English Civil War

Learn about the history of the U.S. Civil War with the iMinds JNR audio-learning series for younger minds. A civil war is a war where the two opposing sides come from the same country. It is a war that occurs within a single nation. The U.S. Civil War was waged from 1861 to 1865 and was fought between the Northern states (making up the Union) and eleven Southern states (the Confederacy). A major cause of the U.S. Civil War was the North's condemnation of slavery.

Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite his many roles and his varied life, Lincoln returned time and time again to the Founders.

In this detailed and fascinating account of the legend of the "Wizard of the Saddle," we see a man whose strengths and flaws were both of towering proportions, a man possessed of physical valor perhaps unprecedented among his countrymen. And, ironically, Forrest - the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan - was a man whose social attitudes may well have changed farther in the direction of racial enlightenment over the span of his lifetime than those of most American historical figures.

Summer, 1863. The Federal triumph at Vicksburg has secured complete control of the Mississippi River from the Confederacy, cementing the reputation of Ulysses S. Grant. Farther east, the Federal army under the command of William Rosecrans captures the crucial rail hub at Chattanooga. But Rosecrans is careless, and while pursuing the Confederates, the Federal forces are routed in north Georgia at Chickamauga Creek.

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.

In February 1865, the end was clearly in sight for the Confederate government. Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg had dashed the hopes of the Confederate army, and Grant’s victory at Vicksburg had cut the South in two. An Honorable Defeat is the story of the four months that saw the surrender of the South and the assassination of Lincoln by Southern partisans.

In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from 45 to 72 years. The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era.

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.

Told in a smart, assured, and compelling voice, this is the story of Caroline, the young wife and childhood sweetheart of Jacob, who together live on a farm raising their daughter, Rachel, just outside of Gettysburg. When Jacob joins the Northern army to do his duty and help save the Union, no one anticipates he will not return. Caroline gets news that he is wounded and has been taken to Washington, DC, with his regiment, and so she must find her way there and navigate the thousands of other wounded soldiers to find him.

Can you imagine sneaking into an enemy camp to kidnap a general? Or how about caring for patients while bullets whiz by your head? These were everyday events for people during the Civil War. Experience their triumphs and defeats firsthand as you learn about a Confederate colonel, a battlefield surgeon, a Union marine, and more.

Susie King Taylor, born a slave in 1848, would learn to read at secret schools and go on to teach countless others to read and write. Follow the course of the Civil War in her own words as she remembers her work as a nurse and teacher with an Army troop of African-American soldiers.

Before he grew up and became one of Washington's most respected reporters and editors, Andrew Ferguson was, of all things, a Lincoln buff, with the photos hung on his bedroom wall to prove it. Decades later, Ferguson's latent buffdom is reignited. In Land of Lincoln, he embarks on a curiosity-fueled coast-to-coast journey through contemporary Lincoln Nation, encountering everything from hatred to adoration to opportunism and all manner of reaction in between.

Mayme and Katie have become friends, which is unusual given that their friendship has spouted at the end of the Civil War and that Mayme is a former slave, while Katie is the daughter of a plantation owner. Both girls have been orphaned by the war, left alone on Katie's family plantation. The land is the one thing they still share, and they don't want to leave it. But if anyone finds out the two of them live there alone, they will be forced to move.

In preparing the Life of Lee for Children, for use in the public schools, I beg leave to place before teachers good reasons for employing it as a supplementary reader.

In this, the first volume of renowned author and historian Peter G. Tsouras’s alternative history trilogy, Great Britain’s support for the Confederacy takes it to the brink of war with the Union. The escape of a British-built Confederate ironclad finally ignites the heap of combustible animosities and national interests. When the US Navy seizes it in British waters, the ensuing battle spirals into all-out war. Napoleon III eagerly joins the British and declares war on the United States.

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.

Bull Run was the site of the first battle of the Civil War. This book creates an intimate tapestry of stories from blacks and whites, adults and children, leaders and families from the North and South. Broken dreams and bloodshed take you back to the front lines of the Battle of Bull Run.

Few wars have been fought by each side with greater intensity of conviction in the rightness of its cause or with more abundant personal heroism than the War Between the States. The story begins with a great responsibility falling on Vincent Wingfield, the teenage son of a widowed Virginia plantation owner. Vincent must decide what course of action he should take when a problem arises on the plantation.

In 1937, Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight", For Whom the Bell Tolls.

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.