Campaign

by Steven E. Woodworth (ed.)

From the publisher:
Some 100,000 soldiers fought in the April 1862 battle of Shiloh, and nearly 20,000 men were killed or wounded; more Americans died on that Tennessee battlefield than had died in all the nation’s previous wars combined. In the first book in his new series, Steven E. Woodworth has brought together a group of superb historians to reassess this significant battle and provide in-depth analyses of key aspects of the campaign and its aftermath.

The eight talented contributors dissect the campaign’s fundamental events, many of which have not received adequate attention before now. John R. Lundberg examines the role of Albert Sidney Johnston, the prized Confederate commander who recovered impressively after a less-than-stellar performance at forts Henry and Donelson only to die at Shiloh; Alexander Mendoza analyzes the crucial, and perhaps decisive, struggle to defend the Union’s left; Timothy B. Smith investigates the persistent legend that the Hornet’s Nest was the spot of the hottest fighting at Shiloh; Steven E. Woodworth follows Lew Wallace’s controversial march to the battlefield and shows why Ulysses S. Grant never forgave him; Gary D. Joiner provides the deepest analysis available of action by the Union gunboats; Grady McWhiney describes P. G. T. Beauregard’s decision to stop the first day’s attack and takes issue with his claim of victory; and Charles D. Grear shows the battle’s impact on Confederate soldiers, many of whom did not consider the battle a defeat for their side. In the final chapter, Brooks D. Simpson analyzes how command relationships—specifically the interactions among Grant, Henry Halleck, William T. Sherman, and Abraham Lincoln—affected the campaign and debunks commonly held beliefs about Grant’s reactions to Shiloh’s aftermath.

The Shiloh Campaign will enhance readers’ understanding of a pivotal battle that helped unlock the western theater to Union conquest. It is sure to inspire further study of and debate about one of the American Civil War’s momentous campaigns.

Winner of the Grady McWhiney Award of the Dallas Civil War Round Table for lifetime contribution to the study of Civil War History, Steven E. Woodworth is a professor of history at Texas Christian University. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of twenty-six books, including Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861–1865; Jefferson Davis and His Generals; and Davis and Lee at War.

Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War: Letters of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore Families, 1853-1865

by Tom Moore Craig

From the publisher:
This title features Civil War letters to and from Spartanburg, South Carolina, rich with details on the battlefront and home front. Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War chronicles through correspondence the lives and concerns of prominent families in piedmont South Carolina during the late-antebellum and Civil War eras.

The 124 letters presented here were written by members of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore families of Spartanburg County, neighboring planter-class families united by their shared Scots-Irish ancestry and their membership at Nazareth Presbyterian Church. Edited by Tom Moore Craig, a descendant of the volume's subjects, and augmented with an introduction by Southern historian Melissa Walker and Craig, these letters offer valuable firsthand accounts of evolving attitudes toward the war as conveyed between battlefronts and the home front.

The majority of the letters were written by or to John Crawford Anderson, Andrew Charles Moore, and Thomas John Moore - contemporaries drawn together by their common dedication to the Confederate cause. The earliest letters in this collection were written by these young men and their relatives from boarding schools, South Carolina College, the Citadel, Limestone College, and the University of Virginia Law School.

Andrew Charles Moore's letters describing his travels to Washington, D.C., and New York in the spring of 1860 give insight into the prevailing politics of the nation on the cusp of division. The wartime correspondence begins in 1861 as the men of service age from each family join the Confederate ranks and write from military camps in Virginia and the Carolinas. Letters describe combat in the battles of Five Forks, First and Second Manassas, the Wilderness, Secessionville, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and Seven Pines. Though the surviving combatants remain staunch patriots to the Southern cause until the bitter end, their letters show the waning of initial enthusiasm in the face of the realities of combat, loss of lives, and supply shortages. The letters from the home front offer a more pragmatic assessment of the period and its hardships. Embedded in this dialogue are valuable elements of social and economic history, including references to popular music and literature, accounts of fundraising efforts to sustain the war, and laments on the fluctuating prices and availability of staple crops and commodities. Included as well are two letters by family slaves who accompanied their masters to war, rare finds as it was illegal in South Carolina to teach slaves to read and write.

