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Books : History : United States : Civil War : Biographies & Memoirs : Personal Narratives
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At once an informed overview for general-interest readers and a superb resource for serious buffs, this extraordinary, gloriously illustrated volume is sure to become one of the fundamental books in any Civil War library. Its features include a dramatic narrative packed with eyewitness accounts and hundreds of rare photographs, artifacts, and period illustrations. Evocative sidebars, detailed maps, and timelines add to the reference-ready quality of the text.
From John Brown's raid to Reconstruction, Eyewitness to the Civil War presents a clear, comprehensive discussion that addresses every military, political, and social aspect of this crucial period. In-depth descriptions of campaigns and battles in all theaters of war are accompanied by a thorough evaluation of the nonmilitary elements of the struggle between North and South. In their own words, commanders and common soldiers in both armies tell of life on the battlefield and behind the lines, while letters from wives, mothers, and sisters provide a portrait of the home front. More than 375 historical photographs, portraits, and artifacts—many never before published—evoke the era's flavor; and detailed maps of terrain and troop movements make it easy to follow the strategies and tactics of Union and Confederate generals as they fought through four harsh years of war. Photoessays on topics ranging from the everyday lives of soldiers to the dramatic escapades of the cavalry lend a breathtaking you-are-there feeling, and an inclusive appendix adds even more detail to what is already a magnificently meticulous history.
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Originally published by UNC Press in 1989, Fighting for the Confederacy is one of the richest personal accounts in all of the vast literature on the Civil War. Alexander was involved in nearly all of the great battles of the East, from First Manassas through Appomattox, and his duties brought him into frequent contact with most of the high command of the Army of Northern Virginia, including Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and James Longstreet. No other Civil War veteran of his stature matched Alexander's ability to discuss operations in penetrating detail—this is especially true of his description of Gettysburg. His narrative is also remarkable for its utterly candid appraisals of leaders on both sides.
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Recollections and Letters shows all the varying facets of Lee's character. His letters reveal his personal warmth, bravery and concern for the South during and after the war. No other collection of source materials gives such a whole and rewarding picture of one of the South's greatest sons and heroes.
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Most histories of the Civil War focus on battles and top brass. Hardtack and Coffee is one of the few to give a vivid, detailed picture of what ordinary soldiers endured every day—in camp, on the march, at the edge of a booming, smoking hell. John D. Billings of Massachusetts enlisted in the Army of the Potomac and curvived the conditions he recorded. The authenticity of his book is heightened by the many drawings that a comrade, Charles W. Reed, made in the field. This is the story of how the Civil War soldier was recruited, provisioned, and disciplined. Described here are the types of men found in any outfit; their not very uniform uniforms; crowded tents and makeshift shelters; difficulties in keeping clean, warm, and dry; their pleasure in a cup of coffee; food rations, dominated by salt pork and the versatile cracker or hardtack; their brave pastimes in the face of death; punishments for various offenses; treatment in sick bay; firearms and signals and modes of transportation. Comprehensive and anecdotal, Hardtack and Coffee is striking for the pulse of life that runs through it.
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Wiley offers a rare but complete portrait of the ordinary soldier of the Confederacy during the Civil War, via extensive research of letters, newspaper stories, official records, and excerpts from diary entries.
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An account of Alcott's experiences as a nurse during the Civil War.
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Wiley offers a rare but complete portrait of the ordinary soldier of the Confederacy during the Civil War, via extensive research of letters, newspaper stories, official records, and excerpts from diary entries.
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An account of Alcott's experiences as a nurse during the Civil War.
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"I don't know how long before i shall have to go into the field of battle. For my part i don't care. I don't feel afraid to go. I don't believe there are any Rebel's bullet made for me yet."
--Pvt. Lyons Wakeman
Similar sentiments were expressed by tens of thousands of Civil War soldiers in their diaries and in their letters to loved ones at home. What transforms the letters of Pvt. Lyons Wakeman from merely interesting reading into a unique and fascinating addition to Civil War literature is who wrote them--for Private Wakeman was not what "he" seemed to be. The five-foot tall soldier's true identity was that of a simple young farm girl from central New York state named Sarah Rosetta Wakeman. Her letters, the only such correspondence known to exist, provide a rare glimpse of what life was like for a woman fighting as a common soldier in the Civil War under the guise of a man.
