Civil War Memoirs

In hindsight, we can say no one man or event served as a catalyst for the Civil War. It was not the John Brown Raid, no matter how many historians say it was the pivotal event. It was not the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the war was not about slavery - not in the beginning anyway. The Civil War got its start 73 years earlier when the Founding Fathers set aside the hot potato that was slavery - so they could ratify the Constitution. The signers knew they were passing the issue on to a future generation. Their hope was their progeny could answer the questions they could not.

All for the Union is the astonishing and eloquent diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, the Union soldier featured in Ken Burns' highly acclaimed PBS television documentary The Civil War. Enlisting as a private in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry, Rhodes fought in every major campaign waged by the Army of the Potomac, from Bull Run to Appomattox. Here, in his own powerfully moving words, Rhodes reveals why he was willing to die to preserve his beloved Union.

William Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched earth policies he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States.

General William Tecumseh Sherman has come down to us as the implacable destroyer of the Civil War, notorious for his burning of Atlanta and his brutal march to the sea. A probing biography that explains Sherman's style of warfare and the threads of self-possession and insecurity that made up his character.

In Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee, Michael Korda, the New York Times best-selling biographer of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, and T. E. Lawrence, has written the first major biography of Lee in nearly 20 years, bringing to life America's greatest and most iconic hero. Korda paints a vivid and admiring portrait of Lee as a general and a devoted family man

In Robert E. Lee, the award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general, following him from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.

Beginning as a green new recruit with no fanfare, no uniform, and only the bare necessities, Joseph became a seasoned soldier, at times living by his wits and off the land. Joseph recounts, in harrowing detail, his confrontations with the enemy and numerous narrow escapes. There was more than one occasion when Joseph felt that divine providence had not only saved him personally, but had guided the war, as well.

In the American Civil War, or the War between the States, three dashing cavalry leaders - Stuart, Forrest, and Mosby - so captured the public imagination that their exploits took on a glamour, which we associate - as did the writers of the time - with the deeds of the Waverley characters and the heroes of chivalry. Of the three leaders, Colonel John S. Mosby (1833 - 1916), was, perhaps, the most romantic figure. In the South, his dashing exploits made him one of the great heroes of the "Lost Cause". In the North, he was painted as the blackest of redoubtable scoundrels.

This book paints a vivid picture of Jefferson Davis as a multifaceted, often charismatic man who mirrored the turbulent times in which he lived and who stood solidly for the South that he loved. Ranging over the complete span of his long life, it shows him as a hardworking Mississippi planter, a compassionate slave owner, a hero of the Mexican War, and an able secretary of war under Franklin Pierce. But it is on the years of the Civil War and Davis’s controversial performance as president of the Confederacy that the book focuses.

"Hold On with a Bulldog Grip and Chew and Choke as Much as Possible": The Grand Offensive: (May–August 1864): The Spring Offensive is launched. A bogus presidential proclamation calling for volunteers and prayers causes panic throughout the North. Grant and Lee battle for six weeks until severe losses force them to a halt. Congressional Radicals pass a bill that will allow Southern States readmittance to the Union as long as they give an oath that they never supported the Confederacy. Southern leaders spread bogus peace overtures. Lincoln reaffirms his commitment to the Emancipation.

Nineteenth-century African Americans felt deep affection for their "liberator" as a "homely" man who did not hold himself apart; Southerners felt a nostalgia for Abraham Lincoln as a humble "conciliator". Later, educators glorified Lincoln as a symbol of nationhood to help assimilate poor immigrants. Monument makers focused not only on a gigantic body but also on a nationalist "union", downplaying "emancipation". Among both Black and White liberals in the 1960s and 1970s, Lincoln was derided or fell out of fashion.

At the beginning of 1864, the Civil War was far from won; terrible and bloody Union setbacks and casualties lay ahead. Abraham Lincoln was facing a re-election battle as some northern Democrats were ready to start peace talks that could leave the Confederacy a separate slaveholding American nation and as his secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, challenged him for the Republican nomination. But by the end of the year, the war's end was in sight, and slavery was on the verge of extinction.

Through deep and thoughtful exploration of diaries, letters, and other personal writings penned during the spring and summer of 1865, Martha Hodes, one of our finest historians, captures the full range of reactions to the president's death - far more diverse than public expressions would suggest. She tells a story of shock, glee, sorrow, anger, blame, and fear.

The literature of the Gettysburg Address tends to fall into one of two extremes. At one end are those books that maintain that Lincoln wrote his speech hastily, even on a scrap of paper on the train en route from Washington to Gettysburg. In this version, Lincoln delivered his remarks to an uncomprehending public, which applauded politely, failing to appreciate his genius. Many of the books that argued this point of view are out of print today, but the myths and legends live on.

Lincoln struggles to form a new party to take the place of the defunct Whig party. He has strong doubts that a peaceful end to slavery is possible. Joining with anti-slavery, anti-nativist forces, Lincoln launches the Republican Party of Illinois and the first Republican convention takes place. When the Dred Scott case is decided, Lincoln publicly denounces the court decision.

The Seven Days Campaign was a series of battles fought near Richmond at the end of June 1862. General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had routed General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Depriving McClellan of a military decision meant the war would continue for two more years. The Seven Days depicts a critical turning point in the Civil War that would ingrain Robert E. Lee in history as one of the finest generals of all time.

For the first time ever, the intimate thoughts and political decisions of Abraham Lincoln’s entire presidency - day by day. In a startlingly innovative format, journalist Stephen A. Wynalda has constructed a painstakingly detailed day-by-day breakdown of president Abraham Lincoln’s decisions in office - including his signing of the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862; his signing of the legislation enacting the first federal income tax on August 5, 1861; and more personal incidents like the day his 11-year-old son, Willie, died.

In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders.

In these moving stories of Angelina Grimke Weld, wife of abolitionist Theodore Weld; Varina Howell Davis, wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis; and Julia Dent Grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant, Carol Berkin reveals how women understood the cataclysmic events of their day. Their stories, taken together, help reconstruct the era of the Civil War with a greater depth and complexity by adding women's experiences and voices to their male counterparts.

Abraham Lincoln began his presidency admitting that he knew "but little of ships," but he quickly came to preside over the largest national armada to that time, not eclipsed until World War I. Naval historian Craig L. Symonds' Lincoln and His Admirals unveils an aspect of Lincoln's presidency unexamined by historians until now, revealing how he managed the men who ran the naval side of the Civil War, and how the activities of the Union Navy ultimately affected the course of history.