The collection ends with John Crawford Anderson's letter home from Appomattox, Thomas John Moore's poignant story of his return from a prison camp on Johnson's Island on Lake Erie, and a letter from cousin John Cunningham outlining his plan to implement a sharecropping system on his plantation. Emblematic of the fates of many Southern families, the experiences of these representative South Carolinians are dramatically illustrated in their letters from the eve of the Civil War through its conclusion.

Tom Moore Craig is a retired history teacher and school administrator, a former legislator, and an active community volunteer in his native Spartanburg County. He is the great-grandson of letter writers Mary Elizabeth Anderson Moore and Thomas John Moore, whose marriage united the Anderson and Moore families represented in this volume. Melissa Walker is the George Dean Johnson Jr. Professor of History at Converse College in Spartanburg. Her previous books include Country Women Cope with Hard Times: A Collection of Oral Histories and All We Knew Was to Farm: Rural Women in the Upcountry South, 1919-1941, winner of the Willie Lee Rose Prize of the Southern Association for Women Historians.

1865: From Ashes and Broken Dreams

by M.B. Shelton

From the publisher:
Shelton, a Confederate soldier, recounts life in post Civil War as told in his recently discovered writings. A former prisoner of war, he returned to his hometown in Alabama only to find a township in ruin and lost opportunities. America's second biggest gold rush was underway in the Rocky Mountains. Throwing care to the winds, he caught history's last mule train west in search of gold in this yet to be tamed and dangerous territory.

Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Harry V. Jaffa

From the publisher:
Crisis of the House Divided is the standard historiography of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Harry Jaffa provides the definitive analysis of the political principles that guided Lincoln from his reentry into politics in 1854 through his Senate campaign against Douglas in 1858. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original publication, Jaffa has provided a new introduction.

"Crisis of the House Divided has shaped the thought of a generation of Abraham Lincoln and Civil War scholars."—Mark E. Neely, Jr., Civil War History

"An important book about one of the great episodes in the history of the sectional controversy. It breaks new ground and opens a new view of Lincoln's significance as a political thinker."—T. Harry Williams, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences

"A searching and provocative analysis of the issues confronted and the ideas expounded in the great debates. . . . A book which displays such learning and insight that it cannot fail to excite the admiration even of scholars who disagree with its major arguments and conclusions."—D. E. Fehrenbacher, American Historical Review

Harry Jaffa is Henry Salvatori Research Professor of Political Philosophy Emeritus at Claremont McKenna College.

From CWBN
Jaffa towers above the current generation of Civil War writers in his ability to manage complex ideas on the level of sophistication such ideas demand. Be prepared to do some of your hardest thinking as you read this deeply satisfying masterpiece. Highest recommendation.

The Words of Abraham Lincoln

by Larry Shapiro

From the publisher:
The Words of Abraham Lincoln highlights the remarkable, wise, and inspiring words and writings of our sixteenth president, who saw us through the Civil War and championed the Emancipation Proclamation. Arranged chronologically, covering Lincoln's broad life experience, the book highlights quotes covering: the early years as a back country lawyer * his marriage and family * Lincoln as a humorist * the slavery controversy * the long Civil War period * the inspirational last years.

"We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." (Gettysburg Address)

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."

The critically acclaimed Newmarket Press "Words Of" series began in 1982 with the publication of The Words of Gandhi (now in its 14th printing) and The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. (now in its 19th printing), which have each sold more than 100,000 copies. The "Words Of" quotation collections are timeless and inspiring classics.

Larry Shapiro is the former editor in chief of the Book-of-the-Month Club and editorial director of the History Book Club. He is the author of A Book of Days in American History.

Stonewall Jackson

by Donald A. Davis

From the publisher:
The new installment of Wesley Clark's Great Generals Series portrays Stonewall Jackson, the man who pioneered mobile warfare.

