At the height of the Civil War in 1863, Ty Mattson joins up with the Confederacy as part of Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan's Raiders in hopes of locating his long-lost father.

At the age of twelve, American William R. Dunn decided to become a fighter pilot. In 1939 he joined the Canadian Army and was soon transferred to the Royal Air Force. He was the first pilot in the famous Eagle Squadron of American volunteers to shoot down an enemy aircraft and later became the first American ace of the war. After joining the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943, he saw action in the Normandy invasion and in Patton's sweep across France. Twenty years later he fought again in Vietnam. Dunn keenly conveys the fighter pilot's experience of war -- the tension of combat, the harsh grip of fear, the love of aircraft, the elation of victory, the boisterous comradeship and competition of the pilot brotherhood. Fighter Pilot is both a gripping story and a unique historical document.

The first biography of “one of Kentucky’s best Confederates . . . [who] became a good citizen working for reconciliation between North and South.”—The Post and Courier After practicing law for several years in St. Louis, Basil Wilson Duke (1838-1916) enlisted in the Confederate army in 1861 and was elected first lieutenant of John Hunt Morgan’s legendary cavalry unit. As second in command, he was, Morgan recorded, “wise in counsel, gallant in the field,” and always “the right man in the right place.” Duke was twice wounded in battle and was captured during Morgan’s Great Raid and held prisoner for over a year. When Morgan, who was also Duke’s brother-in-law, was killed in 1864, Duke was promoted to brigadier general and appointed commander of Morgan’s men. Moving to join forces with those of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army in North Carolina, he was assigned to the force escorting Jefferson Davis in his retreat from Richmond at the close of the war. Basil Wilson Duke, CSA, the definitive biography of this important but often overlooked figure in Civil War history, establishes that Duke was in fact the brilliant tactician behind much of the success of Morgan’s cavalry. Author Gary Robert Matthews not only offers an in-depth study of Duke’s celebrated Civil War exploits but also traces his varied postwar literary, legal, and political careers. “Fascinating . . . a vividly written story about a modest Southern gentleman in which the reader may come to his own conclusion that Basil W. Duke was the power behind Morgan’s so-called military genius.”—Edison H. Thomas, author of John Hunt Morgan and His Raiders

A military operation unlike any other on American soil, Morgan's Raid was characterized by incredible speed, superhuman endurance and innovative tactics. One of the nation's most colorful leaders, Confederate general John Hunt Morgan, took his cavalry through enemy-occupied territory in three states in one of the longest offensives of the Civil War. The effort produced the only battles fought north of the Ohio River and reached farther north than any other regular Confederate force. With twenty-five maps and more than forty illustrations, Morgan's Raid historian David L. Mowery takes a new look at this unprecedented event in American history, one historians rank among the world's greatest land-based raids since Elizabethan times.

Of all the states in the Confederacy, Tennessee was the most sectionally divided. East Tennesseans opposed secession at the ballot box in 1861, petitioned unsuccessfully for separate statehood, resisted the Confederate government, enlisted in Union militias, elected U.S. congressmen, and fled as refugees into Kentucky. These refugees formed Tennessee's first Union cavalry regiments during early 1862, followed shortly thereafter by others organized in Union-occupied Middle and West Tennessee. In Homegrown Yankees, the first book-length study of Union cavalry from a Confederate state, James Alex Baggett tells the remarkable story of Tennessee's loyal mounted regiments. Fourteen mounted regiments that fought primarily within the boundaries of the state and eight local units made up Tennessee's Union cavalry. Young, nonslaveholding farmers who opposed secession, the Confederacy, and the war -- from isolated villages east of Knoxville, the Cumberland Mountains, or the Tennessee River counties in the west -- filled the ranks. Most Tennesseans denounced these local bluecoats as renegades, turncoats, and Tories; accused them of betraying their people, their section, and their race; and held them in greater contempt than soldiers from the North. Though these homegrown Yankees participated in many battles -- including those in the Stones River, Tullahoma, Chickamauga, East Tennessee, Nashville, and Atlanta campaigns -- their story provides rare insights into what occurred between the battles. For them, military action primarily meant almost endless skirmishing with partisans, guerrillas, and bushwackers, as well as with the Rebel raiders of John Hunt Morgan, Joseph Wheeler, and Nathan Bedford Forrest, who frequently recruited and supplied themselves from behind enemy lines. Tennessee's Union cavalry scouted and foraged the countryside, guarded outposts and railroads, acted as couriers, supported the flanks of infantry, and raided the enemy. On occasion, especially during the Nashville campaign, they provided rapid pursuit of Confederate forces. They also helped protect fellow unionists from an aggressive pro-Confederate insurgency after 1862. Baggett vividly describes the deprivation, sickness, and loneliness of cavalrymen living on the war's periphery and traces how circumstances beyond their control -- such as terrain, transport, equipage, weaponry, public sentiment, and military policy -- affected their lives. He also explores their well-earned reputation for plundering -- misdeeds motivated by revenge, resentment, a lack of discipline, and the hard-war policy of the Union army. In the never-before-told story of these cavalrymen, Homegrown Yankees offers new insights into an unexplored facet of southern Unionism and provides an exciting new perspective on the Civil War in Tennessee.