Describes the initial Confederate successes during the first year of the Civil War.

After the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, many Confederate historians were asked, “What shall I read next?” To answer the requests for further writings on the Civil War era, distinguished historian Douglas Southall Freeman assembled this bibliography of the best narratives, memoirs, and other works—those that tell their stories simply, with wit and realism—that provide a good introduction to literature on the Lost Cause. In contrast to most bibliographies, The South to Posterity reads easily and often movingly. In eight masterful chapters, Freeman reviews soldiers’ battlefield accounts; vindications penned just after the war; biographies of and tributes to General Robert E. Lee; women’s commentaries; thoughts from foreign observers and participants; and diaries, letters, and speeches. Finally, he discusses topics yet to be addressed. A new introduction by Civil War historian Gary W. Gallagher provides an excellent background to Freeman’s life and work and considers what has been accomplished in the field since the book first appeared.

A biography of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and newspaper editor.

Pulitzer Prize--winning historian Douglas Southall Freeman, perhaps more than any other writer in the first half of the twentieth century, helped shape and sustain a collective identity for white southerners. A journalist, lecturer, radio broadcaster, and teacher of renown, Freeman wrote and spoke on themes related to southern memory throughout his life. Keith D. Dickson's Sustaining Southern Identity offers a masterful intellectual biography of Freeman as well as a comprehensive analysis of how twentieth-century southerners came to remember the Civil War, fashion their values and ideals, and identify themselves as citizens of the South. Dickson's work underscores Freeman's contributions to the enduring memory of Confederate courage and sacrifice in southern culture. The longtime editor of the Richmond News Leader, Freeman wrote several authoritative and extraordinarily influential multivolume historical narratives about both Confederate general Robert E. Lee and the high command of the Army of Northern Virginia. His contributions to the enduring southern memory framework -- with its grand narrative of Confederate courage and sacrifice, and its attachment to symbols and rituals -- still serve as a touchstone for the memory-truths that define a distinct identity in the South.

Robert E. Lee was both a military genius and a spiritual leader, considered by many—southerners and nonsoutherners alike—to have been a near saint. In The Marble Man a leading Civil War military historian examines the hold of Lee on the American mind and traces the campaign in historiography that elevated him to national hero status.

A towering landmark in Civil War literature, long considered one of the great masterpieces of military history -- now available in a one-volume abridgment. Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command is the most colorful and popular of Douglas Southall Freeman's works. A sweeping narrative that presents a multiple biography against the flame-shot background of the American Civil War, it is the story of the great figures of the Army of Northern Virginia who fought under Robert E. Lee. Dr. Freeman describes the early rise and fall of General Beauregard, the developing friction between Jefferson Davis and Joseph E. Johnston, the emergence and failure of a number of military charlatans, and the triumphs of unlikely men at crucial times. He also describes the rise of the legendary "Stonewall" Jackson and traces his progress in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign and into Richmond amid the acclaim of the South. The Confederacy won resounding victories throughout the war, but seldom easily or without tremendous casualties. Death was always on the heels of fame, but the men who survived -- among them Jackson, Longstreet, and Ewell -- developed as commanders and men. Lee's Lieutenants follows these men to the costly battle at Gettysburg, through the deepening twilight of the South's declining military might, and finally to the collapse of Lee's command and his formal surrender in 1865. To his unparalleled descriptions of men and operations, Dr. Freeman adds an insightful analysis of the lessons learned and their bearing upon the future military development of the nation. Accessible at last in a one-volume edition abridged by noted Civil War historian Stephen W. Sears, Lee's Lieutenants is essential reading for all Civil War buffs, students of war, and admirers of the historian's art as practiced at its very highest level.