This rapid read ably introduces the famous warrior - Booklist

Author Davis (Lightning Strike) dutifully relates Jackson's unlegendary generalship on the Peninsula and at Fredericksburg, but like many Confederate hero biographers, his unrestrained admiration leads to purple prose - Publisher's Weekly

Deserter Country: Civil War Opposition in the Pennsylvania Appalachians

by Robert Sandow

From the publisher:
During the Civil War, there were throughout the Union explosions of resistance to the war-from the deadly Draft Riots in New York City to other, less well-known outbreaks. In Deserter Country, Robert Sandow explores one of these least-known "inner civil wars," the widespread, sometimes violent opposition in the Appalachian lumber country of Pennsylvania.

Sparsely settled, these mountains were home to divided communities that provided safe haven for opponents of the war. The dissent of mountain folk reflected their own marginality in the face of rapidly increasing exploitation of timber resources by big firms, as well as partisan debates over loyalty.

One of the few studies of the northern Appalachians, this book draws revealing parallels to the war in the southern mountains, exploring the roots of rural protest in frontier development, the market economy, military policy, partisan debate, and everyday resistance. Sandow also sheds new light on the party politics of rural resistance, rejecting easy depictions of war opponents as traitors and malcontents for a more nuanced and complicated study of class, economic upheaval, and localism.

Robert M. Sandow is Associate Professor of History at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania.

William Francis Bartlett: Biography of a Union General in the Civil War

by Richard A. Sauers

From the publisher:
Frank Bartlett, the subject of this biography, was an indifferent student at Harvard when the Civil War began in 1861 but after he joined the Union army he quickly found that he had an aptitude for leadership and rose from captain to brevet major general by 1865. Over the course of the war he was wounded three times (one injury resulted in the loss of a leg), but he remained on active duty until he was captured in 1864. His political stance gained him some national fame after the war, but he struggled with repeated business stress until tuberculosis and other illnesses led to his early death at age 36.

Richard A. Sauers is the executive director of the Packwood House Museum in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He has written more than twenty books about the Civil War period. Martin H. Sable, a retired professor from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, lives in Mequon, Wisconsin.

General George H. Thomas: A Biography of the Union's "Rock of Chickamauga"

by Robert P. Broadwater

From the publisher:
One of the Civil War's most successful generals is heralded by military historians but never achieved the lasting fame of Grant, Lee, Jackson or Sherman. George Thomas's Southern birth, the ambition of fellow officers, and his action in the less-publicized Western Theater combined to keep him from attaining recognition. This comprehensive biography focuses on the military career that covered such battlegrounds as Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge and Nashville, as well as the political maneuvers that kept Thomas out of the spotlight.

Robert P. Broadwater has written more than 25 books of military history and more than 100 magazine articles dealing with the American Civil War and the Revolutionary War. He lives in Bellwood, Pennsylvania.

Standard Catalog of Civil War Firearms

by John F. Graf

From the publisher:
The only guide you’ll need when it comes to Civil War firearms. Educating yourself on the many fakes and knowing current values will allow you to make an informed firearm purchase every time. With over 700 photographs and a rarity scale for each gun, this comprehensive guide to the thousands of weapons used by Billy Yank and Johnny Reb will be indispensable for historians and collectors.

John F. Graf is editor of Military Trader magazine and author of "Warman's" Civil War Collectibles: Identification & Price Guide.

Vicksburg, 1863

by Winston Groom

From the publisher:
A riveting history of the battle that permanently turned the tide of the Civil War.

While Gettysburg is better known, Winston Groom makes clear in this engrossing narrative that Vicksburg was the more important battle from a strategic point of view. Re-creating the epic campaign that culminated at Vicksburg, Groom details the arduous struggle by the Union to gain control of the Mississippi River valley and to divide the Confederacy in two. He takes us back to 1861, when Lincoln chooses Ulysses S. Grant—seen at the time as a mediocre general with a drinking problem—to lead the Union army south from Illinois.

