In 1943, Bell Wiley's groundbreaking book Johnny Reb launched a new area of study: the history of the common soldier in the U.S. Civil War. This anthology brings together in one landmark volume over one hundred years of the best writing on the common soldier, from an account of life as a Confederate soldier written in 1882 to selections of Wiley's classic scholarship, and from the story of women who joined the army disguised as men to an essay on the soldier's art of dying.

Edward Wild, the controversial Union general who headed the all-black African Brigade in the Civil War, was one of the most loved and most hated figures of the 19th century. The man was neither understood nor appreciated by military or civilian, black or white, Northerner or Southerner. After enlisting at the outbreak of the war, Wild was promoted to Brigadier General and placed in charge of the United States Colored Troops. In fulfilling his assignment to free slaves and gain recruits, he took three women as hostages and ordered a great deal of property destruction. He freed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of slaves and settled them safely on Roanoke Island. Wild then not only recruited the newly freed blacks but trained them and gave them the opportunity to prove their worth in battle. Nobody, it seems, was happy about serving with them, but the African Brigade performed courageously in several battles. Wild did some inexplicable things. Were his actions typical of the 19th century or did he act outside the norm? Was the criticism he suffered from his fellow Union officers valid--or was it due to personality conflicts? Did he deserve to be arrested, court-martialed, and even wiped from the history books--or was he the victim of discrimination? This work draws its answers from extensive research and includes many rare letters to and from Wild, including one from one of the North Carolinian hostages.

When Union and Confederate forces squared off along Bull Run on July 21, 1861, the Federals expected this first major military campaign would bring an early end to the Civil War. But when Confederate troops launched a strong counterattack, both sides realized the war would be longer and costlier than anticipated. First Bull Run, or First Manassas, set the stage for four years of bloody conflict that forever changed the political, social, and economic fabric of the nation. It also introduced the commanders, tactics, and weaponry that would define the American way of war through the turn of the twentieth century. This crucial campaign receives its most complete and comprehensive treatment in Edward G. Longacre’s The Early Morning of War. A magisterial work by a veteran historian, The Early Morning of War blends narrative and analysis to convey the full scope of the campaign of First Bull Run—its drama and suspense as well as its practical and tactical underpinnings and ramifications. Also woven throughout are biographical sketches detailing the backgrounds and personalities of the leading commanders and other actors in the unfolding conflict. Longacre has combed previously unpublished primary sources, including correspondence, diaries, and memoirs of more than four hundred participants and observers, from ranking commanders to common soldiers and civilians affected by the fighting. In weighing all the evidence, Longacre finds correctives to long-held theories about campaign strategy and battle tactics and questions sacrosanct beliefs—such as whether the Manassas Gap Railroad was essential to the Confederate victory. Longacre shears away the myths and persuasively examines the long-term repercussions of the Union’s defeat at Bull Run, while analyzing whether the Confederates really had a chance of ending the war in July 1861 by seizing Washington, D.C. Brilliant moves, avoidable blunders, accidents, historical forces, personal foibles: all are within Longacre’s compass in this deftly written work that is sure to become the standard history of the first, critical campaign of the Civil War.

Edward Ephraim Cross (1832-1863) accomplished more in his short lifetime years than most men who live to be 100. By the eve of the Civil War, he had traveled from Cincinnati to Arizona working as a political reporter, travel writer, editor, trail hand, silver mine supervisor, and Indian fighter. In the summer of 1861, he became colonel of the Fighting Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers and gained fame as a fearless battlefield commander during action at Fair Oaks, Antietam, Fredricksburg, and Chancellorsville before being mortally wounded at Gettysburg. However, behind this great soldier lay a flawed man, an alcoholic with a short temper who fought a constant battle with words against immigrants, abolitionists, and others with whom he disagreed. This detailed biography presents a full portrait of this controversial and little-known figure, filling a critical gap in the literature of the northern Civil War experience.

The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign, June -- July 1863, is the definitive account of General Harry T. Hays's remarkable brigade during the critical summer of 1863. While previous studies of the "Louisiana Tigers" have examined the brigade, or its regiments, or its leaders over the course of the American Civil War; and others have concentrated on its one-day role defending East Cemetery Hill on July 2, 1863, The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign is the first account to focus exclusively and comprehensively on the role the "Louisiana Tigers" played during the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign in its entirety.

Following a skirmish on June 28, 1864, a truce is called so the North can remove their dead and wounded. For two hours, Yankees and Rebels mingle, with some of the latter even assisting the former in their grisly work. Newspapers are exchanged. Northern coffee is swapped for Southern tobacco. Yanks crowd around two Rebel generals, soliciting and obtaining autographs.

As the Civil War moved into 1864, people in the North expected newly appointed general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant to roll over the Confederate armies and bring victory and peace by the end of the summer. With his friend William Tecumseh Sherman, Grant devised a strategy to defeat the Confederate Army of Tennessee and lay waste to the Deep South so that the area could no longer provide support for the Confederate war effort. Making extensive use of materials both contemporary and modern, including letters, diaries, memoirs and histories, the author presents a detailed narrative of the locales, conditions, personnel, strategies, tactics, battles and skirmishes as Sherman's forces fought their way from Chattanooga to Atlanta and then made their famous march to the sea, destroying all resources along the way. He also details Confederate general John Bell Hood's ill-fated attempt to capture Nashville while Sherman was occupied elsewhere. The fighting and devastation in Georgia and Tennessee that summer of 1864 were indeed major factors in the final Union victory.