"The heroism of the men in the Eleventh Battalion Georgia Light Artillery is a story that needs to be told." -Jimmy Carter, former president of the United States "Unique photographs and thorough individual war service record briefs make this book valuable as a research tool for personal, school, and public libraries alike." -Ben C. Sewell III, executive director, Sons of Confederate Veterans Beginning with Georgia's decision to secede from the union, author James L. Speicher chronicles the history of the little-known battalion that bravely fought for the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865. With more than eight hundred members serving at various points during the Civil War, most men in the unit, many of whom died on the battlefield, were from Sumter County, Georgia. Speicher details the horrific conditions they faced during their clashes, including the battle at Dranesville, which resulted in the most bloodshed experienced by the unit. Diary entries and personal letters, provided by descendants of the soldiers, illustrate daily life during the war. Rather than analyze the underlying causes of the war, the author focuses on the men who endured it, the men of the Sumter Flying Artillery. Speicher's scope includes Allen Sherrod Cutts, the battery's first commander and most prominent member. This remarkable man received personal congratulations from Gen. Robert E. Lee for leading his battalion to safety during the deadly battle of South Mountain in 1862. Highlights include pictures of the men before they left for battle, portraits of the Confederates in uniform, and images of the unit's flag. Appendixes provide a full roster listing each member's name, rank, and enlistment date, along with a section detailing the organization of the unit and the specific cannon used by the Sumter Battalion. With maps illustrating the position of the battery during specific battles, such as Gettysburg, and information on each officer, this book is an asset to genealogists and students of the Civil War. ABOUT THE AUTHOR James L. Speicher served in the U.S. Army for thirty years. He is a life member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Missouri's Civil War Heritage Foundation, among other organizations. After earning his B.A. in history from the Citadel, he obtained an A.A.S. in law enforcement from Oakland Community College and advanced degrees from Wayne State University and Webster University. Speicher resides in Shawnee, Kansas, with his wife.

Examines the lives of the soldiers who bravely fought for the Sumter Flying Artillery Battery during the Civil War. The original unit, which mostly consisted of men from Georgia, began as a single battery, but grew into a five-battery battalion that served under General Robert E. Lee. Details the battles that took place from 1861 through 1865, and notes the conditions that the soldiers faced while serving in the Confederate Army. Soldier letters, newspaper articles, and personal photographs offer insight into their lives both, on and off, the battlefield.

A gripping and original account of how the Civil War began and a second American revolution unfolded, setting Abraham Lincoln on the path to greatness and millions of slaves on the road to freedom. An epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields, 1861 introduces us to a heretofore little-known cast of Civil War heroes—among them an acrobatic militia colonel, an explorer’s wife, an idealistic band of German immigrants, a regiment of New York City firemen, a community of Virginia slaves, and a young college professor who would one day become president. Their stories take us from the corridors of the White House to the slums of Manhattan, from the waters of the Chesapeake to the deserts of Nevada, from Boston Common to Alcatraz Island, vividly evoking the Union at its moment of ultimate crisis and decision. Hailed as “exhilarating….Inspiring…Irresistible…” by The New York Times Book Review, Adam Goodheart’s bestseller 1861 is an important addition to the Civil War canon. Includes black-and-white photos and illustrations.

This reference book provides information on 24,000 Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, captured or missing at the Battle of Gettysburg. Casualties are listed by state and unit, in many cases with specifics regarding wounds, circumstances of casualty, military service, genealogy and physical descriptions. Detailed casualty statistics are given in tables for each company, battalion and regiment, along with brief organizational information for many units. Appendices cover Confederate and Union hospitals that treated Southern wounded and Federal prisons where captured Confederates were interned after the battle. Original burial locations are provided for many Confederate dead, along with a record of disinterments in 1871 and burial locations in three of the larger cemeteries where remains were reinterred. A complete name index is included.

In her diary, Mary Boykin Chesnut, the wife of a Confederate general and aid to president Jefferson Davis, James Chestnut, Jr., presents an eyewitness account of the Civil War.

American Military History provides the United States Army-in particular, its young officers, NCOs, and cadets-with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose. The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the story of the U.S. Army in action. This first volume covers the Army's history from its birth in 1775 to the eve of World War I. By 1917, the United States was already a world power. The Army had sent large expeditionary forces beyond the American hemisphere, and at the beginning of the new century Secretary of War Elihu Root had proposed changes and reforms that within a generation would shape the Army of the future. But world war-global war-was still to come. The second volume of this new edition will take up that story and extend it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism and includes an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.