A guide to the Gettysburg Civil War battlefields and their history, featuring lesser-known sites, side trips, and optional stops along the way. "I thought my men were invincible,” admitted Robert E. Lee. A string of battlefield victories through 1862 had culminated in the spring of 1863 with Lee’s greatest victory yet: the battle of Chancellorsville. Propelled by the momentum of that supreme moment, confident in the abilities of his men, Lee decided to once more take the fight to the Yankees and launched this army on another invasion of the North. An appointment with destiny awaited in the little Pennsylvania college town of Gettysburg. Historian Dan Welch follows in the footsteps of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac as the two foes cat-and-mouse their way northward, ultimately clashing in the costliest battle in North American history. Based on the Gettysburg Civil War Trails, and packed with dozens of lesser-known sites related to the Gettysburg Campaign, The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign offers the ultimate Civil War road trip. “Orrison and Welch have created something different. Historians must search for innovative ways to engage the public on the battle’s relevance. This book offers a new experience for tourists—one that enriches their visit to the site of one of the most consequential battles in American history.” —Matt Arendt, TCU, for Gettysburg Magazine “Shows a deep knowledge of the subject and the style of writing is clear and easy to follow . . . buy this book!” —Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy

One of the darkest days in United States history since Valley Forge was August 30, 1862. On this date the Confederate army smashed the United States army at Manassas, on the outskirts of Washington. To many, including the president and press, it appeared that Washington was all but lost. The defeat was all the more galling because it was inflicted by a numerically inferior and inadequately equipped Confederate force. Someone, it was assumed, had to be responsible. Union commander Major General John Pope blamed the loss on charismatic and popular Major General Fitz-John Porter, whom he charged with disobedience of orders and shameful conduct before the enemy. A court-martial found him guilty. But was Porter really guilty or did he save the country from an even greater disaster? This book addresses the question of Porter's guilt or innocence, examining the trial and its aftereffects from several perspectives.

Ambitious and outspoken, John Pope was one of the most controversial figures to hold high command during the Civil War, Reconstruction, and in the American West. General John Pope: A Life for the Nation is the first full biography of this much maligned figure who played crucial roles in both the Eastern and the Western Theaters of the Civil War. Renowned Civil War scholar Peter Cozzens has mined Pope's own memoirs and a wealth of other primary sources to provide a complete picture of this gifted strategist. Uncovering new information about Pope's pre- and postwar career and his path to power, Cozzens delineates the political environment that surrounded Pope and provided the context for his actions. Cozzens examines Pope's early career first as commander of the Army of the Mississippi and then as leader of a hastily formed Army of Virginia against Robert E. Lee. After his famous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Pope was sent to the frontier. There he held important commands on the western plains over the next twenty-four years, all the while struggling to clear his reputation of the events at Second Bull Run. A principal architect of the Red River War, which broke the resistance of the Southern Plains Indians, Pope espoused humanitarian treatment of subjugated tribes and was recognized as one of the army's leading authorities on Indian affairs. In place of the simplistic caricature that has satisfied most historians, Cozzens has crafted an accurate, humane, balanced portrait of a complex man involved with the most complex issues of his day. A monumental work on a long-neglected figure, General John Pope offers a fresh look at a key nineteenth-century military leader as well as the most detailed analysis available of Federal leadership during the Second Bull Run campaign.

Based on nearly five decades of research, this magisterial work is a biographical register and analysis of the people who most directly influenced the course of the Civil War, its high commanders. Numbering 3,396, they include the presidents and their cabinet members, state governors, general officers of the Union and Confederate armies (regular, provisional, volunteers, and militia), and admirals and commodores of the two navies. Civil War High Commands will become a cornerstone reference work on these personalities and the meaning of their commands, and on the Civil War itself. Errors of fact and interpretation concerning the high commanders are legion in the Civil War literature, in reference works as well as in narrative accounts. The present work brings together for the first time in one volume the most reliable facts available, drawn from more than 1,000 sources and including the most recent research. The biographical entries include complete names, birthplaces, important relatives, education, vocations, publications, military grades, wartime assignments, wounds, captures, exchanges, paroles, honors, and place of death and interment. In addition to its main component, the biographies, the volume also includes a number of essays, tables, and synopses designed to clarify previously obscure matters such as the definition of grades and ranks; the difference between commissions in regular, provisional, volunteer, and militia services; the chronology of military laws and executive decisions before, during, and after the war; and the geographical breakdown of command structures. The book is illustrated with 84 new diagrams of all the insignias used throughout the war and with 129 portraits of the most important high commanders.