Executing Daniel Bright

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Executing Daniel Bright

Author : Barton A. Myers
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807136737
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (367 download)

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Book Synopsis Executing Daniel Bright by : Barton A. Myers

Download or read book Executing Daniel Bright written by Barton A. Myers and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2009-10 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 18, 1863, just north of Elizabeth City in rural northeastern North Carolina, a large group of white Union officers and black enlisted troops under the command of Brigadier General Edward Augustus Wild executed a local citizen for his involvement in an irregular resistance to Union army incursions along the coast. Daniel Bright, by conflicting accounts either a Confederate soldier home on leave or a deserter and guerrilla fighter guilty of plundering farms and harassing local Unionists, was hanged inside an unfinished postal building. The initial fall was not mortal, and according to one Union soldier's account, Bright suffered a slow death by "strangulation, his heart not ceasing to beat for twenty minutes." Until now, Civil War scholars considered Bright and the Union incursion that culminated in his gruesome death as only a historical footnote. In Executing Daniel Bright, Barton A. Myers uses these events as a window into the wider experience of local guerrilla conflict in North Carolina's Great Dismal Swamp region and as a representation of a larger pattern of retaliatory executions and murders meant to coerce appropriate political loyalty and military conduct on the Confederate homefront. Race, political loyalties, power, and guerrilla violence all shaped the life of Daniel Bright and the home he died defending, and Myers shows how the interplay of these four dynamics created a world where irregular military activity could thrive. Myers opens with an analysis of antebellum slavery, race relations, slavery debates, and the role of the environment in shaping the antebellum economy of northeastern North Carolina. He then details the emergence of a rift between Unionist and Confederate factions in the area in 1861, the events in 1862 that led to the formation of local guerrilla bands, and General Wild's 1863 military operation in Pasquotank, Camden, and Currituck counties. He explores the local, state, regional, and Confederate Congress's responses to the events of the Wild raid and specifically to Daniel Bright's hanging, revealing the role of racism in shaping those responses. Finally, Myers outlines the outcome of efforts to negotiate neutrality and the state of local loyalties by mid-1864. Revising North Carolina's popular Civil War mythology, Myers concludes that guerrilla violence such as Bright's execution occurred not only in the highlands or Piedmont region of the state's homefront; rather, local irregular wars stretched from one corner of the state to the other. He explains how violence reshaped this community and profoundly affected the ways loyalties shifted and manifested themselves during the war. Above all, Myers contends, Bright's execution provides a tangible illustration of the collapse of social order on the southern homefront that ultimately led to the downfall of the Confederacy. Microhistory at its finest, Executing Daniel Bright adds a thought-provoking chapter to the ever-expanding history of how Americans have coped with guerrilla war.

Journal of the Civil War Era

Author : William A. Blair
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469608987
Total Pages : 155 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Journal of the Civil War Era by : William A. Blair

Download or read book Journal of the Civil War Era written by William A. Blair and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University are pleased to Publish The Journal of the Civil War Era. William Blair, of the Pennsylvania State University, serves as founding editor. The Journal of the Civil War Era Volume 3, Number 3 September 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Articles Robert Fortenbaugh Memorial Lecture Steven Hahn Slave Emancipation, Indian Peoples, and the Projects of a New American Nation-State Beth Schweiger The Literate South: Reading before Emancipation Brian Luskey Special Marts: Intelligence Offices, Labor Commodification, and Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century America Review Essay Nicole Etcheson Microhistory and Movement: African American Mobility in the Nineteenth Century Book Reviews Books Received Professional Notes Megan Kate Nelson Looking at Landscapes of War Notes on Contributors The Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century

Edward A. Wild and the African Brigade in the Civil War

Author : Frances H. Casstevens
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476607044
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis Edward A. Wild and the African Brigade in the Civil War by : Frances H. Casstevens

