The first book-length treatment of an important Confederate regiment composed mostly of Irish immigrants who were involved in most of the important Civil War battles in the East.

In Lee’s Tigers Revisited, noted Civil War scholar Terry L. Jones dramatically expands and revises his acclaimed history of the approximately twelve thousand Louisiana infantrymen who fought in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Sometimes derided as the “wharf rats from New Orleans” and the “lowest scrappings of the Mississippi,” the Louisiana Tigers earned a reputation for being drunken and riotous in camp, but courageous and dependable on the battlefield. Louisiana’s soldiers, some of whom wore colorful uniforms in the style of French Zouaves, reflected the state’s multicultural society, with regiments consisting of French-speaking Creoles and European immigrants. Units made pivotal contributions to many crucial battles—resisting the initial Union onslaught at First Manassas, facilitating Stonewall Jackson’s famous Valley Campaign, holding the line at Second Manassas by throwing rocks when they ran out of ammunition, breaking the Union line temporarily at Gettysburg’s Cemetery Hill, containing the Union breakthrough at Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle, and leading Lee’s attempted breakout of Petersburg at Fort Stedman. The Tigers achieved equal notoriety for their outrageous behavior off the battlefield, so much so that sources suggest no general wanted them in his command. By the time of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, there were fewer than four hundred Louisiana Tigers still among his troops. Lee’s Tigers Revisited uses letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and muster rolls to provide a detailed account of the origins, enrollments, casualties, and desertion rates of these soldiers. Illustrations—including several maps newly commissioned for this edition—chart the Tigers’ positions on key battlefields in the tumultuous campaigns throughout Virginia. By utilizing first-person accounts and official records, Jones provides the definitive study of the Louisiana Tigers and their harrowing experiences in the Civil War.

Contemporary Civil War scholarship has brought to light the important roles certain ethnic groups played during that tumultuous time in our nation's history. Two new books, focusing on the participation of Irish immigrants in both the Union and Confederate armies, add to this growing area of knowledge. While the famed fighting prowess of the Irish Brigade at Antietam and Gettysburg is well known, in "God Help the Irish!" historian Phillip T. Tucker emphasizes the lives and experiences of the individual Irish soldiers fighting in the ranks of the Brigade, supplying a better understanding of the Irish Brigade and why it became one of the elite combat units of the Civil War. The axiom that the winners of wars write the histories is especially valid in regard to the story of the Irish who fought for the Confederacy from 1861-1865. Throughout the course of the Civil War, Irish Confederates made invaluable contributions to all aspects of the war effort. Yet, the Irish have largely been the forgotten soldiers of the South. In "Irish Confederates: The Civil War's Forgotten Soldiers", Tucker illuminates these overlooked participants. Together, the two books provide a full picture of the roles Irish soldiers played in the Civil War.

The only comprehensive study of Irish immigrants in the nineteenth-century South, this book makes a valuable contribution to the story of the Irish in America and to our understanding of southern culture. The Irish who migrated to the Old South struggled to make a new home in a land where they were viewed as foreigners and were set apart by language, high rates of illiteracy, and their own self-identification as temporary exiles from famine and British misrule. They countered this isolation by creating vibrant, tightly knit ethnic communities in the cities and towns across the South where they found work, usually menial jobs. Finding strength in their communities, Irish immigrants developed the confidence to raise their voices in the public arena, forcing native southerners to recognize and accept them--first politically, then socially. The Irish integrated into southern society without abandoning their ethnic identity. They displayed their loyalty by fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War and in particular by opposing the Radical Reconstruction that followed. By 1877, they were a unique part of the "Solid South." Unlike the Irish in other parts of the United States, the Irish in the South had to fit into a regional culture as well as American culture in general. By following their attempts to become southerners, we learn much about the unique experience of ethnicity in the American South.

Just under 200,000 Irishmen took part in the American Civil War, making it one of the most significant conflicts in Irish history. Hundreds of thousands more were affected away from the battlefield, both in the US and in Ireland itself. The Irish contribution, however, is often only viewed through the lens of famous units such as the Irish Brigade, but the real story is much more complex and fascinating. From the Tipperary man who was the first man to die in the war, to the Corkman who was the last General mortally wounded in action; from the flag bearer who saved his regimental colours at the cost of his arms, to the Roscommon man who led the hunt for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, what emerges in this book is a catalogue of gallantry, sacrifice and bravery.

The Maps of the Wilderness: An Atlas of the Wilderness Campaign, May 2-7, 1864 continues Bradley M. Gottfried’s efforts to study and illustrate the major campaigns of the Civil War’s Eastern Theater. This is his fifth book in the ongoing Savas Beatie Military Atlas Series. The previous four were The Maps of Gettysburg (2007), The Maps of First Bull Run (2009), The Maps of Antietam (2012), and The Maps of the Bristoe Station and Mine Run Campaigns (2013). This latest magisterial work breaks down the entire campaign (and all related operational maneuvers) into 24 map sets or “action-sections” enriched with 120 original full-page color maps. These spectacular cartographic creations bore down to the regimental and battery level. The Maps of the Wilderness includes an assessment of the winter of 1863-1864, the planning for the campaign, the crossing of the Rapidan River, and two days of bloody combat and the day of watchful stalemate thereafter. At least one—and as many as eight—maps accompany each “action-section.” Opposite each map is a full facing page of detailed footnoted text describing the units, personalities, movements, and combat (including quotes from eyewitnesses) depicted on the accompanying map, all of which make the story of the first large-scale combat of 1864 come alive. Each cartographic snapshot also serves to unlock everything ever written on the subject. This detailed coverage also includes an order of battle, interview with the author, bibliography, and an index. This original presentation leads readers on a journey through the epic battle that would prove to be the opening salvo in a prolonged fight that would not end until the Confederates surrendered at Appomattox in April 1865. The Wilderness Campaign has two unique characteristics. First, although he did not command the Army of the Potomac, the battle was Ulysses S. Grant’s first against General Robert E. Lee. Second, the Wilderness fighting—prolonged, bloody, and inconclusive—is widely viewed as the most confusing action of the entire war. The dense thickets and deep smoke obscured much of what occurred during the two days of combat. Gottfried’s book cuts through the confusion to deliver a clear account of the horrendous struggle. Perfect for the easy chair or for walking hallowed ground, The Maps of the Wilderness is a seminal work that, like his earlier studies, belongs on the bookshelf of every serious and casual student of the Civil War, or in the hands of an avid enthusiast out walking the Hallowed Ground.