We follow Grant and his troops as they fight one campaign after another, including the famous engagements at Forts Henry and Donelson and the bloodbath at Shiloh, until, after almost a year, they close in on Vicksburg. We witness Grant’s seven long months of battle against the determined Confederate army, and the many failed Union attempts to take Vicksburg, during which thousands of soldiers on both sides would be buried and, ultimately, the fate of the Confederacy would be sealed. As Groom recounts this landmark confrontation, he brings the participants to life. We see Grant in all his grim determination, the feistiness of William Tecumseh Sherman, and the pride and intransigence of Confederate leaders from Jefferson Davis and General Joseph E. Johnston to General John C. Pemberton, the Philadelphia-born Rebel who commanded at Vicksburg and took the blame for losing.

A first-rate work of military history and an essential contribution to our understanding of the Civil War.

Groom's book is full of…authentically rendered excitement. Until now, his best-known work has been the novel that became the blockbuster movie Forrest Gump. But with Vicksburg 1863 he has fully arrived as a narrative historian, who proves again that facts skillfully woven can be more moving than the products of the busiest imagination. Rarely has the story of such a lengthy and complicated campaign been told with such clarity and grace. - The Washington Post - Ernest B. Furgurson

A Blue Bellied Yankee: A Runaway 17 - Year- Old Boy Joins the Union Army

by Robert M. Miller

From the publisher:
On the morning of July 24, 1863 William Lucas, a seventeen year old boy, the youngest of four brothers, all of whom served in the Union Army, tied his shoe strings together, draped the shoes over his shoulder and set off barefoot for the Putnam (now part of Zanesville), Ohio post office to enlist in the Union Army’s 86th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Portions of this unit were currently involved in the pursuit and subsequent capture of the Confederate raider, John Hunt Morgan at Salineville two days later.

The 86th moved by train and march to join in the bloodless capture of Cumberland Gap, September 9, 1863 and garrisoned the post until mustered out at Cleveland, Ohio, February 10, 1864. Three days later William Lucas enlisted in the 6th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry and joined the regiment March 8, 1864 at Warrenton, Virginia.

He crossed the Rapidan into the Wilderness the night of May3, 1864 and took part in the actions at Todd’s Tavern, subsequently joined Sheridan’s Richmond Raid, and eventually participated in more than two dozen engagements including Meadow Bridge, Cold Harbor, Haw’s Shop, Trevilian Station, Dinwiddie Court House, Saylor’s Creek and Appomattox Court House where the 6th Ohio blocked Lee’s escape route—the Appomattox-Lynchburg Road.

Subsequent to the surrender at Appomattox, the 6th Ohio served as an escort for Grant and as military police in Virginia before disbanding in Cleveland August 9, 1865.

No Holier Spot of Ground: Confederate Monuments and Cemeteries of South Carolina

by Kristina Dunn Johnson

From the publisher:
The monuments of South Carolina bear on their weathered faces and cracked tablets a history of honor and of memory embodied in stone. Whether revealing the lost graves of Southern sons, unveiling the history of the only national cemetery to inter Confederate soldiers alongside the Union fallen during wartime or recording the simple obelisks that reach for heaven throughout the Palmetto State, this volume is a story of remembrance and of mourning. Kristina Dunn Johnson, curator of history with the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, shares with us the powerful stories of memory and acceptance that are the legacy of the Confederacy, as varied as those who lie beneath the Southern soil.

The Addiction of Mary Todd Lincoln

by Anne E. Beidler

From the publisher:
Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the president we have immortalized, has always been difficult for us to understand. She could appear poised and brilliant one moment yet rude and ugly the next. Sometimes competent and strong, able to entertain dignitaries from around the world, at other times she appeared dependent and weak. At times she seemed utterly beside herself with sobbing and screaming. Historians have mostly avoided saying very much about Mary Todd Lincoln except in reference to her husband, Abraham. To many it would seem that Mary Todd Lincoln is still an embarrassment in the tragic story of her martyred husband.

