Civil War Biography

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian's acclaimed Civil War history of the complex man and controversial Union commander whose battlefield brilliance ensured the downfall of the Confederacy. Preeminent Civil War historian Bruce Catton narrows his focus on commander Ulysses S. Grant, whose bold tactics and relentless dedication to the Union ultimately ensured a Northern victory in the nation's bloodiest conflict.

A quiet, wealthy plantation owner, Jack Hinson watched the start of the Civil War with disinterest. Opposed to secession and a friend to Union and Confederate commanders alike, he did not want a war. After Union soldiers seized and murdered his sons, placing their decapitated heads on the gateposts of his estate, Hinson could remain indifferent no longer. He commissioned a special rifle for long-range accuracy, he took to the woods, and he set out for revenge.

Hard Tack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life (1887) is a memoir by John D. Billings, who was a veteran of the 10th Massachusetts Volunteer Light Artillery Battery in the American Civil War. Originally published in 1888, the book quickly became a best seller, and is today considered one of the most important books written by a Civil War veteran. The subject matter of Hard Tack and Coffee is about the details of army life - how the common Union soldiers of the Civil War lived.

Widely known as the "poor man's lawyer" in antebellum Boston, John Albion Andrew (1818-1867) was involved in nearly every cause and case that advanced social and racial justice in Boston in the years preceding the Civil War. Inspired by the legacies of John Quincy Adams and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and mentored by Charles Sumner, Andrew devoted himself to the battle for equality. In this revealing and accessible biography, Stephen D. Engle traces Andrew's life and legacy, giving this important, but largely forgotten, figure his due.

Timothy O'Sullivan is America's most famous war photographer. You know his work even if you don't know his name: A Harvest of Death, taken at Gettysburg, is an icon of the Civil War. He was also among the first photographers to elevate what was then a trade to the status of fine art. The images of the American West he made after the war, while traveling with the surveys led by Clarence King and George Wheeler, display a prescient awareness of what photography would become; years later, Ansel Adams would declare his work "surrealistic and disturbing."

Born to Battle examines the Civil War’s complex and decisive western theater through the exploits of its greatest figures: Ulysses S. Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest. These two opposing giants squared off in some of the most epic campaigns of the war, starting at Shiloh and continuing through Perryville, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga - battles in which the Union would slowly but surely divide the western Confederacy, setting the stage for the final showdowns of this bloody and protracted conflict.

Secret Lives of the Civil War features irreverent and uncensored profiles of men and women from the Union and the Confederacy - complete with hundreds of little-known and downright bizarre facts. For example, you’ll discover that: Mary Todd Lincoln claimed to receive valuable military strategies from ghosts in the spirit world and that Jefferson Davis once imported camels for soldiers stationed in the American southwest.

The vivid, behind-the-scenes story of perhaps the most consequential political moment in American history—Abraham Lincoln’s history-changing nomination to lead the Republican Party in the 1860 presidential election.

Civil War General—B.F. Kelley is the newly released biography of Union Major General B.F. Kelley, written and narrated by the general’s great, great, great grandson T. F. Kelley. General Kelley served as a command officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War from then Colonel Kelley's planning and leading the first land battle of the Civil War at Philippi, then Virginia, in June of 1861—to the Civil War's end in 1865.

Spies played significant roles on both sides of the American Civil War, and many were women. These fascinating women contributed to the war effort when women could not vote or own property. Yet, Union or Confederate, all of these women had conviction. This audiobook explores the experiences of women whose courage and conviction played a key role in the outcome of the Civil War battle strategies and tactics. Their stories of courage, betrayal, and even love still resonate with women of today. North or South, all the women within lived fascinating lives that deserve to be told.

Vermont, 1850s. Bell's Star is a brown Morgan colt with a white star and two white stockings. He was bred for hard work, yet he longs to run free with his human friend, Katie, on his back. But when Star helps rescue a runaway slave girl, his ideas about freedom may change forever. Here is Star's story . . . in his own words.

John Bell Hood had done his job too well. In the fall of 1864, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee had harassed Federal forces in North Georgia so badly that the Union commander, William T. Sherman, decided to abandon his position. During his subsequent “March to the Sea”, Sherman’s men lived off the land and made Georgia howl. Rather than confront the larger Federal force directly, Hood chose instead to strike northward into Tennessee.

William Shakespeare's gripping play showed Caesar's assassination to be an amateur and idealistic affair. The real killing, however, was a carefully planned paramilitary operation, a generals' plot put together by Caesar's disaffected officers and designed with precision. Brutus and Cassius were indeed key players, but they had the help of a third man - Decimus. He was the mole in Caesar's entourage, one of Caesar's leading generals, and a lifelong friend.

The first of a multivolume history of Lincoln as a political genius - from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, his assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. This first volume traces Lincoln from his painful youth, describing himself as "a slave", to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln.

In 1855, with the United States at odds over slavery, the lawyer Abraham Lincoln wrote a note to his best friend, the son of a Kentucky slaveowner. Lincoln rebuked his friend for failing to oppose slavery. But he added: “If for this you and I must differ, differ we must,” and said they would be friends forever. Throughout his life and political career, Lincoln often agreed to disagree. Democracy demanded it, since even an adversary had a vote.

The Civil War (1861–1865) was a pivotal time in US history. During the war, the nation was divided over the institution of slavery. While the Union, made up of Northern states, fought to end slavery in the US, the Confederacy, made up of Southern states, fought to keep slavery.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the small, social, Southern town of Washington, DC, found itself caught between warring sides in a four-year battle that would determine the future of the United States. After the declaration of secession, many fascinating Southern women left the city, leaving their friends - such as Adele Cutts Douglas and Elizabeth Blair Lee - to grapple with questions of safety and sanitation as the capital was transformed into an immense Union army camp and later a hospital.

One of the best books ever written about Lincoln by Dale Carnegie. Chronicles the inner life and struggles of Abraham Lincoln, how he led a life of poverty, how he went from pauper to become president, how he emerged from obscurity and became the Republican nominee at the 1860 Chicago convention, how he loved to tell humorous stories, and that he was an avid reader of Shakespeare.

In "Iconoclastic Memories of the Civil War: Bits of Autobiography," Bierce recounts some of his experiences as a soldier. At the outset of the American Civil War, Bierce enlisted in the Union Army's 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment. In February 1862 he was commissioned First Lieutenant, and served on the staff of General William Babcock Hazen as a topographical engineer, making maps of likely battlefields.

Between 1862 and 1865 Ambrose Bierce served in the Union Army in the Civil War. He was active as an infantryman and engineer, and fought at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. Six autobiographical pieces were inspired by his wartime experiences and were published as a collection in 1909.