Civil War Memoirs

Robert E. Lee was a hero to some and a villain to others. For one side, he embodied the rebellion of the slave-holding South which had seceded from the Union; for the other side, he was a champion of the little guy, willing to marshal the forces of liberty to stand up against the federal government. How in the world do we get such divergent views on one single man?

FDR Goes to War expands on the premise that FDR's legacy has damaged America and helped lay the groundwork for the current economic crisis.

The Folsoms continue to expose the idyllic legend of Franklin D. Roosevelt as a myth of epic proportions. Many government programs that are widely used today have their seeds in the New Deal.

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.

Abraham Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin and was raised on the frontier primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his law practice but became vexed by the opening of additional lands to slavery. He reentered politics in 1854, becoming a leader in the Republican Party, and reached a national audience in the 1858 debates against Stephen Douglas.

In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. His goal was to secure weapons and start a slave rebellion. The raid was a failure, but it galvanized the nation and sparked the Civil War. Still one of the most controversial figures in American history, John Brown's actions raise interesting questions about unsanctioned violence that can be justified for a greater good.

Benjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Remembered most often for his uncompromising administration of the federal occupation of New Orleans during the war, Butler reemerges in this lively narrative as a man whose journey took him from childhood destitution to wealth and profound influence in state and national halls of power. Leonard's nuanced portrait peels away generations of previous assumptions and characterizations to provide a definitive life of a consequential man.

Born to wealth that the Civil War ravaged, held captive by renegade Comanche, and rejected by family and friends, Mary Elizabeth (“Libby”) Haley ran away from home at the age of 14. Libby learned to navigate the dangerous and volatile Old West and made a name for herself as Squirrel Tooth Alice. Given her moniker because of a gap in her front teeth and her passion for raising ground squirrels as pets, Libby made the best of a difficult situation.

From 1861 till his assassination in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was an American legal representative and statesman who functioned as the 16th president of the United States. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, preserving the Union, eliminating slavery, enhancing the federal government, and helping the economy of the United States. Lincoln grew up on the frontier, mainly in Indiana, and was born into poverty in a log cabin.

The horse Jim was known as Beautiful Jim Key from the moment he stepped into the American spotlight in 1897 at age eight until his death in 1912. This horse was beloved for his remarkable intelligence, cultivated by human kindness and patience. No less extraordinary was the man who trained Jim, Dr. William Key of Shelbyville, Tennessee, a former slave who in his life had seen horrific cruelty toward humans and animals. Bill Key was a self-schooled veterinarian and Black entrepreneur who refused to use force in any guise while breaking and training horses.

Nelson Appleton Miles (1839 - 1925) was an American military general. From 1895 to 1903, he served as the last commanding general of the United States Army before the office was abolished. The 1911 autobiography of General Miles is titled Serving the Republic, and chronicles his career as a soldier. He participated in many of the battles of the Civil War as a volunteer and afterwards took part as a commander in most of the Indian campaigns on the Western plains. His final service was in the Spanish-American War.

Many people in history have claimed that Abraham Lincoln never loved Mary Todd Lincoln, and that in fact his love was focused upon Anne Rutledge. They have claimed that his wife hurt him politically though she drove him to the Presidency, that she embarrassed him financially as well as socially and inflicted on him the agony of adjustment to her psychopathic personality. Yet, is there any truth to any of these claims?

Ruth Painter Randall’s brilliant biography of Mary and Abraham Lincoln sheds new light upon their marriage and dispels the myths that have surrounded it. This audiobook rehabilitates the reputation of Mary Lincoln and deserves to be listen to by all those who wish to find the truth about the remarkable relationship between Mary and her husband and the impact that she made on him throughout his years in office.

There have been innumerable biographies for Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States - the leader most widely known for leading the US through the American Civil War and ending slavery, but none quite stand apart from the rest like The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, published in 2013.

William Watson (1826-1906) was a Scottish native who enlisted in the Confederate Army. Watson recounts life in a volunteer corps of the Confederate army. He provides his personal views on the causes of the war, and the conduct of both sides. Detailing the lives of the soldiers, he describes their living conditions, daily rations, and the levels of destruction and death.

Volume Four begins in March, 1865 with Lee's starving soldiers facing annihilation at the hands of Grant's enormous army. Surrounded, with all avenues of escape cut off, Lee honorably surrendered the remnants of his valiant Army of Northern Virginia at Appamattox on April 9. Having done his military duty to his people, Lee next asked himself, "What is now my duty?" Declining handsome financial rewards for the use of his name in commercial ventures, Lee decided to share the misery of the people of Virginia and the South.

Volume three opens in May 1863 as Lee assessed his situation after the great Confederate victory at Chancellorsville and the loss of General Jackson. Lee quickly reorganized his army and headed north, hoping to inflict a war-ending defeat on the Union. But absent Jackson, his army was not the same.

Volume Two opens in March, 1862 with Lee back in Richmond after a lengthy absence. He was shocked by the chaos and panic evident in the Confederate capital. McClellan had assembled a superbly equipped army of over 100,000 soldiers which Virginians feared might invade at any time. In May, McClellan began to move his huge Army of the Potomac up the peninsula and so close to Richmond that church steeples were within his view. The situation seemed hopeless.

Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant. Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.

Where previous Lincoln biographers describe his temperament as "moderate", "passive", or even "conservative", historian Richard Striner offers a stunningly original perspective that will shed significant new light on one of the most studied figures in American history. Striner shows Lincoln's audacity as no other book has ever done. By emphasizing the workings of Lincoln's mind - stressing his cunning, his overall honesty, strategic thinking - even his ability to change his mind - Striner looks anew at many topics and themes important to Lincoln's story....

In 1861 a Scotsman living in Louisiana took up the Confederate Flag. William Watson presents a narrative of his observations and experience in the Southern States, both before and during the American Civil War. Prior to the War, Watson lived in the hot, fertile state of Louisiana. With Lincoln in office, and the secession of the southern states, North and South was plunged in a violent Civil War. Watson recounts the widespread lack of political interest until the country reached this point.