Written shortly after she left home to pursue her fortune in 1862, Rosetta's letters over the next two years tell of army life in the defences of Washington, D.C. and on the march and in battle during the 1864 Louisiana Red River Campaign. She wrote frequently to her family in Afton, NY, and her letters contain feelings and observations like those expressed by the majority of her fellow soldiers. We read of her determination to perform honorably the duty required of a soldier, the trials of hard marching and combat, her pride in being able to "drill just as well as any man" in her regiment, and her eventual fatalistic attitude toward military service, and her frequent expressions of faith in God and the afterlife. Although Rosetta did not survive the war, her letters remain as an singular record of female military life in the ranks, a phenomenon largely ignored by historians and researchers.
Private Wakeman was not alone in embarking on her strange adventure. Hundreds of women, from both the North and South, disguised themselves as men and enlisted in the armies of our nation's bloodiest war.
The experiences of these women during the Civil War are just beginning to be recognized as elemental to understanding the life of this country during those turbulent times. Little is known about these women precisely because they enlisted and served in constant secrecy, fearful of revealing their true identities. This unique collection of letters offers a firsthand look at the personality and character of a woman who defied convention to take a man's place in the Union army.
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Out of print for almost a century, the candid memoirs of a Confederate private who fought with the famous Texas Brigade at Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, and Chickamunga have been a prime source for historians ever since they were first published in 1907. 20,000 first printing.
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On the final day of the battle of Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee ordered one of the most famous infantry assaults of all time: Pickett's Charge. Following a thundering artillery barrage, thousands of Confederates launched a daring frontal attack on the Union line. From their entrenched positions, Federal soldiers decimated the charging Rebels, leaving the field littered with the fallen and several Southern divisions in tatters. Written by generals, officers, and enlisted men on both sides, these firsthand accounts offer an up-close look at Civil War combat and a panoramic view of the carnage of July 3, 1863.
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When Southerners fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861, John Beatty left his bank job in Ohio to answer President Lincoln’s call for soldiers. Within a short while he was commanding the Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, as green to combat as his men. The diary he kept from June 1861 to January 1864 shows how well they did their fearful job without losing their humanity.In October 1862 the Ohio regiment lost nearly forty percent of its five hundred men on the field at Perryville. After heavy fighting at Stone’s River the following year, Beatty was promoted to brigadier general. In these pages the cost of union is carefully weighed by an intelligent and modest man who never glorifies war. Advancing through the South with the Army of the Cumberland, he lives to tell about the horrific battles at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. Whether describing large events in Kentucky, Tennessee, and elsewhere or the quiet times of camp life, Beatty never loses personal perspective
Steven E. Woodworth, in his introduction, writes about the life of this extraordinary “ordinary man,” whose diary, originally published in 1879, “stands out as one of the dozen or so best memoirs of the Civil War for its clarity, honesty, humor, and plain good sense.”
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This Civil War classic of soldiering in the ranks debunks all the romantic notions of war. Like his Northern counterpart, the Confederate soldier fought against bullets, starvation, miserable weather, disease, and mental strain. But the experience was perhaps even worse for Johnny Reb because of the odds against him. Never as well equipped and provisioned as the Yankee, he nevertheless performed heroically.Carlton McCarthy, a private in the Army of Northern Virginia, describes the not-always-regular rations, various improvisations in clothing and weaponry, campfire entertainments, the jaunty spirits and the endless maneuvering of the men in gray. Real but forgotten faces are glimpsed momentarily in famous battles, and the tramp of feet on the way to Appomattox is heard. Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life does for the Confederate side what John Billings’s Hardtack and Coffee, also a Bison Book, does for the Northern. David Donald wrote in the New York Herald Tribune that McCarthy’s book, too, was "as fresh, as amusing, and as revealing" as the day it was first published in 1882.In a new introduction Brian S. Wills considers the book’s niche in Civil War literature.