Civil War Military History

> The New York Times hailed this trilogy as “one of the greatest historical accomplishments of our time”. With stunning detail and insights, America’s foremost Civil War historian recreates the war from its opening months to its final, bloody end. Each volume delivers a complete listening experience. The Coming Fury (Volume 1) covers the split Democratic Convention in the spring of 1860 to the first battle of Bull Run.

The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York - the revolutionary hero, back from the dead, at the dawn of the great Irish immigration to America.

One of the most important and memorable events of the United States' westward push across the frontier came with the discovery of gold, in the lands that became California, in January 1848. Located thousands of miles away from the country's power centers on the East Coast at the time, the announcement came a month before the Mexican-American War ended. It brought an influx of an estimated 90,000 "Forty-Niners" to the region in 1849, hailing from other parts of America and even as far away as Asia.

In the early 1860s, the United States is torn apart by Civil War. The conflict between the North and the South affects everyone, including many boys who want to join in the fight. Among them are young Edward Black, Lyston and Orion Howe, and Charles Moore. They're too young to fight in combat, but they show their courage by marching to battle as drummer boys.

A major new biography of the Civil War general and American president, by the author of the New York Times bestseller A. Lincoln. The dramatic story of one of America's greatest and most misunderstood military leaders and presidents, this is a major new interpretation of Ulysses S. Grant. Based on seven years of research with primary documents, some of them never tapped before, this is destined to become the Grant biography of our times.

The Library of Congress Timeline of the Civil War is an authoritative and engaging narrative of the domestic conflict that determined the course of American history. A detailed chronological timeline of the war captures the harrowing intensity of nineteenth-century warfare in firsthand accounts from soldiers, nurses, and front-line journalists.

In 2001, while vacationing on Panama’s Pacific coast, maritime archaeologist James P. Delgado came upon the hulk of a mysterious iron vessel, revealed by the ebbing tides in a small cove at Isla San Telmo. He learned that the wreck was the remains of one of the first successful deep-diving submersibles, built in 1864 by Julius H. Kroehl, an innovator during the Civil War. Delgado chronicles the confluence of technological advancement, entrepreneurial aspiration, American capitalist ambition, and ignorance of the physiological effects of deep diving in this compelling narrative.

In ways visible and invisible to their fellow recruits and conscripts, the experience of Jews was distinct from that of other soldiers who served in Lincoln's armies. Adam D. Mendelsohn draws for the first time upon the vast database of verified listings of Jewish soldiers serving in the Civil War collected by The Shapell Roster, as well as letters, diaries, and newspapers, to examine the collective experience of Jewish soldiers and to recover their voices and stories.

The final work in this series begins in December of 1862. Four months before, the Union Army tasted long-awaited victory at the bloody battle of Antietam. Grant continued on towards Vicksburg, Mississippi. The grim battles that lay ahead would be costly: the Vicksburg campaign, Chattanooga, the Battle of the Wilderness, the Battle of Atlanta and the March to the Sea, the siege of Petersburg. There would be two and a half more years of war before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

General Ulysses S. Grant is best remembered today as a war-winning general, and he certainly deserves credit for his efforts on behalf of the Union. But has he received too much credit? Have others who fought the war with him suffered unfairly? General Grant and the Verdict of History explores these issues. Professor Frank P. Varney examines Grant's relationship with three noted Civil War generals: the brash and uncompromising "Fighting Joe" Hooker; George H. Thomas, the commander who earned the sobriquet "Rock of Chickamauga"; and Gouverneur Kemble Warren.

The Battle of Stones River (also known as the Second Battle of Murfreesboro) was a battle fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, in Middle Tennessee, as the culmination of the Stones River Campaign in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. Of the major battles of the war, Stones River had the highest percentage of casualties on both sides.

A Rainbow of Blood continues the epic, exciting story that began in Peter G. Tsouras’s previous alternate history, Britannia’s Fist. The Great War accelerates during a few desperate weeks in October 1863. From the bayous of Louisiana to the green hills of the Hudson Valley, from Chicago in flames to the gates of Washington itself, the conflict uncoils in ropes of fire. French and British armies are on the march, and heavy reinforcements have put to sea.

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.

Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in American history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's?

Acclaimed historian Lewis Lehrman, in his path-breaking comparison of both statesmen, finds that Lincoln and Churchill - with very different upbringings and contrasting personalities - led their war efforts, to some extent, in similar ways. As supreme war lords, they were guided not only by principles of honor, duty, freedom, but also by the practical wisdom to know when, where, and how to apply these principles. They made mistakes which Lehrman considers carefully. But the author emphasizes that, despite setbacks, they never gave up.

In The Smell of Battle, the Taste of Siege, historian Mark M. Smith considers how all five senses, including sight, shaped the experience of the Civil War and thus its memory, exploring its full sensory impact on everyone from the soldiers on the field to the civilians waiting at home.

A seaside village, an English country house, a family of wealthy eccentrics, a determined detective - all the ingredients are here for a cozy Agatha Christie-style whodunit. But wait. Edward "Mitch" Mitchell is no Hercule Poirot, and The Back Passage is no Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Mitch is a handsome, insatiable 22-year-old hunk who never lets a clue stand in the way of a steamy encounter, whether it's with the local constabulary, the house secretary, or his school chum and fellow athlete Boy Morgan, who becomes his Watson when they're not busy boffing each other.

In compelling poetry, the spirits of Frederick Douglas, John Brown, and William Tecumseh Sherman come alive. So does the heart-rending tale of a Confederate son and Union father, the desperate struggle of boys fighting like men, the horrifying shrieks of the wounded, and the pitiful plight of a toil-weary slave. One poetic letter finds distraught parents aching for a son who hasn’t been heard from in months. Another spotlights a wounded lad languishing in a POW camp, determined to survive his living nightmare.

A rousing and meticulously researched account of the notorious Battle of Little Big Horn and its unforgettable cast of characters from Sitting Bull to Custer himself.

Born in Virginia in 1818, Elizabeth Keckley grew up enslaved until she was able to purchase her and her son's freedom with money made from working as a seamstress. As she continued to perfect her craft, her styles caught the attention of the elite in Washington, DC. It wasn't until the day of Abraham Lincoln's inauguration that she crossed paths with Mary Todd Lincoln, who took Elizabeth on as her personal confidante and seamstress. Behind the Scenes offers an intimate look into the enslaved and free life of Elizabeth Keckley and the lives of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.