Download or read book Edward A. Wild and the African Brigade in the Civil War written by Frances H. Casstevens and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-08-31 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edward Wild, the controversial Union general who headed the all-black African Brigade in the Civil War, was one of the most loved and most hated figures of the 19th century. The man was neither understood nor appreciated by military or civilian, black or white, Northerner or Southerner. After enlisting at the outbreak of the war, Wild was promoted to Brigadier General and placed in charge of the United States Colored Troops. In fulfilling his assignment to free slaves and gain recruits, he took three women as hostages and ordered a great deal of property destruction. He freed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of slaves and settled them safely on Roanoke Island. Wild then not only recruited the newly freed blacks but trained them and gave them the opportunity to prove their worth in battle. Nobody, it seems, was happy about serving with them, but the African Brigade performed courageously in several battles. Wild did some inexplicable things. Were his actions typical of the 19th century or did he act outside the norm? Was the criticism he suffered from his fellow Union officers valid—or was it due to personality conflicts? Did he deserve to be arrested, court-martialed, and even wiped from the history books—or was he the victim of discrimination? This work draws its answers from extensive research and includes many rare letters to and from Wild, including one from one of the North Carolinian hostages.

Rites of Retaliation

Author : Lorien Foote
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 146966528X
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Rites of Retaliation by : Lorien Foote

Download or read book Rites of Retaliation written by Lorien Foote and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-10-07 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Civil War, Union and Confederate politicians, military commanders, everyday soldiers, and civilians claimed their approach to the conflict was civilized, in keeping with centuries of military tradition meant to restrain violence and preserve national honor. One hallmark of civilized warfare was a highly ritualized approach to retaliation. This ritual provided a forum to accuse the enemy of excessive behavior, to negotiate redress according to the laws of war, and to appeal to the judgment of other civilized nations. As the war progressed, Northerners and Southerners feared they were losing their essential identity as civilized, and the attention to retaliation grew more intense. When Black soldiers joined the Union army in campaigns in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, raiding plantations and liberating enslaved people, Confederates argued the war had become a servile insurrection. And when Confederates massacred Black troops after battle, killed white Union foragers after capture, and used prisoners of war as human shields, Federals thought their enemy raised the black flag and embraced savagery. Blending military and cultural history, Lorien Foote's rich and insightful book sheds light on how Americans fought over what it meant to be civilized and who should be extended the protections of a civilized world.

The Guerrilla Hunters

Author : Brian D. McKnight
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807164992
Total Pages : 580 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis The Guerrilla Hunters by : Brian D. McKnight

Download or read book The Guerrilla Hunters written by Brian D. McKnight and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the Civil War, irregular warfare—including the use of hit-and-run assaults, ambushes, and raiding tactics—thrived in localized guerrilla fights within the Border States and the Confederate South. The Guerrilla Hunters offers a comprehensive overview of the tactics, motives, and actors in these conflicts, from the Confederate-authorized Partisan Rangers, a military force directed to spy on, harass, and steal from Union forces, to men like John Gatewood, who deserted the Confederate army in favor of targeting Tennessee civilians believed to be in sympathy with the Union. With a foreword by Kenneth W. Noe and an afterword by Daniel E. Sutherland, this collection represents an impressive array of the foremost experts on guerrilla fighting in the Civil War. Providing new interpretations of this long-misconstrued aspect of warfare, these scholars go beyond the conventional battlefield to examine the stories of irregular combatants across all theaters of the Civil War, bringing geographic breadth to what is often treated as local and regional history. The Guerrilla Hunters shows that instances of unorthodox combat, once thought isolated and infrequent, were numerous, and many clashes defy easy categorization. Novel methodological approaches and a staggering diversity of research and topics allow this volume to support multiple areas for debate and discovery within this growing field of Civil War scholarship.

A Man by Any Other Name

Author : Joseph M. Beilein Jr.
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820364533
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis A Man by Any Other Name by : Joseph M. Beilein Jr.

Download or read book A Man by Any Other Name written by Joseph M. Beilein Jr. and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2023-09-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few men of the Civil War era were as complicated or infamous as William Clarke Quantrill. Most who know him recognize him as the architect of the Confederate raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863 that led to the murder of 180 mostly unarmed men and boys. Before that, though, Quantrill led a transient life, shifting from one masculine form to another. He played the role of fastidious schoolmaster, rough frontiersman, and even confidence man, developing certain notions and skills on his way to becoming a proslavery bushwhacker. Quantrill remains impossible to categorize, a man whose motivations have been difficult to pin down. Using new documents and old documents examined in new ways, A Man by Any Other Name paints the most authentic portrait of Quantrill yet rendered. The detailed study of this man not only explores a one-of-a-kind enigmatic figure but also allows us entry into many representative experiences of the Civil War generation. This picture brings to life a unique vision of antebellum life in the territories and a fresh view of guerrilla warfare on the border. Of even greater consequence, seeing Quantrill in this way allows us to examine the perceived essence of American manhood in the mid-nineteenth century.

