A Damned Iowa Greyhound

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Publisher : University of Iowa Press
ISBN 13 : 1587290588
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (872 download)

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Book Synopsis A Damned Iowa Greyhound by : Donald C. Elder, III

Download or read book A Damned Iowa Greyhound written by Donald C. Elder, III and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 1998-05-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Henry Harrison Clayton was one of nearly 75,000 soldiers from Iowa to join the Union ranks during the Civil War. Possessing a high school education and superior penmanship, Clayton served as a company clerk in the 19th Infantry, witnessing battles in the Trans-Mississippi theater. His diary and his correspondence with his family in Van Buren County form a unique narrative of the day-to-day soldier life as well as an eyewitness account of critical battles and a prisoner-of-war camp. Clayton participated in the siege of Vicksburg and took part in operations against Mobile, but his writings are unique for the descriptions he gives of lesser-known but pivotal battles of the Civil War in the West. Fighting in the Battle of Prairie Grove, the 19th Infantry sustained the highest casualties of any federal regiment on the field. Clayton survived that battle with only minor injuries, but he was later captured at the Battle of Stirling's Plantation and served a period of ten months in captivity at Camp Ford, Texas. Clayton's writing reveals the complicated sympathies and prejudices prevalent among Union soldiers and civilians of that period in the country's history. He observes with great sadness the brutal effects of war on the South, sympathizing with the plight of refugees and lamenting the destruction of property. He excoriates draft evaders and Copperheads back home, conveying the intra-sectional acrimony wrought by civil war. Finally, his racist views toward blacks demonstrate a common but ironic attitude among Union soldiers whose efforts helped lead to the abolition of slavery in the United States.

Fields of Blood

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Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 0807833150
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Fields of Blood by : William L. Shea

Download or read book Fields of Blood written by William L. Shea and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the events of the Battle of Prairie Grove of 1862, which took place in Arkansas and ended the efforts of the Confederate Army to extend the Civil War conflict into the territory west of the MIssissippi River, discussing the generals, battle tactics, casualties, and aftermath.

Engineering Victory

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Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809333929
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Engineering Victory by : Justin S. Solonick

Download or read book Engineering Victory written by Justin S. Solonick and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On May 25, 1863, after driving the Confederate army into defensive lines surrounding Vicksburg, Mississippi, Union major general Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee laid siege to the fortress city. With no reinforcements and dwindling supplies, the Army of Vicksburg finally surrendered on July 4, yielding command of the Mississippi River to Union forces and effectively severing the Confederacy. In this illuminating volume, Justin S. Solonick offers the first detailed study of how Grant’s midwesterners serving in the Army of the Tennessee engineered the siege of Vicksburg, placing the event within the broader context of U.S. and European military history and nineteenth-century applied science in trench warfare and field fortifications. In doing so, he shatters the Lost Cause myth that Vicksburg’s Confederate garrison surrendered due to lack of provisions. Instead of being starved out, Solonick explains, the Confederates were dug out. After opening with a sophisticated examination of nineteenth-century military engineering and the history of siege craft, Solonick discusses the stages of the Vicksburg siege and the implements and tactics Grant’s soldiers used to achieve victory. As Solonick shows, though Grant lacked sufficient professional engineers to organize a traditional siege—an offensive tactic characterized by cutting the enemy’s communication lines and digging forward-moving approach trenches—the few engineers available, when possible, gave Union troops a crash course in military engineering. Ingenious midwestern soldiers, in turn, creatively applied engineering maxims to the situation at Vicksburg, demonstrating a remarkable ability to adapt in the face of adversity. When instruction and oversight were not possible, the common soldiers improvised. Solonick concludes with a description of the surrender of Vicksburg, an analysis of the siege’s effect on the outcome of the Civil War, and a discussion of its significance in western military history. Solonick’s study of the Vicksburg siege focuses on how the American Civil War was a transitional one with its own distinct nature, not the last Napoleonic war or the herald of modern warfare. At Vicksburg, he reveals, a melding of traditional siege craft with the soldiers’ own inventiveness resulted in Union victory during the largest, most successful siege in American history.

Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538174294
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (381 download)

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Book Synopsis Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare by : Earl J. Hess

Download or read book Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare written by Earl J. Hess and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-01-30 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A unique recounting of the Confederate use of landmines during the American Civil War. Hess uses multiple archival sources to tell a compelling narrative that stresses not only the tactical and technological challenges but also considers the moral stigma attached to this new weapon of war"--

The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat

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Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700623833
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat by : Earl J. Hess

Download or read book The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat written by Earl J. Hess and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War's single-shot, muzzle-loading musket revolutionized warfare-or so we've been told for years. Noted historian Earl J. Hess forcefully challenges that claim, offering a new, clear-eyed, and convincing assessment of the rifle musket's actual performance on the battlefield and its impact on the course of the Civil War. Many contemporaries were impressed with the new weapon's increased range of 500 yards, compared to the smoothbore musket's range of 100 yards, and assumed that the rifle was a major factor in prolonging the Civil War. Historians have also assumed that the weapon dramatically increased casualty rates, made decisive victories rare, and relegated cavalry and artillery to far lesser roles than they played in smoothbore battles. Hess presents a completely new assessment of the rifle musket, contending that its impact was much more limited than previously supposed and was confined primarily to marginal operations such as skirmishing and sniping. He argues further that its potential to alter battle line operations was virtually nullified by inadequate training, soldiers' preference for short-range firing, and the difficulty of seeing the enemy at a distance. He notes that bullets fired from the new musket followed a parabolic trajectory unlike those fired from smoothbores; at mid-range, those rifle balls flew well above the enemy, creating two killing zones between which troops could operate untouched. He also presents the most complete discussion to date of the development of skirmishing and sniping in the Civil War. Drawing upon the observations and reflections of the soldiers themselves, Hess offers the most compelling argument yet made regarding the actual use of the rifle musket and its influence on Civil War combat. Engagingly written and meticulously researched, his book will be of special interest to Civil War scholars, buffs, re-enactors, and gun enthusiasts alike.

Storming Vicksburg

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Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469660180
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Storming Vicksburg by : Earl J. Hess

Download or read book Storming Vicksburg written by Earl J. Hess and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-09-25 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most overlooked phase of the Union campaign to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the time period from May 18 to May 25, 1863, when Ulysses S. Grant closed in on the city and attempted to storm its defenses. Federal forces mounted a limited attack on May 19 and failed to break through Confederate lines. After two days of preparation, Grant's forces mounted a much larger assault. Although the Army of the Tennessee had defeated Confederates under John C. Pemberton at Champion Hill on May 16 and Big Black River on May 17, the defenders yet again repelled Grant's May 22 attack. The Gibraltar of the Confederacy would not fall until a six-week siege ended with Confederate surrender on July 4. In Storming Vicksburg, military historian Earl J. Hess reveals how a combination of rugged terrain, poor coordination, and low battlefield morale among Union troops influenced the result of the largest attack mounted by Grant's Army of the Tennessee. Using definitive research in unpublished personal accounts and other underutilized archives, Hess makes clear that events of May 19–22 were crucial to the Vicksburg campaign's outcome and shed important light on Grant's generalship, Confederate defensive strategy, and the experience of common soldiers as an influence on battlefield outcomes.

Reluctant Cannoneer

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Publisher : Press of the Camp Pope Bookshop
ISBN 13 : 9781929919017
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Reluctant Cannoneer by : Robert T. McMahan

Download or read book Reluctant Cannoneer written by Robert T. McMahan and published by Press of the Camp Pope Bookshop. This book was released on 2000 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Siege of Vicksburg

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Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700632255
Total Pages : 752 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Siege of Vicksburg by : Timothy B. Smith

Download or read book The Siege of Vicksburg written by Timothy B. Smith and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2021-06-18 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Campaign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23–July 4, 1863, noted Civil War scholar Timothy B. Smith offers the first comprehensive account of the siege that split the Confederacy in two. While the siege is often given a chapter or two in larger campaign studies and portrayed as a foregone conclusion, The Siege of Vicksburg offers a new perspective and thus a fuller understanding of the larger Vicksburg Campaign. Smith takes full advantage of all the resources, both Union and Confederate—from official reports to soldiers’ diaries and letters to newspaper accounts—to offer in vivid detail a compelling narrative of the operations. The siege was unlike anything Grant’s Army of the Tennessee had attempted to this point and Smith helps the reader understand the complexity of the strategy and tactics, the brilliance of the engineers’ work, the grueling nature of the day-by-day participation, and the effect on all involved, from townspeople to the soldiers manning the fortifications. The Siege of Vicksburg portrays a high-stakes moment in the course of the Civil War because both sides understood what was at stake: the fate of the Mississippi River, the trans-Mississippi region, and perhaps the Confederacy itself. Smith’s detailed command-level analysis extends from army to corps, brigades, and regiments and offers fresh insights on where each side held an advantage. One key advantage was that the Federals had vast confidence in their commander while the Confederates showed no such assurance, whether it was Pemberton inside Vicksburg or Johnston outside. Smith offers an equally appealing and richly drawn look at the combat experiences of the soldiers in the trenches. He also tackles the many controversies surrounding the siege, including detailed accounts and analyses of Johnston’s efforts to lift the siege, and answers the questions of why Vicksburg fell and what were the ultimate consequences of Grant’s victory.

