Includes Civil War Map and Illustrations Pack - 224 battle plans, campaign maps and detailed analyses of actions spanning the entire period of hostilities. “A British soldier's view of the great conflict of blue and grey “The author of this book has, perhaps, achieved more renown in recent years than at any time since the publication of his literary efforts. Those familiar with the film, 'Gettysburg' will recall the unusual figure of a British Guards officer attired (inaccurately) in his full dress Guardsman's scarlet uniform among the ranks of the Virginians at the famous and pivotal battle. The cinema may have taken its usual liberties, but the character was firmly based in fact and was none other than the author of this book. The British Empire felt no need to come down strongly on either side of the conflict between the States, but its support for the Confederacy was both implicit and occasionally obvious. Fremantle wanted to see the war at first hand and so he travelled to America and accompanied the Confederate forces-actually unglamorously in mufti-in the field. His experiences brought him to the collision of Gettysburg and history is indebted to Fremantle for the observations of a comparatively impartial military man on these monumental times and events. Essential Civil war material.”-Print Edition

In July 1863 New York City experienced widespread rioting unparalleled in the history of the nation. Here for the first time is a scholarly analysis of the Draft Riots, dealing with motives and with the reasons for the recurring civil disorders in nineteenth-century New York: the appalling living conditions, the corruption of the civic government, and the geographical and economic factors that led up to the social upheaval.

In the seventy-three succinct essays gathered in The Enduring Civil War, celebrated historian Gary W. Gallagher highlights the complexity and richness of the war, from its origins to its memory, as topics for study, contemplation, and dispute. He places contemporary understanding of the Civil War, both academic and general, in conversation with testimony from those in the Union and the Confederacy who experienced and described it, investigating how mid-nineteenth-century perceptions align with, or deviate from, current ideas regarding the origins, conduct, and aftermath of the war. The tension between history and memory forms a theme throughout the essays, underscoring how later perceptions about the war often took precedence over historical reality in the minds of many Americans. The array of topics Gallagher addresses is striking. He examines notable books and authors, both Union and Confederate, military and civilian, famous and lesser known. He discusses historians who, though their names have receded with time, produced works that remain pertinent in terms of analysis or information. He comments on conventional interpretations of events and personalities, challenging, among other things, commonly held notions about Gettysburg and Vicksburg as decisive turning points, Ulysses S. Grant as a general who profligately wasted Union manpower, the Gettysburg Address as a watershed that turned the war from a fight for Union into one for Union and emancipation, and Robert E. Lee as an old-fashioned general ill-suited to waging a modern mid-nineteenth-century war. Gallagher interrogates recent scholarly trends on the evolving nature of Civil War studies, addressing crucial questions about chronology, history, memory, and the new revisionist literature. The format of this provocative and timely collection lends itself to sampling, and readers might start in any of the subject groupings and go where their interests take them.

At Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, a Union force composed predominantly of former slaves met their Confederate adversaries in one of the bloodiest small engagements of the war. This important fight received some attention in the North and South but soon drifted into obscurity. In Milliken’s Bend, Linda Barnickel uncovers the story of this long-forgotten and highly controversial battle. The fighting at Milliken’s Bend occurred in June 1863, about fifteen miles north of Vicksburg on the west bank of the Mississippi River, where a brigade of Texas Confederates attacked a Federal outpost. Most of the Union defenders had been slaves less than two months before. The new African American recruits fought well, despite their minimal training, and Milliken’s Bend helped prove to a skeptical northern public that black men were indeed fit for combat duty. Soon after the battle, accusations swirled that Confederates had executed some prisoners taken from the “Colored Troops.” The charges eventually led to a congressional investigation and contributed to the suspension of prisoner exchanges between the North and South. Barnickel’s compelling and comprehensive account of the battle illuminates not only the immense complexity of the events that transpired in northeastern Louisiana during the Vicksburg Campaign but also the implications of Milliken’s Bend upon the war as a whole. The battle contributed to southerner’s increasing fears of slave insurrection and heightened their anxieties about emancipation. In the North, it helped foster a commitment to allow free blacks and former slaves to take part in the war to end slavery. And for African Americans, both free and enslaved, Milliken’s Bend symbolized their never-ending struggle for freedom.

The creation of the Confederate States of America and the subsequent Civil War inspired composers, lyricists, and music publishers in Southern and border states, and even in foreign countries, to support the new nation. Confederate-imprint sheet music articulated and encouraged Confederate nationalism, honored soldiers and military leaders, comforted family and friends, and provided diversion from the hardships of war. This is the first comprehensive history of the sheet music of the Confederacy. It covers works published before the war in Southern states that seceded from the Union, and those published during the war in Union occupied capitals, border and Northern states, and foreign countries. It is also the first work to examine the contribution of postwar Confederate-themed sheet music to the South's response to its defeat, to the creation and fostering of Lost Cause themes, and to the promotion of national reunion and reconciliation.

Wilson's Wharf was the first major clash between U.S. Colored Troops and the Army of Northern Virginia. The 1st and 10th USCT infantry regiments, supported by two cannon and two U.S. Navy gunboats, faced 11 detachments of veteran Confederate cavalry who were under orders to "kill every man." Union commander General Edward Wild, a one-armed abolitionist, refused General Fitzhugh Lee's demand for surrender, telling Lee to "go to Hell." The battle resulted in a victory for the mainly black Union force. This book describes the action in detail and in the larger context of the history of black U.S. servicemen, including the British recruitment of runaway slaves during the Revolutionary War, the black Colonial Marines who joined the British in torching Washington in the War of 1812, and the South's attempts to enlist slaves in the final months of the Civil War.