In his latest book, The Civil War in Fairfax County: Civilians and Soldiers, Charles Mauro has given voice to the heretofore silent majority of the participants in the Civil War: the civilians. This overdue study examines the full spectrum of men, women, slaves and freedmen who lived in Fairfax County, Virginia, during this chaotic, uncertain period. Drawn from the files of the Southern Claims Commission, Mauro recounts the stories the civilians told the Commission after the war to document their losses, lives and living conditions. The citizens of Fairfax County found themselves occupying front row seats at the most horrific show that this country has ever seen. Because of its position just across the Potomac River on the doorstep of the city of Washington, Fairfax County was heavily targeted by the Confederate army and defended with equal determination by the Union army. Fairfax was the first county in the South that the Union army invaded, and the last it occupied as soldiers were mustered out of service after the Grand Review. The Civil War in Fairfax County contains stories of the devastation that both armies brought upon the civilians and their property, as well as the daily strife caused by a war that pitted neighbor against neighbor and family members against themselves. It gives an important, fascinating and unprecedented look into the everyday lives of the civilians who lived through the most tumultuous four years in American history, in a county that was occupied by both the Confederate and Union armies throughout the entire Civil War.

"Confederate Brigadier General J.E.B. Stuart entrusted a secret album to Laura Ratcliffe, a young girl in Fairfax Country, 'as a token of his high appreciation of her patriotism, admiration of her virtues, and a pledge of his lasting esteem.' A devoted Southerner, Laura provided a safe haven for Rebel forces, along with intelligence gathered from passing Union soldiers. Radcliffe's book contains four poems and forty undated signatures: twenty-six of Confederate officers and soldiers and fourteen of loyal Confederate civilians. In A Southern Spy in Northern Virginia, Charles V. Mauro uncovers the mystery behind this album, identifying who the soldiers were and when they could have signed its pages. The result is a fascinating look at the covert lives and relationships of civilians and soldiers during the war, kept hidden until now"--Page 4 of cover.

"This book is your tour guide to over sixty locations in Fairfax County where Colonel John Singleton Mosby conducted his raids during the Civil War. It is also a guide to the locations of the historical markers dedicated to those raids, and to the whereabouts of the graves of the Mosby Rangers who are buried in Fairfax County"--Page 1.

An award-winning biography of one of the Confederacy’s most colorful and controversial generals. Winner of the 2013 Nathan Bedford Forrest History Book Award for Southern History Nominated for the 2014 Virginia Book Award for Nonfiction Despite a life full of drama, politics, and adventure, little has been written about William “Extra Billy” Smith—aside from a rather biased account by his brother-in-law back in the nineteenth century. As the oldest and one of the most controversial Confederate generals on the field at Gettysburg, Smith was also one of the most charismatic characters of the Civil War and the antebellum Old South. Known nationally as “Extra Billy” because of his prewar penchant for finding loopholes in government postal contracts to gain extra money for his stagecoach lines, Smith served as Virginia’s governor during both the war with Mexico and the Civil War; served five terms in the US Congress; and was one of Virginia’s leading spokesmen for slavery and states’ rights. Extra Billy’s extra-long speeches and wry sense of humor were legendary among his peers. A lawyer during the heady Gold Rush days, he made a fortune in California—and, as with his income earned from stagecoaches, quickly lost it. Despite his advanced age, Smith took to the field and fought well at First Manassas, was wounded at Seven Pines and again at Sharpsburg, and marched with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania. There, on the first day at Gettysburg, Smith’s frantic messages about a possible Union flanking attack remain a matter of controversy to this day. Did his aging eyes see distant fence-lines that he interpreted as approaching enemy soldiers—mere phantoms of his imagination? Or did his prompt action stave off a looming Confederate disaster? This biography draws upon a wide array of newspapers, diaries, letters, and other firsthand accounts to paint a portrait of one of the South’s most interesting leaders, complete with original maps and photos.

"This comprehensively researched, well-written book represents the definitive account of Robert E. Lee's triumph over Union leader John Pope in the summer of 1862. . . . Lee's strategic skills, and the capabilities of his principal subordinates James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson, brought the Confederates onto the field of Second Manassas at the right places and times against a Union army that knew how to fight, but not yet how to win."?Publishers Weekly "The deepest, most comprehensive, and most definitive work on this Civil War campaign, by the unchallenged authority."?James I. Robertson Jr., author of Stonewall Jackson

In this path-breaking work on the American Civil War, Joan E. Cashin explores the struggle between armies and civilians over the human and material resources necessary to wage war. This war 'stuff' included the skills of white Southern civilians, as well as such material resources as food, timber, and housing. At first, civilians were willing to help Confederate or Union forces, but the war took such a toll that all civilians, regardless of politics, began focusing on their own survival. Both armies took whatever they needed from human beings and the material world, which eventually destroyed the region's ability to wage war. In this fierce contest between civilians and armies, the civilian population lost. Cashin draws on a wide range of documents, as well as the perspectives of environmental history and material culture studies. This book provides an entirely new perspective on the war era.

During the American Civil War, Washington, D.C. was the most heavily fortified city in North America. As President Abraham Lincoln's Capital, the city became the symbol of Union determination, as well as a target for Robert E. Lee's Confederates. As a Union army and navy logistical base, it contained a complex of hospitals, storehouses, equipment repair facilities, and animal corrals. These were in addition to other public buildings, small urban areas, and vast open space that constituted the capital on the Potomac. To protect Washington with all it contained and symbolized, the Army constructed a shield of fortifications: 68 enclosed earthen forts, 93 supplemental batteries, miles of military roads, and support structures for commissary, quartermaster, engineer, and civilian labor force, some of which still exist today. Thousands of troops were held back from active operations to garrison this complex. And the Commanders of the Army of the Potomac from Irvin McDowell to George Meade, and informally U.S. Grant himself, always had to keep in mind their responsibility of protecting this city, at the same time that they were moving against the Confederate forces arrayed against them. Revised in style, format, and content, the new edition of Mr. Lincoln's Forts is the premier historical reference and tour guide to the Civil War defenses of Washington, D.C.