A fresh examination of Pickett’s Charge, drawing from numerous soldiers’ accounts—includes maps and illustrations. Both a scholarly and a revisionist interpretation of the most famous charge in American history, Into the Fight uses a wide array of sources, ranging from the monuments on the Gettysburg battlefield to the accounts of the participants themselves, to rewrite the conventional thinking about this unusually emotional, yet serious, moment in our Civil War. Starting with a fresh point of view, and with no axes to grind, Into the Fight challenges all interested in that stunning moment in history to rethink their assumptions. Praise for the work of John Michael Priest “[A] stirring narrative of the common soldier’s experiences on the southern end of the battlefield on the second day of fighting at Gettysburg.” —Civil War News “Priest’s distinctive style is rife with anecdotes, many drawn from obscure diaries and letters, artfully stitched together in an original manner.” —David G. Martin, author of The Shiloh Campaign

Their nickname was the Bloody First, given to them in recognition of their courageous conduct and supreme sacrifice in battle. In the midst of the Battle of Fredericksburg, General James Kemper declared, Men of the First Virginia Regimentyou who have on so many hard-fought fields gained the name of the Bloody Firsttoday your country calls on you again to stand between her and her enemy, and I know you will do your duty. The Bloody First follows the exploits of this brave group of young men who left their families and went off to war in defense of their homeland. Through their own words, newspaper accounts, official reports, correspondence, and articles, we can relive their hardships and pain as they experience the most devastating war in our nations history. Three days before the Battle of Manassas, they were the first Confederate unit to engage in battle with the Union Army along the banks of Bull Run, and four years later their remnants were at Appomattox Court House for the final surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Among their many battle honors, the Bloody First made that immortal charge up Cemetery Hill in Gettysburg, as part of Kempers brigade in Picketts division. On that day, July 3, 1863, they suffered the highest percentage of casualties of any regiment in Kempers brigade. The Bloody First tells their story, keeping their memory and their history alive today.

Minnesota Book Award Winner! Now in paperback. The smoke had just cleared from the last volley of musketry at Gettysburg. Nearly 70 percent of the First Minnesota regiment lay dead or dying on the field--one of the greatest losses of any unit engaged in the Civil War. The significance of this July 2, 1863, battle at Gettysburg is widely known, but the harrowing details of the First's heroic stand that stopped a furious rebel assault have long been buried. In Pale Horse at Plum Run Brian Leehan brings the full story of the First at Gettysburg to light as he examines personal accounts, eyewitness reports, and official records to construct a remarkably detailed and compelling narrative. "Brian Leehan's account of the First Minnesota on Cemetery Ridge is the most detailed and complete I have read. His exhaustive research and compelling narrative are impressive and offer a much fuller understanding of the regiment's extraordinary feats." -- Richard Moe, author of The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers

“Do you know what military glory is? It is ‘that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood—that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.'” —Abraham Lincoln The Union in dire peril! The war that began in Peter G. Tsouras's previous alternate history, Britannia's Fist, accelerates during a few desperate weeks in October 1863. From the bayous of Louisiana to the green hills of the Hudson Valley, from Chicago in flames to the gates of Washington itself, the Great War uncoils in ropes of fire. French and British armies are on the march, and heavy reinforcements have put to sea. Copperheads have risen in revolt to drag the Midwest into the Confederacy as a vital Union army stands starving and under siege in Tennessee. Meanwhile, Robert E. Lee and the Royal Navy set in motion a stroke that is boldness itself. The Union staggers under these blows. While the Grenadier Guards march into glory in upstate New York's apple orchards, from the second story of a shot-up Washington hotel Abraham Lincoln watches a forest of the red flags of rebellion waving over a Confederate column rushing across the Long Bridge. To stop them is a war-worn regiment of New York soldiers. To their backs Washington burns. But new technologies and the art of intelligence are thrown onto the scales, while Russia plans to enter the war to avenge its humiliation in the Crimean War. A Rainbow of Blood brings forward the Great War from its outbreak to the first great crisis of the embattled republic. Peopled with remarkable personalities of the age, the book rattles with the tramp of armies marching down one of the most intriguing roads not taken—or even imagined—until now.

All students of the Civil War are indebted to Frank Haskell for his classic description of the battle of Gettysburg. A lieutenant on the staff of John Gibbon, Haskell stood at the focus of the Confederate assault on July 3, 1863. He wrote of the battle in a letter to his brother. When it came to light after the war it became and remains probably the most read and repeated account of Civil War combat written by a participant. It captures wholly the terrible fascination that the Civil War--and Gettysburg--holds for all Americans. Haskell wrote other letters (thirty-one in this collection) and attained the rank of colonel before he was killed at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864.This 1989 paperback reprinting of the 1970 edition contains a new preface by Frank L. Byrne.