A Companion to the U.S. Civil War, 2 Volume Set

Author : Aaron Sheehan-Dean
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119716144
Total Pages : 1223 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (197 download)

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Book Synopsis A Companion to the U.S. Civil War, 2 Volume Set by : Aaron Sheehan-Dean

Download or read book A Companion to the U.S. Civil War, 2 Volume Set written by Aaron Sheehan-Dean and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 1223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

A Companion to the U.S. Civil War

Author : Aaron Sheehan-Dean
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118802950
Total Pages : 1223 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (188 download)

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Book Synopsis A Companion to the U.S. Civil War by : Aaron Sheehan-Dean

Download or read book A Companion to the U.S. Civil War written by Aaron Sheehan-Dean and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 1223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

The Story of Dan Bright

Author : Dan Bright
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781608011247
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (112 download)

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Book Synopsis The Story of Dan Bright by : Dan Bright

Download or read book The Story of Dan Bright written by Dan Bright and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everybody knows New Orleans, but nobody knows this New Orleans. At sixteen years old, Dan Bright was the head of a New Orleans drug empire. As his operation grew, it was only a matter of time before he attracted the attention of the criminal justice system, which would stop at nothing--including framing Dan for murder--to get him off the streets. Dan's capital murder trial lasted only one day. The District Attorney's office used false testimony and fabricated evidence to lead the jury to their ultimate conclusion: Daniel Bright was guilty and deserved the death penalty. This incredible true story unflinchingly shows the injustice of the legal system, as well as the base corruption on display at Angola prison, where Dan spent ten years fighting his wrongful conviction and struggling for a right supposedly guaranteed to all Americans: a fair trial.

The Fight for the Old North State

Author : Hampton Newsome
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700630376
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Fight for the Old North State by : Hampton Newsome

Download or read book The Fight for the Old North State written by Hampton Newsome and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a cold day in early January 1864, Robert E. Lee wrote to Confederate president Jefferson Davis "The time is at hand when, if an attempt can be made to capture the enemy's forces at New Berne, it should be done." Over the next few months, Lee's dispatch would precipitate a momentous series of events as the Confederates, threatened by a supply crisis and an emerging peace movement, sought to seize Federal bases in eastern North Carolina. This book tells the story of these operations—the late war Confederate resurgence in the Old North State. Using rail lines to rapidly consolidate their forces, the Confederates would attack the main Federal position at New Bern in February, raid the northeastern counties in March, hit the Union garrisons at Plymouth and Washington in late April, and conclude with another attempt at New Bern in early May. The expeditions would involve joint-service operations, as the Confederates looked to support their attacks with powerful, homegrown ironclad gunboats. These offensives in early 1864 would witness the failures and successes of southern commanders including George Pickett, James Cooke, and a young, aggressive North Carolinian named Robert Hoke. Likewise they would challenge the leadership of Union army and naval officers such as Benjamin Butler, John Peck, and Charles Flusser. Newsome does not neglect the broader context, revealing how these military events related to a contested gubernatorial election; the social transformations in the state brought on by the war; the execution of Union prisoners at Kinston; and the activities of North Carolina Unionists. Lee's January proposal triggered one of the last successful Confederate offensives. The Fight for the Old North State captures the full scope, as well as the dramatic details of this struggle for North Carolina.