Vicksburg and Chattanooga

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Author :
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476617287
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis Vicksburg and Chattanooga by : Jack H. Lepa

Download or read book Vicksburg and Chattanooga written by Jack H. Lepa and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-09-24 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few Civil War events produced more important strategic results for the Union than the taking of Vicksburg and Chattanooga. Along with the Federal triumph at Gettysburg, these gains were decisive in bringing about final Union victory. Ulysses S. Grant was the man in charge of the Federal forces. His solid competence and willingness to take calculated risks enabled him to overcome the twin challenges of difficult terrain and heroic Confederate resistance at Vicksburg, and to prevail against seemingly unassailable enemy positions at Chattanooga. This book is the story of the courage and determination that accompanied the triumphs and blunders of both sides.

Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove

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Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 0803273665
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove by : Christopher Lawrence Brest

Download or read book Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove written by Christopher Lawrence Brest and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2006-12-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A useful guidebook for the significant Civil War battles of Wilson's Creek, Pear Ridge, and Prairie Grove.

The Civil War: The Third Year Told by Those Who Lived It

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Publisher : Library of America
ISBN 13 : 1598532618
Total Pages : 936 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis The Civil War: The Third Year Told by Those Who Lived It by : Brooks D. Simpson

Download or read book The Civil War: The Third Year Told by Those Who Lived It written by Brooks D. Simpson and published by Library of America. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 936 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the third volume of the ground-breaking eyewitness narrative that has been called a "masterpiece." Spanning the crucial months from January 1863 to March 1864, this third volume of The Library of America’s highly acclaimed four volume series presents an incomparable portrait of a nation at war with itself while illuminating the military and political events that brought the Union closer to victory and slavery closer to destruction. It brings together more than 140 contemporary letters, diary entries, speeches, articles, messages, and poems by more than eighty participants and observers, among them Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Mary Chesnut, Clement Vallandigham, Henry Adams, Charlotte Forten, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and George Templeton Strong, as well as Union officers Robert Gould Shaw, Charles B. Haydon, and Henry Livermore Abbott; Confederate diarists Catherine Edmondston, Kate Stone, and Judith McGuire; and Alabama soldier Samuel Pickens, Iowa housewife Catharine Peirce, Kentucky preacher George Richard Browder, and Kansas clergyman Richard Cordley. The selections include vivid and haunting eyewitness narratives of some of the war’s most famous battles—Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Fort Wagner, Chickamauga, Chattanooga—as well as firsthand accounts of the merciless guerrilla war in Missouri and Kansas; the Richmond bread riot and the New York draft riots; the controversies surrounding the use of black soldiers and the Lincoln administration’s curtailment of civil liberties; and the struggles of civilians both black and white to survive increasingly harsh wartime conditions. Each volume features a detailed chronology of events, biographical notes about the writers, textual and explanatory notes, and original hand-drawn endpaper maps by expert Civil War cartographer Earl McElfresh. The Civil War: The Final Year Told by Those Who Lived It will be published in 2014.

War Upon the Land

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Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820342491
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis War Upon the Land by : Lisa M. Brady

Download or read book War Upon the Land written by Lisa M. Brady and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "War upon the land is not merely an environmental history of the war ... Instead, Brady's is a book about how the Civil War engaged with, and forever altered, a suite of nineteenth-century American ideas about nature ... Thus [it] examines the place of wilderness in the history of the Civil War, and as importantly, the place of the Civil War in the history of wilderness"--Foreword.

Citizen-Officers

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Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807160725
Total Pages : 437 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Citizen-Officers by : Andrew S. Bledsoe

Download or read book Citizen-Officers written by Andrew S. Bledsoe and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2015-11-16 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the time of the American Revolution, most junior officers in the American military attained their positions through election by the volunteer soldiers in their company, a tradition that reflected commitment to democracy even in times of war. By the outset of the Civil War, citizen-officers had fallen under sharp criticism from career military leaders who decried their lack of discipline and efficiency in battle. Andrew S. Bledsoe’s Citizen-Officers explores the role of the volunteer officer corps during the Civil War and the unique leadership challenges they faced when military necessity clashed with the antebellum democratic values of volunteer soldiers. Bledsoe’s innovative evaluation of the lives and experiences of nearly 2,600 Union and Confederate company-grade junior officers from every theater of operations across four years of war reveals the intense pressures placed on these young leaders. Despite their inexperience and sometimes haphazard training in formal military maneuvers and leadership, citizen-officers frequently faced their first battles already in command of a company. These intense and costly encounters forced the independent, civic-minded volunteer soldiers to recognize the need for military hierarchy and to accept their place within it. Thus concepts of American citizenship, republican traditions in American life, and the brutality of combat shaped, and were in turn shaped by, the attitudes and actions of citizen-officers. Through an analysis of wartime writings, post-war reminiscences, company and regimental papers, census records, and demographic data, Citizen-Officers illuminates the centrality of the volunteer officer to the Civil War and to evolving narratives of American identity and military service.

