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Book proposals and CVs should be sent to:
Dr. Brian S. Wills, Director
The Center for the Study of the Civil War Era
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD2201, Bldg 22, Rm 3016
Kennesaw, GA 30144-5591 USA
bwills2@kennesaw.edu
Brian S. Wills, Editor
Civil War Soldiers and Strategies is a series designed to offer scholars the opportunity to present examinations of the martial aspects of the American Civil War Era. Expansion of such studies from a traditional focus on battles and leaders has led to the inclusion of many new voices and perspectives. This series takes advantage of those new directions as well as presenting studies that will help us better understand the people who participated in waging war and the engagements that determined the ultimate outcome and aftermath of the conflict. Volumes appropriate for the series include monographs, biographies, edited works, and primary sources.

Adelbert Ames, the Civil War, and the Creation of Modern America

| Filed under: Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, Military History, Recent Releases, U.S. History
Adelbert Ames, the Civil War, and the Creation of Modern America Cover

A central figure in Reconstruction-era politics, Adelbert Ames and his contributions during a significant and uncertain time in American history are the focus of Michael J. Megelsh’s fascinating study. As Megelsh discusses, Ames’s life took many compelling turns. Born on Maine’s rocky shore in 1835, he served as a Union general during the American Civil War and was heralded as one of the young stars whose leadership was integral in helping the Union to victory. He briefly remained in the army after the conflict, stationed in Mississippi, where he entered the political arena.

 


From the Wilderness to Appomattox

| Filed under: American History, Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, Military History, Recent Releases
From the Wilderness to Appomattox cover. By Edward A. Altemos

In early 1864, many heavy artillery regiments in the Civil War were garrisoning the Washington defenses, including the Fifteenth New York. At the same time, newly minted Union general in chief Ulysses S. Grant sought to replenish the ranks of the Army of the Potomac, and the Fifteenth became one of the first outfits dispatched to Major General George Meade at Brandy Station.

Drawing on a wealth of previously unmined primary sources, Edward A. Altemos pays tribute to the Fifteenth, other heavy artillery regiments, and the thousands of immigrants who contributed to the Union army’s victory.

 


No Place for Glory

| Filed under: Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, Recent Releases, Understanding Civil War History
No Place for Glory/Wynstra. Kent State University Press

Over the years, many top historians have cited Major General Robert E. Rodes as the best division commander in Robert E. Lee’s vaunted army. Despite those accolades, Rodes faltered badly at Gettysburg, which stands as the only major blemish on his otherwise sterling record.

 


Blue-Blooded Cavalryman 

| Filed under: Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, Military History, Recent Releases, U.S. History
Blue-Blooded Cavalryman by J. Gregory Acken. Kent State University Press

In May 1863, eighteen-year-old William Brooke Rawle graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and traded a genteel, cultured life of privilege for service as a cavalry officer. Traveling from his home in Philadelphia to Virginia, he joined the Third Pennsylvania Cavalry and soon found himself in command of a company of veterans of two years’ service, some of whom were more than twice his age. Within eight weeks, he had participated in two of the largest cavalry battles of the war at Brandy Station and Gettysburg.

 


James Riley Weaver’s Civil War

, , and | Filed under: Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, Military History, Recent Releases, U.S. History
James Riley Weaver's Civil War by Schlotterbeck, Wilson, Kawaue, and Klingensmith. Kent State University Press.

Captured on October 11, 1863, James Riley Weaver, a Union cavalry officer, spent nearly seventeen months in Confederate prisons. Remarkably, Weaver kept a diary that documents 666 consecutive days of his experience, including his cavalry duties, life in a series of prisons throughout the South, and his return to civilian life. It is an unparalleled eyewitness account of a crucial part of our history.

 


Meade

| Filed under: Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, Military History, Recent Releases, U.S. History, Understanding Civil War History
Meade by John G. Selby. Kent State University Press

George Gordon Meade has not been treated kindly by history. Victorious at Gettysburg, the biggest battle of the American Civil War, Meade was the longest-serving commander of the Army of the Potomac, leading his army through the brutal Overland Campaign and on to the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. Serving alongside his new superior, Ulysses S. Grant, in the last year of the war, his role has been overshadowed by the popular Grant. This first full-length study of Meade’s two-year tenure as commander of the Army of the Potomac brings him out of Grant’s shadow and into focus as one of the top three Union generals of the war.

 


At the Forefront of Lee’s Invasion

| Filed under: Audiobooks, Award Winners, Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, Military History, Recent Releases, U.S. History, Understanding Civil War History
At the Forefront of Lee's Invasion by Robert J. Wynstra. Kent State University Press

After clearing Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley of Federal troops, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s bold invasion into the North reached the Maryland shore of the Potomac River on June 15, 1863. A week later, the Confederate infantry crossed into lower Pennsylvania, where they had their first sustained interactions with the civilian population in a solidly pro-Union state. Most of the initial encounters with the people in the lush Cumberland Valley and the neighboring parts of the state involved the men from the Army of Northern Virginia’s famed Second Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, who led the way as Lee’s veteran soldiers advanced north toward their eventual showdown with the Union army at the crossroads town of Gettysburg.

 


Phantoms of the South Fork

| Filed under: Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, History, Military History, U.S. History, Understanding Civil War History
French cover

At 3 a.m. on February 21, 1865, a band of 65 Confederate horsemen slowly made its way down Greene Street in Cumberland, Maryland. Thinking the riders were disguised Union scouts, the few Union soldiers out that bitterly cold morning paid little attention to them. In the meantime, over 3,500 Yankee soldiers peacefully slept.

 


“My Greatest Quarrel with Fortune”

| Filed under: Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, Military History, Understanding Civil War History
Beemer cover Image

Lew Wallace of Indiana was a self-taught extraordinary military talent. With boldness and celerity, he advanced in less than a year from the rank of colonel of the 11th Indiana to that of major general commanding the 3rd Division at Shiloh. Ultimately, his civilian, amateur military status collided headlong with the professional military culture being assiduously cultivated by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, a cautious and difficult commander. The fallout was aggravated by Wallace’s unwillingness to acknowledge the protocols that sustained the military chain of command. The primary result of the collision was that he failed to realize his most cherished ambition: leading men in battle.

 


Work for Giants

| Filed under: Audiobooks, Civil War Era, Civil War Soldiers and Strategies, History, Military History, Understanding Civil War History
Parson cover

During the summer of 1864 a Union column, commanded by Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson Smith, set out from Tennessee with a goal that had proven impossible in all prior attempts—to find and defeat the cavalry under the command of Confederate major general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest’s cavalry was the greatest threat to the long supply line feeding Sherman’s armies as they advanced on Atlanta.

 



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