Civil War Memoirs

In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's presidency and the trials of the Civil War. He supplies fascinating details on the crisis over Fort Sumter and the relentless office seekers who plagued Lincoln. He introduces listeners to the president's battles with hostile newspaper editors and his quarrels with incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also interprets Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd, the untimely death of his son, Willie, to disease in 1862, and his recurrent anguish over the enormous human costs of the war.

In the decade before the onset of the Civil War, groups of Americans engaged in a series of longshot - and illegal - forays into Mexico, Cuba, and other Central American countries in hopes of taking them over. These efforts became known as filibustering, and their goal was to seize territory to create new independent fiefdoms, which would ultimately be annexed by the still-growing United States. Most failed miserably. William Walker was the outlier. Soft-spoken with no military background, in 1856 he managed to install himself as president of Nicaragua.

In this comprehensive biography, Jean Edward Smith reconciles conflicting assessments of Grant's life, arguing that Grant is greatly underrated as a president. Following the turmoil of Andrew Johnson's administration, Grant guided the nation through the post-Civil War era, overseeing Reconstruction of the South and enforcing the freedoms of new African-American citizens. His presidential accomplishments were as considerable as his military victories, for the same strength of character that made him successful on the battlefield also characterized his years in the White House.

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 reveals 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.

Reminiscences of the Civil War is John Brown Gordon’s firsthand account of the war as seen through the eyes of the prominent officer. Gordon was trusted and admired by many, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. The work begins with him being elected as the commander of the “Raccoon Roughs” and his recollection of the Battle of Manassas. He also describes the South’s surrender at Appomattox, in which he participated. He recounts his role in individual battles such as Antietam, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, and Gettysburg.

In this brilliant biography T. J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a much more complicated and significant figure.

Few historical figures are as intriguing as John Brown, the controversial Abolitionist who used terrorist tactics against slavery and single-handedly changed the course of American history. This brilliant biography of Brown (1800-1859) by the prize-winning critic and cultural biographer David S. Reynolds brings to life the Puritan warrior who gripped slavery by the throat and triggered the Civil War. When does principled resistance become anarchic brutality? How can a murderer be viewed as a heroic freedom fighter? The case of John Brown opens windows on these timely issues.

On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry. Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war.

General Stonewall Jackson was like no one anyone had ever seen. In April of 1862 he was merely another Confederate general with only a single battle credential in an army fighting in what seemed to be a losing cause. By middle June he had engineered perhaps the greatest military campaign in American history and was one of the most famous men in the Western World. He had given the Confederate cause what it had recently lacked: hope.

Two of the great themes of the Civil War are how Lincoln found his war-winning general in Ulysses Grant and how Grant finally defeated Lee. Grant's Victory intertwines these two threads in a grand narrative that shows how Grant made the difference in the war.

Historian Sarah Hopkins Bradford details the life of heroic abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who was born into slavery but escaped to lead other enslaved people to freedom.

Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.

Abraham Lincoln is the central axis of this story about America's seemingly unstoppable march toward war, the shattering of its political landscape, and its grappling with the moral underpinnings of a republic of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Civil War historian Earl J. Hess presents a compelling biography of Braxton Bragg, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee from the summer of 1862 to the end of 1863.

This life-sized portrait of Stuart surveys his life from childhood through his training at West Point, his years on the Western frontier, and his decision to stand with Virginia when war arrived. His brilliant Civil War career is covered in detail, from the raid on Chambersburg to his final, fatal clash at Yellow Tavern.

CIVIL: Life After the Foreign Legion is the author's follow-up to Appel: A Canadian in the French Foreign Legion. During his recent return to France, he shares with you his past in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Algeria as a security contractor and more.

Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end.

They met in person only four times, yet these two men determined the outcome of the Civil War and cast competing styles for the reunited nation. Each the subject of innumerable biographies, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee have never before been paired as they are here. Exploring their personalities, their character, and their ethical, moral, political, and military worlds, William C. Davis finds surprising similarities between the two men.

In the novel Little Women, Mr. March goes off to war. But in real life, it was Jo March (Louisa May Alcott herself, an avowed abolitionist) who traveled to Washington to nurse Northern soldiers. This is Alcott’s memoir but she chose to use the pseudonym “Tribulation Periwinkle” to tell her story. Despite the subject matter, her account is full of amusing anecdotes as she makes her way alone from Concord, Massachusetts to DC, trying to finagle a free ticket and convinced she will drown during the journey.

With absorbing power, Emory M. Thomas tells the story of one of the most revered figures in American history. A story of triumph and tragedy, this stunning biography provides a fascinating glimpse at the man behind the Civil War legend. Revealing the "whole" Lee in this enthralling, detailed saga, Thomas portrays him as a man driven by the paradoxes in his own personality. Here is the Lee who is both a legend and a man. Heroic and larger than life in battle; insecure and unfulfilled in private life.