Benjamin Franklin Cheatham was a Nashville native and a descendant of the city's founder, James Robertson. Born in 1820, he achieved fame through his military service in the Mexican War and, especially, the Civil War. After the war Cheatham farmed, ran for Congress, and, at the time of his death in 1866, was postmaster of Nashville. Cheatham was one of Nashville's most popular sons, and his funeral, which drew some thirty thousand people, was reportedly the largest ever held in the city.

Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk was a distinguished West Point graduate, the first Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana, a university founder, and a Confederate commander beloved by his troops, esteemed by the public, and killed on the field of battle. In spite of his many accomplishments, historians invariably disparage Polk's generalship and even his personal character--but is their treatment fair or accurate? This work employs a balanced perspective to shed new light on Polk's military leadership and reveal unexpected truths that explain his conflict with General Braxton Bragg. A seemingly insignificant piece of correspondence, along with an exploration of both men's writings, coalesce into an understanding of the root cause of the command dysfunction and chronic failures of the Army of Tennessee.

Gain perspective on the Atlanta Campaign's dramatic month-long battle. In the summer of 1864, Union and Confederate armies fought and suffered in North Georgia, struggling for possession of Kennesaw Mountain. This book tells the tale of this important phase of the Atlanta Campaign during the Civil War. Included are insights into the character of commanders William T. Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston and the common privates, along with civilian accounts.

For this book, which follows an earlier volume of previously published essays, Hewitt and Bergeron have enlisted ten gifted historians---among them James M. Prichard, Terrence J. Winschel, Craig Symonds, and Stephen Davis---to produce original essays, based on the latest scholarship, that examine the careers and missteps of several of the Western Theater's key Rebel commanders. Among the important topics covered are George B. Crittenden's declining fortunes in the Confederate ranks, Earl Van Dom's limited prewar military experience and its effect on his performance in the Baton Rouge Campaign of 1862, Joseph Johnston's role in the fall of Vicksburg, and how James Longstreet and Braxton Bragg's failure to secure Chattanooga paved the way for the Federals'push into Georgia. --

Known as one of the most aggressive Confederate officers in the Western Theater, Brigadier General Alfred Jefferson Vaughan Jr. is legendary for having had eight horses shot out from under him in battle—more than any other infantry commander, Union or Confederate. Yet despite the exceptional bravery demonstrated by his dubious feat, Vaughan remains a largely overlooked Civil War leader. In Confederate Combat Commander, Lawrence K. Peterson explores the life of this unheralded yet important rebel officer before, during, and after his military service. A graduate of Virginia Military Institute, Vaughan initially commanded the Thirteenth Tennessee Infantry Regiment, and later Vaughan’s Brigade. He served in the hard-fought battles of the western area of operations in such key confrontations as Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and the Atlanta Campaign. Tracing Vaughan’s progress through the war and describing his promotion to general after his commanding officer was mortally wounded, Peterson describes the rise and development of an exemplary military career, and a devoted fighting leader. Although Vaughan was beloved by his troops and roundly praised at the time—in fact, negative criticism of his orders, battlefield decisions, or personality cannot be found in official records, newspaper articles, or the diaries of his men—Vaughan nevertheless served in the much-maligned Army of Tennessee. This book thus assesses what responsibility—if any—Vaughan bore for Confederate failures in the West. While biographies of top-ranking Civil War generals are common, the stories of lower-level senior officers such as Vaughan are seldom told. This volume provides rare insight into the regimental and brigade-level activities of Civil War commanders and their units, drawing on a rich array of privately held family histories, including two written by the general himself. Lawrence K. Peterson, a retired airline pilot, worked as a National Park Service ranger and USAF officer. He is the great-great grandson of Brigadier General Alfred Jefferson Vaughan Jr.

In 1931, when the Nashville Banner conducted a survey to determine the "Greatest Tennesseans" to date, the state's Confederate "War Governor," Isham G. Harris (1818--1897), ranked tenth on the list, behind such famous Tennesseans as Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. In 1976, however, when the Banner once again conducted the survey, Harris did not appear in even the top twenty-five. The result of fading memories and the death of the generation that knew him, the glaring omission of Harris's name still seemed striking and undeserved. In Isham G. Harris of Tennessee, Sam Davis Elliott offers the first published biography of this overlooked leader, establishing him as the most prominent Tennessean in the Confederacy and a dominating participant in nineteenth-century Tennessee politics. Harris grew up on the frontier in Middle Tennessee, the youngest in a large family. He left home as a teenager, and found and lost a fortune in the boom and bust times of the 1830s in Mississippi and West Tennessee. Admitted to the bar in 1841, he enjoyed almost immediate success as an attorney due to his quick intellect, aggressive nature, and native ability to influence people. He launched a political career in 1847 that lasted, with some interruption, for fifty years, during which he never lost an election. Harris rose to prominence in the 1850s as the leader of the Southern rights wing of the Democratic Party, fiercely advocating the right to hold property in slaves. He served in the Tennessee state Senate, as a U.S. congressman, and as governor during the secession crisis, when, Elliott contends, Harris used his political influence and constitutional power to trample on the state constitution to align Tennessee with the Confederacy. As governor, Harris tirelessly dedicated himself to the Confederate war effort, raising troops and money and establishing a logistical structure and armament industry. When the Federals overran large portions of Middle and West Tennessee in 1862, he attached himself to the headquarters of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. As a volunteer aide, he served each of the army's commanders on nearly every one of its famed battlefields and was deemed a possible successor to Jefferson Davis should the new republic survive. After the war, Harris went into voluntary exile in Mexico. He returned home in late 1867 and worked behind the scenes to "redeem" Tennessee from Radical rule, eventually becoming the most famous of the state's Bourbon Democrats. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1877, he held that seat until his death in 1897. He successfully used the Senate's arcane parliamentary rules to block assertions of Federal power at the expense of states' rights, but advocated imaginative application of Federal power where clearly authorized by the Constitution. The story of nineteenth-century Tennessee remains incomplete without a thorough understanding of Isham Green Harris. Elliott's exhaustive and entertaining biography provides essential reading for anyone interested in the political and military history of the Volunteer State.

On October 8, 1862, forty thousand Union and Confederate soldiers clashed at Perryville, Kentucky, in the state's largest Civil War battle. Of those who fought, none endured as much as the Tennessee and Georgia soldiers who composed Brigadier General George Maney's brigade. The Confederate unit entered the fray to save other Southern regiments and, in doing so, experienced deadly resistance. Many of those involved called the brigade's encounter the toughest of the Civil War, as several of Maney's regiments suffered casualties of 50 percent or greater. Despite relentless fighting, the Confederates were unable to break the Union line, and the Bluegrass State remained in Federal control. Join author Stuart W. Sanders as he chronicles Maney's brigade in the Battle of Perryville.