Using authentic letters, the author chronicles the experiences of the men who fought in the 59th Alabama Volunteer Regiment throughout the Civil War. The 59th Alabama Volunteer Regiment originated in the spring of 1862 as Hilliard’s Alabama Legion. Its volunteers ranged from sixteen to sixty years old; many were illiterate; very few owned slaves. After the harrowing battle at Chickamauga, the legion was reformed under the dynamic, New York-born Brig. Gen. Archibald Gracie Gracie led them during the battle of Beans Station and throughout the harsh sojourn in Tennessee. Though he survived the battle of Richmond, Gracie was killed while his regiment was entrenched at Petersburg. His surviving men finished the war with the Army of Northern Virginia. The author’s great-great-grandfather, William Tate Burton, volunteered at the age of twenty-nine and was with Gracie’s regiment for the entire war. When injuries kept him from active combat, he served the regiment in the demanding and dangerous role of teamster, or mule skinner, driving the heavy wagons filled with crucial artillery and other supplies. Gracie’s Alabama Volunteers includes vintage photographs, excerpts from soldiers’ letters, and complete muster rolls for the regiment. Praise for Gracie’s Alabama Volunteers “It is a well written, well researched, and a very informative regimental history.” —Lake Charles American Press

A regimental history focuses on the first infantry division assigned to the defense of Vicksburg, Mississippi, during the American Civil War. The Twenty-seventh Louisiana Volunteer Infantry was the first infantry division assigned to the defense of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The author, inspired by his great-grandfather, Burlin Moore Scriber, who served as a corporal in the Louisiana Infantry’s Company B, celebrates the undaunting courage of this regiment during the forty-seven-day siege by Union soldiers before the surrender of Vicksburg. This valuable historical and genealogical resource includes details about the Louisiana Secession Convention in 1861, the creation of Camp Moore, and the battles of Champion Hill, Grand Gulf, and Black River Bridge. Featuring a wealth of archival information and photographs, Twenty-seventh Louisiana Volunteer Infantry also includes a register of soldiers, including rank, promotions, service records, captures and paroles, medical history, and personal information. Praise for Twenty-seventh Louisiana Volunteer Infantry “A masterful job . . . Reads like a novel instead of just the dry facts about a battle. We see the human side of his facts.” —Paula Stobaugh, secretary, Conway County Genealogical Society

Tenth volume of acclaimed series

Although many Civil War reference books exist, Civil War researchers have until now had no single compendium to consult on important details about the combatant states (and territories). This crucial reference work, the sixth in the States at War series, provides vital information on the organization, activities, economies, demographics, and laws of Civil War South Carolina. This volume also includes the Confederate States Chronology. Miller enlists multiple sources, including the statutes, Journals of Congress, departmental reports, general orders from Richmond and state legislatures, and others, to illustrate the rise and fall of the Confederacy. In chronological order, he presents the national laws intended to harness its manpower and resources for war, the harsh realities of foreign diplomacy, the blockade, and the costs of states’ rights governance, along with mounting dissent; the effects of massive debt financing, inflation, and loss of credit; and a growing raggedness within the ranks of its army. The chronology provides a factual framework for one of history’s greatest ironies: in the end, the war to preserve slavery could not be won while 35 percent of the population was enslaved.

In Wandering to Glory DeWitt Boyd Stone, Jr., pieces together the words of officers and soldiers in an imaginative, nontraditional brigade history of one of the Confederacy's most active combat troops. Stone blends firsthand accounts from a variety of sources to tell the colorful story of Brigadier General Nathan George Shanks Evans and his Tramp Brigade. An independent South Carolina unit never permanently attached to a particular army, Evans's Brigade traveled widely, making its way from one frontline to another and earning its nickname. Stone profiles the unit's accomplished but egotistical commander, who gained fame as a hero at the First Battle of Manassas, and traces its impressive war record, which began at Second Manassas and included its moment of glory at ground zero during the Battle of the Crater, at Petersburg, Virginia. Nearly ten percent of all South Carolinians who fought in the Confederate army were members of Evan's Brigade, which included South Carolina's 17th, 18th, 22nd, and 23rd Regiments, the Macbeth Light Artillery, and the infantry companies of the Holcombe Legion. Later the 26th Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers joined the unit. The troops numbered

According to the 1860 census, nearly 350,000 native northerners resided in a southern state by the time of the Civil War. Although northern in birth and upbringing, many of these men and women identified with their adopted section once they moved south. In this innovative study, David Ross Zimring examines what motivated these Americans to change sections, support (or not) the Confederate cause, and, in many cases, rise to considerable influence in their new homeland. By analyzing the lives of northern emigrants in the South, Zimring deepens our understanding of the nature of sectional identity as well as the strength of Confederate nationalism. Focusing on a representative sample of emigrants, Zimring identifies two subgroups: “adoptive southerners,” individuals born and raised in a state above the Mason-Dixon line but who but did not necessarily join the Confederacy after they moved south, and “Northern Confederates,” emigrants who sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. After analyzing statistical data on states of origin, age, education, decade of migration, and, most importantly, the reasons why these individuals embarked for the South in the first place, Zimring goes on to explore the prewar lives of adoptive southerners, the adaptations they made with regard to slavery, and the factors that influenced their allegiances during the secession crisis. He also analyzes their contributions to the Confederate military and home front, the emergence of their Confederate identities and nationalism, their experiences as prisoners of war in the North, and the reactions they elicited from native southerners. In tracing these journeys from native northerner to Confederate veteran, this book reveals not only the complex transformations of adoptive southerners but also the flexibility of sectional and national identity before the war and the loss of that flexibility in its aftermath. To Live and Die in Dixie is a thought-provoking work that provides a novel perspective on the revolutionary changes the Civil War unleashed on American society.

Hilliard's Legion--a part of Archibald Gracie's Brigade of Alabama Confederates--at the battle of Chickamauga. The author shows conclusively that Gracie's command was never forced from the berm at the top of the Horseshoe Ridge and that some men from Hilliard's Legion penetrated to the top of the Ridge. A reexamination of the battle's conclusion highlights the Legion's role in the final movement. A Medal of Honor citation is corrected and the Legion's post-war contributions are explored. A complete roster is included, with biographical notes on most of the soldiers.