Civil War Military History

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.

From the birth of the Republican Party to the Confederacy's first convention, the Underground Railroad to the Emancipation Proclamation, the Battle of Gettysburg to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War reveals the amazing and often little-known stories behind the battle lines of America's bloodiest war and debunks the myths that surround its greatest figures.

This epic work tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family's dispersal after Jefferson's death in 1826. It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings's siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson's wife, Martha.

Thomas B. Allen’s expertise in military history and strategy is combined with Roger MacBride Allen’s knowledge of technology to reveal a lesser-known yet fascinating side of the 16th president of the United States. Their authoritative narrative reveals Lincoln as our nation’s first hands-on commander in chief, whose appreciation for the power of technology plays a critical role in the North’s Civil War victory over the less-developed South.

The late republic (from about 133BCE) was characterized by civil discontent, with three Servile Wars, two attempted coups, a Social War between Rome and Italian allies, and endless conflict. We begin in 110-106BCE with two speeches railing against the fixed social order and corruption of the highborn, as well as the scorn poured on those of lower birth.

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.

The Chinese Civil War was a decades-long struggle between the Nationalists and Communists that reshaped China and reverberated across the globe. This concise yet comprehensive book covers the war’s early battles, the impact of the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the final showdown that saw Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat to Taiwan. Listen about the ideologies and strategies of both sides and explore the global consequences of this war, which marked a pivotal moment in Cold War history.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.

First published in 1875, General William T. Sherman's memoir was one of the first from the Civil War and was offered to the public because, as Sherman wrote in his dedication, "no satisfactory history" of the war was yet available. Although Memoirs has been revised and corrected many times over the years, Sherman famously never changed the original text of his recollections.

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.

Oliver Otis Howard thought he was a man of destiny. Chosen to lead the Freedmen's Bureau after the Civil War, the Union Army general was entrusted with the era's most crucial task: helping millions of former slaves claim the rights of citizens. He was energized by the belief that abolition and Reconstruction, the country's great struggles for liberty and equality, were God's plan for himself and the nation.

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.

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.

The Rhodesian Bush War (1964–1979) was a brutal and protracted guerrilla conflict that ultimately led to the end of white minority rule in Rhodesia and the birth of Zimbabwe. This comprehensive yet concise book takes you through the key events and figures that shaped this war, providing a detailed look into one of Africa’s most significant liberation struggles.

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War on July 17, 1936, 42 thousand Internationals, comprised of Canadians, Americans, and Spaniards, fought together on the side of the Republicans who were trying to throw back fascist dictator General Franco’s troops, which included countless German and Italian soldiers. By October 29, 1938 though, only two thousand Internationals were able to gather for a speech requesting them to withdraw. Despite all their efforts, Spain wanted to continue on its own, hoping the war would become a Spanish affair once again.

A History of the Civil War brings to life the realities of the war and the people who lived through it. It explains how the politics around slavery led to an unbridgeable divide between the North and South, and examines the strategies that led to the Union's eventual victory in 1865.

After four years of unspeakable horror and sacrifice on both sides, the Civil War was about to end. On March 4, 1865, at his second inauguration, President Lincoln did not offer the North the victory speech it yearned for; nor did he blame the South solely for the sin of slavery. Calling the whole nation to account, Lincoln offered a moral framework for peace and reconciliation. Eventually this "with malice toward none" address would be accepted and revered as one of the greatest in the nation's history.

This book attempts to show that the Civil War was more than a succession of battles; it was a struggle between two civilizations... The motive for secession, slavery, was indefensible in the long run...It is reasonably clear today, that the South would have discarded slavery in another generation; and that the New Nationalism would have come about without the Civil War. Yet the war dominated the American mind for forty years and is worthy of study if only on this account.

In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo offers a marvelous portrait of the Civil War and its era, covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics, religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. He examines the strategy, the tactics, and the logistics of the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on emancipation, the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and international law, and the role of intellectuals, North and South.