Tempest over Texas

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Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1933337850
Total Pages : 459 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (333 download)

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Book Synopsis Tempest over Texas by : Donald S. Frazier

Download or read book Tempest over Texas written by Donald S. Frazier and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tempest Over Texas: The Fall and Winter Campaigns, 1863–1864 is the fourth installment in Dr. Donald S. Frazier’s award-winning Louisiana Quadrille series. Picking up the story of the Civil War in Louisiana and Texas after the fall of Port Hudson and Vicksburg, Tempest Over Texas describes Confederate confusion on how to carry on in the Trans-Mississippi given the new strategic realities. Likewise, Federal forces gathered from Memphis to New Orleans were in search of a new mission. International intrigues and disasters on distant battlefields would all conspire to confuse and perplex war-planners. One thing remained, however. The Stars and Stripes needed to fly once again in Texas, and as soon as possible.

Friendly Enemies

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Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1496221648
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (962 download)

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Book Synopsis Friendly Enemies by : Lauren K. Thompson

Download or read book Friendly Enemies written by Lauren K. Thompson and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-08 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the American Civil War, Union and Confederate soldiers commonly fraternized, despite strict prohibitions from the high command. When soldiers found themselves surrounded by privation, disease, and death, many risked their standing in the army, and ultimately their lives, for a warm cup of coffee or pinch of tobacco during a sleepless shift on picket duty, to receive a newspaper from a “Yank” or “Johnny,” or to stop the relentless picket fire while in the trenches. In Friendly Enemies Lauren K. Thompson analyzes the relations and fraternization of American soldiers on opposing sides of the battlefield and argues that these interactions represented common soldiers’ efforts to fight the war on their own terms. Her study reveals that despite different commanders, terrain, and outcomes on the battlefield, a common thread emerges: soldiers constructed a space to lessen hostilities and make their daily lives more manageable. Fraternization allowed men to escape their situation briefly and did not carry the stigma of cowardice. Because the fraternization was exclusively between white soldiers, it became the prototype for sectional reunion after the war—a model that avoided debates over causation, honored soldiers’ shared sacrifice, and promoted white male supremacy. Friendly Enemies demonstrates how relations between opposing sides were an unprecedented yet highly significant consequence of mid-nineteenth-century civil warfare.

History Buff’s Guide to the Civil War

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Author :
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1402242875
Total Pages : 513 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis History Buff’s Guide to the Civil War by : Thomas R. Flagel

Download or read book History Buff’s Guide to the Civil War written by Thomas R. Flagel and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The single best kickoff to the American Civil War...I can't imagine a better guide for any of us, whether student or scholar." -Robert Hicks author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Widow of the South "A detailed and enjoyable set of facts and stories that will engage every reader from the newest initiate to the Civil War saga to the most experienced historian. This book is a must have for any Civil War reading collection." - James Lewis, Park Ranger at Stones River National Battlefield Do You Think You Know the Civil War? The History Buff's Guide to the Civil War clears the powder smoke surrounding the war that changed America forever. What were the best, the worst, the largest, and the most lethal aspects of the conflict? With over thirty annotated top ten lists and unexpected new findings, author Thomas R. Flagel will have you debating the most intriguing questions of the Civil War in no time. From the top ten causes of the war to the top ten bloodiest battles, this invaluable guide to the great war between the states will delight and inform you about one of the most crucial periods in American history.

Obstinate Heroism

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Publisher : University of North Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1574418025
Total Pages : 505 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (744 download)

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Book Synopsis Obstinate Heroism by : Steven J. Ramold

Download or read book Obstinate Heroism written by Steven J. Ramold and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-03-15 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite popular belief, the Civil War did not end when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, in April 1865. The Confederacy still had tens of thousands of soldiers under arms, in three main field armies and countless smaller commands scattered throughout the South. Although pressed by Union forces at varying degrees, all of the remaining Confederate armies were capable of continuing the war if they chose to do so. But they did not, even when their political leaders ordered them to continue the fight. Convinced that most civilians no longer wanted to continue the war, the senior Confederate military leadership, over the course of several weeks, surrendered their armies under different circumstances. Gen. Joseph Johnston surrendered his army in North Carolina only after contentious negotiations with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Gen. Richard Taylor ended the fighting in Alabama in the face of two massive Union incursions into the state rather than try to consolidate with other Confederate armies. Personal rivalry also played a part in his practical considerations to surrender. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith had the decision to surrender taken out of his hands—disastrous economic conditions in his Trans-Mississippi Department had eroded morale to such an extent that his soldiers demobilized themselves, leaving Kirby Smith a general without an army. The end of the Confederacy was a messy and complicated affair, a far cry from the tidy closure associated with the events at Appomattox.