Volume 6 brings readers more of the best first-person accounts of marches, encampments, skirmishes, and full-blown battles, as seen by participants on both sides of the conflict. Alongside the experiences of lower-ranking officers and enlisted men are accounts from key personalities including General John Gibbon, General John C. Lee, and seven prominent generals from both sides offering views on "why the Confederacy failed." This volume includes 120 illustrations, including 16 previously uncollected maps of battlefields, troop movements, and fortifications.

An engaging guide to the people, places, and events of America's Civil War.

In July 1883, just a few days after the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, a group of editors at The Century Magazine engaged in a lively argument: Which Civil War battle was the bloodiest battle of them all? One claimed it was Chickamauga, another Cold Harbor. The argument inspired a brainstorm: Why not let the magazine’s 125,000 readers in on the conversation by offering “a series of papers on some of the great battles of the war to be written by officers in command on both sides.” The articles would be written by generals, Union and Confederate alike, who had commanded the engagements two decades earlier—“or, if he were not living,” by “the person most entitled to speak for him or in his place.” The pieces would present both sides of each major battle, and would be fair and free of politics. In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the most enduring entries from the classic four-volume series Battles and Leaders of the Civil War have now been edited and merged into one definitive volume. Here are the best of the immortal first-person accounts of the Civil War originally published in the pages of The Century Magazine more than a hundred years ago. Hearts Touched by Fire offers stunning accounts of the war’s great battles written by the men who planned, fought, and witnessed them, from leaders such as General Ulysses S. Grant, General George McClellan, and Confederate captain Clement Sullivane to men of lesser rank. This collection also features new year-by-year introductions by esteemed historians, including James M. McPherson, Craig L. Symonds, and James I. Robertson, Jr., who cast wise modern eyes on the cataclysm that changed America and would go down as the bloodiest conflict in our nation’s history. No one interested in our country’s past will want to be without this collection of the most popular and influential first-person Civil War memoirs ever published.

On July 21, 1861, near a Virginia railroad junction twenty-five miles from Washington, DC, the Union and Confederate armies clashed in the first major battle of the Civil War. This revised edition of Hennessy's classic is the premier tactical account of First Manassas/Bull Run. • Combines narrative, analysis, and interpretation into a clear, easy-to-follow account of the battle's unfolding • Features commanders who would later become legendary, such as William T. Sherman and Thomas J. Jackson, who earned his "Stonewall" nickname at First Manassas

Beginning with an overview of the causes of the war and continuing with year-by-year chronology, looks at the major clashes of World War II and their results.