Civil War Military History

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Civil War battle waged on September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek, Maryland, was one of the bloodiest in the nation's history: On this single day, the battle claimed nearly 23,000 casualties. In Landscape Turned Red, the renowned historian Stephen Sears draws on a remarkable cache of diaries, dispatches, and letters to recreate the vivid drama of Antietam as experienced not only by its leaders but also by its soldiers, both Union and Confederate.

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.

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.

As the United States marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, 1861 presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began. 1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, a second American revolution unfolded, inspiring a new generation to reject their parents' faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in the name of an ideal.

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.

Even without the right to vote, members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy proved to have enormous social and political influence throughout the South - all in the name of preserving Confederate culture. Karen L. Cox's history of the UDC, an organization founded in 1894 to vindicate the Confederate generation and honor the Lost Cause, shows why myths surrounding the Confederacy continue to endure.

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 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.

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.

John McCorkle was a young Missouri farmer of Southern sympathies. After serving briefly in the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard, he became a prominent member of William Clarke Quantrill's infamous guerrillas, who took advantage of the turmoil in the Missouri-Kansas borderland to prey on pro-Union people. McCorkle displayed an unflinchingly violent nature while he participated in raids and engagements including the massacres at Lawrence and Baxter Springs, Kansas; and Centralia, Missouri.

The legacy of General Nathan Bedford Forrest is deeply divisive. Best known for being accused of war crimes at the Battle of Fort Pillow and for his role as first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan - an organization he later denounced - Forrest has often been studied as a military figure, but never before studied as a fascinating individual who wrestled with the complex issues of his violent times. Bust Hell Wide Open is a comprehensive portrait of Nathan Bedford Forrest as a man: his achievements, failings, reflections, and regrets.

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.

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 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.

The Civil War is one of the most well-documented and studied periods in American history, yet despite the volumes written on its causes, battles, and leaders, there remain countless lesser-known stories and intriguing facts that often slip through the cracks. These overlooked moments—small but significant—are what make history so fascinating, revealing the complexities and human experiences that shaped the course of the war.