Almost immediately after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, abolitionists began to call for the raising of black regiments. The South and most of the North responded with outrage. Southerners vowed to enslave black soldiers captured in battle, while many northerners claimed that blacks lacked the courage to fight. Yet Boston's Brahmins, always eager for a moral crusade, launched one of the greatest experiments in American history. In Thunder at the gates, Douglas R. Egerton chronicles the formation and exploits of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry and the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry -- regiments led by whites but composed of black men born free or into slavery.

In the world of historical painting, Don Troiani stands alone, universally acclaimed for the accuracy, drama, and sensitivity of his depictions of America's past. His Civil War paintings and limited edition prints hang in the finest collections in the country and are noted by collectors from around the world. Now, in "Don Troiani's Regiments and Uniforms of the Civil War", the artist turns his brush to one of the most colourful and captivating aspects of Civil War history: the individual units that earned their reputations on the battlefield and the distinctive uniforms they wore. In addition to 130 paintings of battle scenes and individual figures, the book also includes more than 250 full-colour photographs of the uniforms the soldiers wore and the accoutrements they carried. Supporting the illustrations is text by two of the leading military artefact experts. Taken together, it makes for one of the most comprehensive books on Civil War uniforms ever undertaken.

The product of over a decade of research, Lesley J. Gordon’s A Broken Regiment recounts the tragic history of one of the Civil War’s most ill-fated Union military units. Organized in the late summer of 1862, the 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was unprepared for battle a month later, when it entered the fight at Antietam. The results were catastrophic: nearly a quarter of the men were killed or wounded, and Connecticut’s 16th panicked and fled the field. After years of fighting, the regiment surrendered en masse in 1864. This unit’s complex history amid the interplay of various, and often competing, perspectives results in a fascinating and heartrending story.

In January 1863, a long-anticipated military order arrived on the desk of Massachusetts Governor John Andrew. President Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, had granted the governor authority to raise regiments of black soldiers. Two units--the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry--were soon mustered and in December, Andrew issued General Order No. 44, announcing "a Regiment of Cavalry Volunteers, to be composed of men of color...is now in the process of recruitment in the Commonwealth." Drawing on letters, diaries, memoirs and official reports, this book provides the first full-length regimental history of the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry--its organization, participation in the Petersburg campaign and the guarding of prisoners at Point Lookout, Maryland, and its triumphant ride into Richmond. Accounts of the postwar lives of many of the men are included.

Eagles on Their Buttons is a fascinating examination of the Fifth Regiment of Infantry, United States Colored Troops -- the Union Army's first black regiment from Ohio. Although the Fifth USCT was one of more than 150 regiments of black troops making up more than 10 percent of the Union Army at the end of the war, it was unique. The majority of USCT regiments were made up of freed men who viewed the army as an escape from slavery and a chance to take up arms against their former masters. The men serving in the 5th USCT, however, were freemen who were raised in a northern state and saw serving in the army both as a way to gain equal rights under the law and as an opportunity to prove their worth as men. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.