Civil War Memoirs

Almost 10 times as many men died in the Civil War prison camps of the North and South as were killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. One such camp was Andersonville, where Union soldiers like Brigade Quartermaster John L. Ransom of the Ninth Michigan Cavalry, were subjected to hunger, disease, cruelty, and despair. Captured in November 1863, Ransom kept his spirits and courage up enough to survive and record this compelling true account of his experiences.

Abraham Lincoln began his presidency admitting that he knew "but little of ships," but he quickly came to preside over the largest national armada to that time, not eclipsed until World War I. Naval historian Craig L. Symonds' Lincoln and His Admirals unveils an aspect of Lincoln's presidency unexamined by historians until now, revealing how he managed the men who ran the naval side of the Civil War, and how the activities of the Union Navy ultimately affected the course of history.

Reminiscences of the Civil War is John Brown Gordon’s firsthand account of the war as seen through the eyes of the prominent officer. Gordon was trusted and admired by many, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. The work begins with him being elected as the commander of the “Raccoon Roughs” and his recollection of the Battle of Manassas. He also describes the South’s surrender at Appomattox, in which he participated. He recounts his role in individual battles such as Antietam, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, and Gettysburg.

Returning to the turbulent days of a nation divided, best-selling author and acclaimed historian James Robertson explores 70 fascinating figures who shaped America during Reconstruction and beyond. Relentless politicians, intrepid fighters, cunning innovators - the times called for bold moves, and this resilient generation would not disappoint.

The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac.

December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln's government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country's law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American.

The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 2 continues one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. Focusing on the pivotal year of 1863, the second volume in Shelby Foote's masterful narrative history brings to life some of the most dramatic and important moments in the Civil War, including the Battle of Gettysburg and Grant's Vicksburg Campaign. The word narrative is the key to this book's extraordinary incandescence and truth: The story is told entirely from the point of view of the people involved.

In The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 3, Shelby Foote follows the events of the war from 1862 through 1864, discussing the strategies of both the North and the South and assessing the performance of the Union generals. The book opens with the beginning of the two final, major confrontations of the war: Grant against Lee in Virginia and Sherman pressing Johnston in North Georgia. In vivid narrative as seen from both sides, he tells of the climactic struggles, great and small, on and off the field of battle, that finally decided the fate of this nation.

Harmon Camburn signed up for duty as a Union soldier two weeks after the first shots were fired in the Civil War. He served for the next three years, fighting in both Battles of Bull Run and other skirmishes of the War Between the States. His tour of duty ended with a shot through his lung and capture by Confederate soldiers. Fortunately, he survived his wounds and wrote about his time in the Union army. His great granddaughter, Patricia Camburn (P.C.) Zick, presents this journal along with additional annotations about the war in general.

One of the most important and objective firsthand accounts of the Civil War. Unlike some other Confederate memoirists, General Edward Porter Alexander objectively evaluated and criticized prominent Confederate officers, including Robert E. Lee. The result is a clear-eyed assessment of the bloody conflict that divided but subsequently united the nation.

The former general in chief of the Union armies during the Civil War...the two-term president of the United States...the beloved ambassador of American goodwill around the globe...the respected New York financier - Ulysses S. Grant - was dying. The hardscrabble man who regularly smoked 20 cigars a day had developed terminal throat cancer. Thus began Grant’s final battle - a race against his own failing health to complete his personal memoirs in an attempt to secure his family’s financial future. But the project evolved into something far more....

Early in May 1861, 21-year-old Sam R. Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee, joined the First Tennessee Regiment. He fought in all of its major battles, from Shiloh to Nashville. Twenty years later, with a "house full of young 'rebels' clustering around my knees and bumping about my elbows," he wrote the remarkable account of "Co. Aytch," its common foot soldiers, its commanders, its Yankee enemies, its victories and defeats, and its ultimate surrender on April 26, 1865.

Of the crucial men close to President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was the most powerful and controversial. Stanton raised, armed, and supervised the army of a million men who won the Civil War. He organized the war effort. He directed military movements from his telegraph office, where Lincoln literally hung out with him. He arrested and imprisoned thousands for "war crimes" such as resisting the draft or calling for an armistice. Stanton was so controversial that some accused him at that time of complicity in Lincoln's assassination.

Red Notice is a searing expose of the wholesale whitewash by Russian authorities of Magnitsky's imprisonment and murder, slicing deep into the shadowy heart of the Kremlin to uncover its sordid truths.

One of the most important Confederate generals of the Civil War was Lieutenant General James Longstreet, the man Robert E. Lee called his “old war horse”. However, they tried to blame him for the loss at Gettysburg...Just a few years before his death, Longstreet finally published his crucial memoirs, From Manassas to Appomattox, a Civil War memoirs that talked about his experiences and analysis of the decisions made during the war.

In this comprehensive biography, Jean Edward Smith reconciles conflicting assessments of Grant's life, arguing that Grant is greatly underrated as a president. Following the turmoil of Andrew Johnson's administration, Grant guided the nation through the post-Civil War era, overseeing Reconstruction of the South and enforcing the freedoms of new African-American citizens. His presidential accomplishments were as considerable as his military victories, for the same strength of character that made him successful on the battlefield also characterized his years in the White House.

James McPherson shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war.

In this detailed and fascinating account of the legend of the "Wizard of the Saddle," we see a man whose strengths and flaws were both of towering proportions, a man possessed of physical valor perhaps unprecedented among his countrymen. And, ironically, Forrest - the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan - was a man whose social attitudes may well have changed farther in the direction of racial enlightenment over the span of his lifetime than those of most American historical figures.

In this revelatory, dynamic biography, Benson Bobrick, profiles George H. Thomas, arguing that he was the greatest and most successful general of the Civil War. Because Thomas didn't live to write his memoirs, his reputation has been largely shaped by others, most notably Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, two generals with whom Thomas served and who diminished his successes in their favor in their own memoirs.

A quiet, wealthy plantation owner, Jack Hinson watched the start of the Civil War with disinterest. Opposed to secession and a friend to Union and Confederate commanders alike, he did not want a war. After Union soldiers seized and murdered his sons, placing their decapitated heads on the gateposts of his estate, Hinson could remain indifferent no longer. He commissioned a special rifle for long-range accuracy, he took to the woods, and he set out for revenge.