Civil War Military History

This was a decade-long struggle that toppled a dictatorship, reshaped the nation's social fabric, and set the stage for modern Mexico. This turbulent conflict pitted revolutionary leaders like Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, and Venustiano Carranza against the oppressive regimes of Porfirio Díaz and Victoriano Huerta, leading to sweeping political and social reforms. In this concise yet comprehensive book, you'll explore the revolutionary battles, shifting alliances, and the fight for land reform that defined the era.

William Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched earth policies he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States.

In the second book of the Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Bruce Catton - one of America's most honored Civil War historians - once again brings the great battles and the men who fought them to breathtaking life. As the War Between the States moved through its second bloody year, General Ambrose Burnside was selected by President Lincoln to replace the ineffectual George "Little Mac" McClellan as commander of the Union Army. But the hope that greeted Burnside's ascension was quickly dashed in December 1862 in the wake of his devastating defeat at Fredericksburg.

It is newly estimated that 750,000 soldiers died in the American Civil War. But less well-known than the war’s death toll are the roughly 400,000 Union and Confederate troops who were captured and imprisoned. Many POWs died from starvation, dysentery, and exposure, and at the worst of the prison pens, more than 30,000 soldiers were caged in the equivalent of ten city blocks. Against the backdrop of a brutal internecine conflict, the Civil War’s prison camps were a harrowing milestone in the history of mass dehumanization.

A two-time Newbery Honor Book author, Jim Murphy is among the world’s finest writers of nonfiction for children. In A Savage Thunder he takes listeners back to the American Civil War to tell the terrible yet extraordinary story of the Battle of Antietam. With the entire world watching, two armies met in Maryland in 1862. The Union needed a victory. The Confederacy hoped to continue its success. When the smoke cleared, 23,000 men were dead or wounded—and the momentum had shifted to the Union.

Two great battles, two historic outcomes: Defeat in either would have changed the destiny of America and Israel. In this riveting comparative history, From Gettysburg to Golan, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Spielman shows for the first time the extraordinary similarities between the battles of Gettysburg (1863) and Golan Heights (1973).

Civil War Battles is an informative introduction to the subject. For four straight years, the people of the United States fought against one another in a brutal civil war that resulted in the deaths of approximately 620,000 men in uniform. Between 1861 and 1865, more Americans died during this bloody conflict than in all other American wars combined. With fighting across the South and in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Kentucky, some battles proved to be key in the overall outcome of the war.

One month in 1865 witnessed the frenzied fall of Richmond, a daring last-ditch Southern plan for guerrilla warfare, Lee's harrowing retreat, and then, Appomattox. It saw Lincoln's assassination just five days later and a near-successful plot to decapitate the Union government, followed by chaos and coup fears in the North, collapsed negotiations and continued bloodshed in the South, and finally, the start of national reconciliation.

Impassioned antislavery rhetoric made antebellum Boston famous as the nation’s hub of radical abolitionism. In fact, the city was far from a beacon of equality. In No Right to an Honest Living, historian Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small—a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive. Highlighting the everyday struggles of ordinary Black workers, this book shows how injustice in the workplace prevented Boston—and the United States—from securing true equality for all.

This book examines the complexities of life for African Americans in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. Although the Valley was a site of fierce conflicts during the Civil War and its military activity has been extensively studied, scholars have largely ignored the Black experience in the region until now.

With an entirely fresh take on presidential history, James Swanson, author of the New York Times best-selling, Edgar Award-winning Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, shares the story of his lifelong obsession with the murder of America’s most revered president and the frantic hunt for his assassin. The renowned Lincoln scholar treats listeners to an audible “walking tour” of the people, places, events, and artifacts that tell the story of those horrible days in April 1865.

Written by the officer who became General Longstreet’s most trusted associate, this collection of firsthand accounts, memoirs, and diaries grants the listener an inside view into the workings of the Confederate army staff - the unknown soldiers, the well-known commanders, politicians, nurses, and civilians - relating the events of the Civil War as Lt. Colonel Gilbert Moxley Sorrel experienced it.

Ambrose Bierce brings to life the heart rendering stories of divided loyalties, splitting families, states, countries, and individuals. He writes of the glory in beginning and savagery in the doing. Here is a moving anti-war series of stories if ever there was one. A must read by all students of American History and Literature, though perhaps best understood by older adults.

Covering the pivotal years 1861-1864, General Ulysses S. Grant leads us in his own words from Fort Sumter to his appointment as commander of all the armies of the North. Grant remembers his experiences with the key players of the day, takes us onto the battlefields, and recounts the twists and turns of fate. Grant was a failed peacetime soldier, failed farmer, failed woodcutter, failed bill collector, and 38-year-old clerk in a harness store in the spring of 1861. By 1864, he was directing all the Union forces.

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.

In 1868, celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner traveled to Fort Laramie to document the federal government's treaty negotiations with the Lakota and other tribes of the northern Plains. Gardner, known for his iconic portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his visceral pictures of the Confederate dead at Antietam, posed six federal peace commissioners with a young Native girl wrapped in a blanket. The hand-labeled prints carefully name each of the men, but the girl is never identified. .

Do you want to learn how the bloodiest military conflict in American History began, was fought, and ultimately won by the Allies? Hear about the 50 most important events of the Civil War, from the very beginning to the fall of the Confederate states. This book is perfect for history lovers. Author James Weber did the research and compiled this huge list of events and battles that changed the course of history forever.

Despite all that has been published on the American Civil War, one aspect that has never received the in-depth attention it deserves is the widespread use of landmines across the Confederacy. These “infernal devices” dealt death and injury in nearly every Confederate state and influenced the course of the war. Kenneth R. Rutherford rectifies this oversight with America’s Buried History: Landmines in the Civil War, the first book devoted to a comprehensive analysis and history of the fascinating and important topic.

In late 1936, as Franco’s armies stormed toward Madrid, Stalin famously termed the defence of Spain “the common cause of all advanced and progressive mankind.” As a German emigrant to Winnipeg, Hans Ibing recognized the importance of the Spanish Civil War to the struggle against worldwide fascism in a way that most people in Canada did not - joining the International Brigades in their fight to defend the Spanish Republic was his “chance to fight Hitler.”

Few events have sparked more legends and stories of the supernatural than America's Civil War. The accounts of gallantry and heroism have spread far and wide. Nancy Roberts grew up listening to her father's stories of the War Between the States, and she trekked over many battle sites with him during her childhood. After reading about General Joshua Chamberlain's supernatural experience at the Battle of Gettysburg, Roberts began to collect tales of the blue and gray and write them down.