A historian and Citadel tactical officer examines the Civil War’s naval conflicts to shed new light on the Union’s vital yet overlooked Anaconda campaign. A selection of the Military Book Club. While the Civil War is mainly remembered for epic land battles, the Union waged an equally important campaign at sea—dubbed “Anaconda”—to gradually deprive the South of industry, commerce, and resources. The Rebels responded with fast ships called blockade runners that tried to evade the Yankee fleets, while at the same time constructing fortifications that could protect the ports themselves. Ultimately, it was this coastal conflict that brought the Confederacy to its knees. In Strangling the Confederacy, historian and Citadel tactical officer Kevin Dougherty examines the Union’s naval actions from Virginia down the Atlantic Coast and through the Gulf of Mexico. The Union’s Navy Board leveraged superior technology, including steam power and rifled artillery, in ways that rendered the Confederate coastal defenses nearly obsolete. But when the Union encountered Confederate resistance at close quarters, the tables were turned—as in the failures at Fort Fisher, the debacle at Battery Wagner, the Battle of Olustee, and in other clashes. Offering a unique perspective, Dougherty concludes that, without knowing it, the Navy Board did an excellent job at following modern military doctrine. While the multitude of small battles that flared along the Rebel coast have been overshadowed by the more titanic inland battles, in a cumulative sense, Anaconda—the most prolonged of the Union campaigns—spelled doom for the Confederacy.

This provocative study proves the existence of a de facto Confederate policy of giving no quarter to captured black combatants during the Civil War—killing them instead of treating them as prisoners of war. Rather than looking at the massacres as a series of discrete and random events, this work examines each as part of a ruthless but standard practice. Author George S. Burkhardt details a fascinating case that the Confederates followed a consistent pattern of murder against the black soldiers who served in Northern armies after Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. He shows subsequent retaliation by black soldiers and further escalation by the Confederates, including the execution of some captured white Federal soldiers, those proscribed as cavalry raiders, foragers, or house-burners, and even some captured in traditional battles. Further disproving the notion of Confederates as victims who were merely trying to defend their homes, Burkhardt explores the motivations behind the soldiers’ actions and shows the Confederates’ rage at the sight of former slaves—still considered property, not men—fighting them as equals on the battlefield. Burkhardt’s narrative approach recovers important dimensions of the war that until now have not been fully explored by historians, effectively describing the systemic pattern that pushed the conflict toward a black flag, take-no-prisoners struggle.

Praise for the previous edition:"Historical quotations, photographs, artwork, and maps lend authenticity to the text." - Curriculum Product NewsAmerica's bloodiest war was fought, not against a foreign enemy, but family a

A Companion to the U.S. Civil War presents a comprehensive historiographical collection of essays covering all major military, political, social, and economic aspects of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Represents the most comprehensive coverage available relating to all aspects of the U.S. Civil War Features contributions from dozens of experts in Civil War scholarship Covers major campaigns and battles, and military and political figures, as well as non-military aspects of the conflict such as gender, emancipation, literature, ethnicity, slavery, and memory

Presents the history of the Civil War submarine the H.L. Hunley, including the construction, mysterious sinking, recovery, and restoration.

142 two-color maps vividly depict battlefield action Detailed local driving directions guide visitors to each battlefield site Of the 384 Civil War battlefields cited as critical to preserve by the congressionally appointed Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, 123-fully one-third-are located in Virginia. The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide is the comprehensive guidebook to the most significant battles of the Civil War. Reviewed by Edwin C. Bearss and other noted Civil War authorities and sanctioned by the National Park Service and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, no other guidebook on the market today rivals it for historical detail, accuracy, and credibility.