Rebels against the Confederacy

Author : Barton A. Myers
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316062651
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Rebels against the Confederacy by : Barton A. Myers

Download or read book Rebels against the Confederacy written by Barton A. Myers and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-13 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking study, Barton A. Myers analyzes the secret world of hundreds of white and black Southern Unionists as they struggled for survival in a new Confederate world, resisted the imposition of Confederate military and civil authority, began a diffuse underground movement to destroy the Confederacy, joined the United States Army as soldiers, and waged a series of violent guerrilla battles at the local level against other Southerners. Myers also details the work of Confederates as they struggled to build a new nation at the local level and maintain control over manpower, labor, agricultural, and financial resources, which Southern Unionists possessed. The story is not solely one of triumph over adversity but also one of persecution and, ultimately, erasure of these dissidents by the postwar South's Lost Cause mythologizers.

The Civil War Guerrilla

Author : Joseph M. BeileinJr.
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813165342
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis The Civil War Guerrilla by : Joseph M. BeileinJr.

Download or read book The Civil War Guerrilla written by Joseph M. BeileinJr. and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2015-04-03 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most Americans are familiar with major Civil War battles such as Manassas (Bull Run), Shiloh, and Gettysburg, which have been extensively analyzed by generations of historians. However, not all of the war's engagements were fought in a conventional manner by regular forces. Often referred to as "the wars within the war," guerrilla combat touched states from Virginia to New Mexico. Guerrillas fought for the Union, the Confederacy, their ethnic groups, their tribes, and their families. They were deadly forces that plundered, tortured, and terrorized those in their path, and their impact is not yet fully understood. In this richly diverse volume, Joseph M. Beilein Jr. and Matthew C. Hulbert assemble a team of both rising and eminent scholars to examine guerrilla warfare in the South during the Civil War. Together, they discuss irregular combat as practiced by various communities in multiple contexts, including how it was used by Native Americans, the factors that motivated raiders in the border states, and the women who participated as messengers, informants, collaborators, and combatants. They also explore how the Civil War guerrilla has been mythologized in history, literature, and folklore. The Civil War Guerrilla sheds new light on the ways in which thousands of men, women, and children experienced and remembered the Civil War as a conflict of irregular wills and tactics. Through thorough research and analysis, this timely book provides readers with a comprehensive examination of the guerrilla soldier and his role in the deadliest war in U.S. history.

Weirding the War

Author : Stephen Berry
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820341851
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Weirding the War by : Stephen Berry

Download or read book Weirding the War written by Stephen Berry and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It is well that war is so terrible," Robert E. Lee reportedly said, "or we would grow too fond of it." The essays collected here make the case that we have grown too fond of it, and therefore we must make the war terrible again. Taking a "freakonomics" approach to Civil War studies, each contributor uses a seemingly unusual story, incident, or phenomenon to cast new light on the nature of the war itself. Collectively the essays remind us that war is always about damage, even at its most heroic and even when certain people and things deserve to be damaged. Here then is not only the grandness of the Civil War but its more than occasional littleness. Here are those who profited by the war and those who lost by it--and not just those who lost all save their honor, but those who lost their honor too. Here are the cowards, the coxcombs, the belles, the deserters, and the scavengers who hung back and so survived, even thrived. Here are dark topics like torture, hunger, and amputation. Here, in short, is war.

Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri

Author : Jonathan Earle
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700619291
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri by : Jonathan Earle

Download or read book Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri written by Jonathan Earle and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2013-08-10 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long before the first shot of the Civil War was fired at Fort Sumter, violence had already erupted along the Missouri-Kansas border—a recurring cycle of robbery, arson, torture, murder, and revenge. This multifaceted study brings together fifteen scholars to expand our understanding of this vitally important region, the violence that besieged it, and its overall impact on the Civil War. Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri blends political, military, social, and intellectual history to explain why the region’s divisiveness was so bitter and persisted for so long. Providing a more nuanced understanding of the conflict, it defines both what united and divided the men and women who lived there and how various political disagreements ultimately disintegrated into violence. By focusing on contested definitions of liberty, citizenship, and freedom, it also explores how civil societies break down and how they are reconstructed when the conflict ends. The contributors examine this key chapter in American history in all of its complexity. Essays on “Slavery and Politics in Territorial Kansas” examine how the border region was transformed by the conflict over the status of slavery in Kansas Territory and how the emerging conflict on the Kansas-Missouri border took on a larger national significance. Other essays focus on the transition to total warfare and examine the wartime experiences of the diverse people who populated the region in “Sectional Crisis and Civil War on the Western Border.” Final articles on “The Border Reconstructed and Remembered” explore the ways in which border residents rebuilt their society after the war and how they remembered it decades later. As this penetrating collection shows, only when Missourians and Kansans embraced a common vision for America—one based on shared agricultural practices, ideas about economic development, and racial equality—could citizens on both sides of the border reconcile.

