Of special value for Civil War scholars and buffs are Barber’s vivid descriptions of battles, notably the of siege Fort Donelson and the Confederate victory at Chickasaw Bayou, in which he highlights the Third Tennessee’s crucial role in defeating William T. Sherman. Robert H. Ferrell introduces Barber and details the formation of the regiment. A full regimental roster, a rarity among Confederate units, also is included.
Nelson A. Miles began his military service as a volunteer officer in the Civil War. He later earned the appellation “the idol of the Indian fighters” and capped his controversial career by serving as Commanding General of the Army from 1895 to 1903. During his long and distinguished career, Miles made numerous enemies, including Theodore Roosevelt. Peter DeMontravel contends that the comments made by these enemies influenced the way historians have viewed Miles’s career. This reassessment of that career restores him to a degree of prominence.
Sermons as historical documents reflect the thoughts, emotions, values, prejudices, and beliefs of their time. “The more popular a preacher, the more likely it is that she or he mirrors the hopes and fears of a significant number of people,” explains David B. Chesebrough in “No Sorrow like Our Sorrow.” His analysis of more than 300 sermons delivered in a seven-week period following Lincoln’s assassination (April 16-June 1, 1865) examines the influence of religious leaders on public opinion and policy during that turbulent period.
Originally published in 1902 by Henry O. Harden’s newspaper publishing company, History of the 90th Ohio Volunteer Infantry tells its story through the soldiers’ personal letters, diary entries, and memoirs. Formed in response to Confederate maneuvers in Kentucky in 1862, this regiment was comprised of men from Fairfield, Fayette, Hocking, Perry, Pickaway, and Vinton counties. They served in the Civil War from 1862 to 1865 and spent much of their time in Tennessee bravely participating in such battles as Stones River, Tullahoma, Chickamauga, Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Franklin, and Nashville.
All students of the Civil War are indebted to Frank Haskell for his classic description of the battle of Gettysburg. A lieutenant on the staff of John Gibbon, Haskell stood at the focus of the Confederate assault on July 3, 1863. He wrote of the battle in a letter to his brother. When it came to light after the war it became and remains probably the most read and repeated account of Civil War combat written by a participant. It captures wholly the terrible fascination that the Civil War—and Gettysburg—holds for all Americans.
The Lincoln images, originally appearing in such publications as Budget of Fun, Comic Monthly, New York Illustrated News, Phunny Phellow, Southern Punch, and Yankee Notions, significantly expand our understanding of the evolution of public opinion toward Lincoln, the complex dynamics of Civil War, popular art and culture, the media, political caricature, and presidential politics. Lincoln, appealed to illustrators because of his distinctive physical features. (One could scarcely conceive of a similar book on James Buchanan, his immediate predecessor.) Despite ever-improving techniques, Lincoln pictorial prominence competed favorably with any succeeding president in the nineteenth century.
This fascinating first biography of Daniel incorporates much new research, including correspondence between foreign ministers in Turin and their envoys in Washington and a series of private letters between John Daniel and his great uncle Peter Vivian Daniel of the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Secretary of War John Floyd, and others. Pen of Fire fills a gap in general American historiography, in published works dealing with nineteenth-century American diplomacy, and in studies of the Civil War.
In Union and Emancipation, seven leading historians offer new perspectives on the issues of race and politics in American Society from the antebellum era to the aftermath of Reconstruction. The authors, all trained by Richard H. Sewell at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, address two major themes; the politics of sectional conflict prior to the Civil War, illuminated through ideological and institutional inquiry; and the central importance of race, slavery, and emancipation in shaping American political culture and social memory.
This revised edition of Ambrose Bierce’s 1892 collection of “Soldiers” and “Civilians” tales fills a void in American literature. A veteran of the Civil War and a journalist known for his integrity and biting satire, Ambrose Bierce was also a lively short-story writer of considerable depth and power. As San Francisco’s most famous journalist during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Bierce was hired by William Randolph Hearst to write a column for San Francisco Examiner, where his “Soldiers” and “Civilians” tales first appeared during the late 1880s.
Although a successful businessman in Newark, Ohio, prior to the Civil War, Charles Dana Miller understood the necessity of leaving his business and his home to take part in the “struggle for the life of the republic.” His account of what he saw, how he felt, and the hardships he endured as a soldier in the 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry are presented in The Struggle for the Life of the Republic.