But Mary Todd Lincoln lived her own tragic story even before Abraham was murdered. She was an addict, addicted to the opiates she needed for her migraine headaches. Seeing Mary Todd Lincoln as an addict helps us understand her and give her the compassion and admiration she deserves. In her time there had been no courageous First Lady like Betty Ford to help people understand the power of addiction. There was no treatment center. In Mary Todd Lincoln’s time there were many addicts at all levels of society, as there are now, but it was a more socially acceptable condition for men to have than for women. More importantly, addiction was not very well understood, and it was often mistreated.

Because Mary Todd Lincoln’s only surviving son, Robert Lincoln, made a great effort to protect his mother and his family from journalists and historians, he intentionally destroyed most of Mary Todd Lincoln’s medical records and many of her letters. What he could not destroy, however, is the record of Mary Todd Lincoln’s pain and the record of how she behaved while living with this pain. In The Addiction of Mary Todd Lincoln, we can see clearly, for the first time, what Mary Todd Lincoln had to live with and the courage it took for her to carry on.

ANNE E. BEIDLER is a former director of Family House, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Philadelphia, PA. She holds a doctorate in educational research from Lehigh University. In addition to The Addiction of Mary Todd Lincoln, she is also author of Eating Owen, a historical novel.

Eastern Tennessee

by Comte De Paris

From the publisher:
The North had been victorious at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Casualties on both sides were heavy. The draft riots of 1863 had been put down and the armies are once again on the move. Generals Rosencrans and Burnside were able to outflank General Bragg and take Chattanooga. Bragg would stand and fight at Chickamauga and the battle will prove costly for the Union forces...all eyes are on Eastern Tennessee.

From CWBN
Digital Scanning has been republishing segments of the Comte de Paris' History of the Civil War in America as standalone books. This is one of several released this year; to see a complete list, the reader should search on Comte de Paris on Amazon.

Official History, 73rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment

by the 73rd Regimental Association

From the publisher:
The men of the valiant 73rd Indiana Regiment were first to attack in the Battle of Stones River at Murphreesborough. They lost a third of their men in that fight, listed as one of the ten bloodiest battles of America's Civil War. Firing outdated 1842 smoothbore Springfield Muskets these hearty boys blasted their way far behind enemy lines for an entire week of running battles during the Raid of Streight's Brigade. A powerful story - it is not well known, but recorded by early historians as the most combative small-scale raid of the War. The 73rd was at the battle of Perryville, KY., and played a vital role in the last battles of Alabama forts at Athens and Decatur. They fought at Tuscumbia, Blountsville, Gadsden and Rome. And their officers knew famed Libby Prison at Richmond all too well. Their history is a fascinating cameo of the Civil War in it's western arena...a poignant description of individual soldiers, the incredible heroism they gave...and the suffering they lived through day by day...1862 to 1865.

Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America

by Evan Carton

From the publisher:
John Brown is a lightning rod of history. Yet he is poorly understood and most commonly described in stereotypes--as a madman, martyr, or enigma. This illuminating biography brings him to life in scintillating prose and moving detail, making his life and legacy fascinatingly relevant to today's issues of social justice and to defining the line between activism and terrorism.

Evan Carton is the Joan Negley Kelleher Centennial Professor in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of The Marble Faun: Hawthorne's Transformations and The Rhetoric of American Romance: Dialectic and Identity in Emerson, Dickinson, Poe, and Hawthorne.

Skirmisher: The Life, Times, and Political Career of James B. Weaver

by Robert B. Mitchell

From the publisher:
Outlining the career of a politician whose two campaigns for the White House helped change the course of American politics, this in-depth study explores the religious convictions of James B. Weaver and the role they played in his political contributions. Offering a panoramic view of some of the great events of the 19th century—the California Gold Rush, the Civil War, and presidential politics, from Abraham Lincoln to the rise of William Jennings Bryan—this insightful and detailed account also sheds new light on the influence of third parties in presidential elections and the federal government’s role in reducing economic hardship.