Americans Remember Their Civil War

Author : Barbara A. Gannon
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313049009
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Americans Remember Their Civil War by : Barbara A. Gannon

Download or read book Americans Remember Their Civil War written by Barbara A. Gannon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-07-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides readers with an overview of how Americans have commemorated and remembered the Civil War. Most Americans are aware of statues or other outdoor art dedicated to the memory of the Civil War. Indeed, the erection of Civil War monuments permanently changed the landscape of U.S. public parks and cemeteries by the turn of the century. But monuments are only one way that the Civil War is memorialized. This book describes the different ways in which Americans have publicly remembered their Civil War, from the immediate postwar era to the early 21st century. Each chapter covers a specific historical period. Within each chapter, the author highlights important individuals, groups, and social factors, helping readers to understand the process of memory. The author further notes the conflicting tensions between disparate groups as they sought to commemorate "their" war. A final chapter examines the present-day memory of the war and current debates and controversies.

The Cambridge History of the American Civil War: Volume 2, Affairs of the State

Author : Aaron Sheehan-Dean
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108601642
Total Pages : 1136 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge History of the American Civil War: Volume 2, Affairs of the State by : Aaron Sheehan-Dean

Download or read book The Cambridge History of the American Civil War: Volume 2, Affairs of the State written by Aaron Sheehan-Dean and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 1136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the political and social dimensions of the Civil War in both the North and South. Millions of Americans lived outside the major campaign zones so they experienced secondary exposure to military events through newspaper reporting and letters home from soldiers. Governors and Congressmen assumed a major role in steering the personnel decisions, strategic planning, and methods of fighting, but regular people also played roles in direct military action, as guerrilla fighters, as nurses and doctors, and as military contractors. Chapters investigate a variety of aspects of military leadership and management, including coverage of technology, discipline, finance, the environment, and health and medicine. Chapters also consider the political administration of the war, examining how antebellum disputes over issues such as emancipation and the draft resulted in a shift of partisan dynamics and the ways that people of all stripes took advantage of the flux of war to advance their own interests.

Confederate Outlaw

Author : Brian D. McKnight
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807139440
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Confederate Outlaw by : Brian D. McKnight

Download or read book Confederate Outlaw written by Brian D. McKnight and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2011-04-08 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the fall of 1865, the United States Army executed Confederate guerrilla Champ Ferguson for his role in murdering fifty-three loyal citizens of Kentucky and Tennessee during the Civil War. Long remembered as the most unforgiving and inglorious warrior of the Confederacy, Ferguson has often been dismissed by historians as a cold-blooded killer. In Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia, biographer Brian D. McKnight demonstrates how such a simple judgment ignores the complexity of this legendary character. In his analysis, McKnight maintains that Ferguson fought the war on personal terms and with an Old Testament mentality regarding the righteousness of his cause. He believed that friends were friends and enemies were enemies -- no middle ground existed. As a result, he killed prewar comrades as well as longtime adversaries without regret, all the while knowing that he might one day face his own brother, who served as a Union scout. Ferguson's continued popularity demonstrates that his bloody legend did not die on the gallows. Widespread rumors endured of his last-minute escape from justice, and over time, the borderland terrorist emerged as a folk hero for many southerners. Numerous authors resurrected and romanticized his story for popular audiences, and even Hollywood used Ferguson's life to create the composite role played by Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales. McKnight's study deftly separates the myths from reality and weaves a thoughtful, captivating, and accurate portrait of the Confederacy's most celebrated guerrilla. An impeccably researched biography, Confederate Outlaw offers an abundance of insight into Ferguson's wartime motivations, actions, and tactics, and also describes borderland loyalties, guerrilla operations, and military retribution. McKnight concludes that Ferguson, and other irregular warriors operating during the Civil War, saw the conflict as far more of a personal battle than a political one.