Robert B. Mitchell is an assistant editor with the Los Angeles Times–Washington Post News Service. He lives in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Shenandoah Summer: The 1864 Valley Campaign

by Scott C. Patchan

From the publisher:
Jubal A. Early’s disastrous battles in the Shenandoah Valley ultimately resulted in his ignominious dismissal. But Early’s lesser-known summer campaign of 1864, between his raid on Washington and Phil Sheridan’s renowned fall campaign, had a significant impact on the political and military landscape of the time. By focusing on military tactics and battle history in uncovering the facts and events of these little-understood battles, Scott C. Patchan offers a new perspective on Early’s contributions to the Confederate war effort—and to Union battle plans and politicking.

Patchan details the previously unexplored battles at Rutherford’s Farm and Kernstown (a pinnacle of Confederate operations in the Shenandoah Valley) and examines the campaign’s influence on President Lincoln’s reelection efforts. He also provides insights into the personalities, careers, and roles in Shenandoah of Confederate general John C. Breckinridge, Union general George Crook, and Union colonel James A. Mulligan, with his “fighting Irish” brigade from Chicago. Finally, Patchan reconsiders the ever-colorful and controversial Early himself, whose importance in the Confederate military pantheon this book at last makes clear.

The Essential Lincoln

by Tim Davidson (ed.)

The Essential Lincoln: The Finest Speeches and Writings of Abraham Lincoln collects the seminal speeches, letters, proclamations, debate performances, and miscellaneous other writings, spanning over thirty years of Lincoln's life. The entire text of each document or speech is included, rather than a short excerpt, to put into context the most commonly quoted Lincoln passages and to fully demonstrate the lawyerly elegance of his longer speeches and addresses. The book contains both the best-known (the Gettysburg address and the Emancipation Proclamation, the Second Inaugural, etc.) and some rarely-included pieces (a first draft of the Gettysburg address, the full text of a debate with Stephen Douglas, letters to Mary Todd Lincoln before and after his election as President, etc.) in simple chronological order.

Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War

by Marc Egnal

From the publisher:
Clash of Extremes takes on the reigning orthodoxy that the American Civil War was waged over high moral principles. Marc Egnal contends that economics, more than any other factor, moved the country to war in 1861.

Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Egnal shows that between 1820 and 1850, patterns of trade and production drew the North and South together and allowed sectional leaders to broker a series of compromises. After midcentury, however, all that changed as the rise of the Great Lakes economy reoriented Northern trade along east-west lines.

Meanwhile, in the South, soil exhaustion, concerns about the country’s westward expansion, and growing ties between the Upper South and the free states led many cotton planters to contemplate secession.

The war that ensued was truly a “clash of extremes.” Sweeping from the 1820s through Reconstruction and filled with colorful portraits of leading individuals, Clash of Extremes emphasizes economics while giving careful consideration to social conflicts, ideology, and the rise of the antislavery movement. The result is a bold reinterpretation that will challenge the way we think about the Civil War.

"... this is a serious work that may well reignite a historical debate" - Booklist

"Egnal's perceptive, fine-grained analysis of fragmentation within the North and South around local patterns of trade, agriculture and manufacturing is especially revealing." - Publishers Weekly

Marc Egnal is a professor of history at York University and the author of several books, including A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution and Divergent Paths: How Culture and Institutions Have Shaped North American Growth.

From CWBN
We are showing this book as published today because we missed its publication date in January.

The Battle of the Crater: A Complete History

by John F. Schmutz

From the publisher:
The Battle of the Crater is one of the lesser known yet most interesting battles of the Civil War. This book, detailing the onset of brutal trench warfare at Petersburg, Virginia, digs deeply into the military and political background of the battle. Beginning by tracing the rival armies through the bitter conflicts of the Overland Campaign and culminating with the siege of Petersburg and the battle intended to lift that siege, this book offers a candid look at the perception of the campaign by both sides.

Corporate attorney, Army veteran and longtime Civil War enthusiast John F. Schmutz resides in San Antonio, Texas.

From CWBN
We are showing this book as published today because we missed its publication date in February.