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An award-winning historian dramatically recreates a turning point in the Civil War--the battle for the besieged city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Lively narrative, dozens of previously unpublished photographs, maps, and excerpts from private journals and letters capture every side of this crucial battle whose aftermath sealed the fate of the South.
When Vicksburg fell to Union forces under General Grant in July 1863, the balance turned against the Confederacy in the trans-Appalachian theater. The Federal success along the river opened the way for advances into central and eastern Tennessee, which culminated in the battle of Chickamauga and then a struggle for the strategically important city of Chattanooga. Chickamauga, one of the bloodiest battles in a war noted for carnage, is usually counted as a Confederate victory, albeit a costly one. That battle - indeed the entire campaign - is marked by muddle and blunders occasionally relieved by strokes of brilliant generalship and high courage. The campaign ended significant Confederate presence in Tennessee. It also left the Union poised for advance upon Atlanta and the Confederacy on the brink of defeat in the western theater.
"If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for . . . my courage does not halt or falter" – Major Sullivan Ballou, 1861, prior to the Battle of Bull Run In Courage Under Fire, award-winning historian Wiley Sword captures the fervor of a nation at war with itself; a war that pitted brother against brother. Through the immediacy of diaries and letters written not only on the battlefields and in camps but also on the deathbeds of soldiers from both the North and South, Sword lays bare the complexities and depth of a soldier's mind in coming to grips with life and death – even while his country, and often his family, is mercilessly ripped apart. From wives and mothers to the highest military figures, all strived toward often worthy but difficult objectives, while seeking to suffer as little as possible. Featured in this compelling study of men and women facing the severest stress of their lives are fascinating stories such as that of Union Lieutenant Colonel Frank Curtiss. He was ordered to take his regiment, the 127th Illinois, in a hopeless charge against the enemy's fortified lines at Atlanta, Ga. on August 3, 1864. Aware that many of his men would die needlessly and for minimal tactical gain, he refused to obey these orders. The moral courage to fight meant also to appropriately assess the risks and weigh the loss in lives of one's soldiers. Confederate General John Bell Hood's decision to sacrifice much of his army at Franklin, Tennessee on November 30th 1864, ranks as one of the saddest events of the war. His aggressive behavior is assessed in terms of both moral and physical courage, providing a revealing insight into the character of one of the war's key commanders. The prospect of death in battle was a fearsome prospect for Lucy Morse, who kept desperate hope her husband, William H. Morse, would survive the fighting. She wrote to him,"I was almost crazy before I heard from you for fear that you had shared the fate of many a brave soldier." Her story and that of the fateful events in their lives provides graphic evidence of the fiber of America's soldiers and their worthy families. In a revealing portrait of courage and its often bloody consequences, Wiley Sword conveys a vivid picture of bravery under extreme stress, which is fully appropriate in today's world.
The 25th Anniversary ebook, now with more than 50 images. 'Touching the Void' is the tale of two mountaineer’s harrowing ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. In the summer of 1985, two young, headstrong mountaineers set off to conquer an unclimbed route. They had triumphantly reached the summit, when a horrific accident mid-descent forced one friend to leave another for dead. Ambition, morality, fear and camaraderie are explored in this electronic edition of the mountaineering classic, with never before seen colour photographs taken during the trip itself.
General Braxton Bragg is often described as a despicable, friendless man, the most hated general of the Confederacy. Historians have denigrated Bragg by accepting without challenge the self-serving accusations of prominent, disgruntled subordinates, each of whom sought to explain their own failures by assigning them to Bragg. This biography, without dodging Bragg's deficiencies, refutes much of this false testimony. The result is a balanced view of this controversial general, from his early rise to power in the Western theater to his subsequent fall from grace in the latter years of the Civil War.
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner: “The terrifying story of the worst disaster in the history of the US Forest Service’s elite Smokejumpers.” —Kirkus Reviews A devastating and lyrical work of nonfiction, Young Men and Fire describes the events of August 5, 1949, when a crew of fifteen of the US Forest Service’s elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of the men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy in this extraordinary book. Alongside Maclean’s now-canonical A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Young Men and Fire is recognized today as a classic of the American West. This edition of Maclean’s later triumph—the last book he would write—includes a powerful new foreword by Timothy Egan, author of The Big Burn and The Worst Hard Time. As moving and profound as when it was first published, Young Men and Fire honors the literary legacy of a man who gave voice to an essential corner of the American soul. “A moving account of humanity, nature, and the perseverance of the human spirit.” —Library Journal “Haunting.” —The Wall Street Journal “Engrossing.” —Publishers Weekly
A tale of ordinary Florida citizens who, during extraordinary times, were called to battle against their fellow countrymen Over the past twenty years, historians have worked diligently to explore Florida’s role in the Civil War. Works describing the state’s women and its wartime economy have contributed to this effort, yet until recently the story of Florida’s soldiers in the Confederate armies has been little studied. This volume explores the story of schoolmates going to war and of families left behind, of a people fighting to maintain a society built on slavery and of a state torn by political and regional strife. Florida in 1860 was very much divided between radical democrats and conservatives. Before the war the state’s inhabitants engaged in bitter political rivalries, and Sheppard argues that prior to secession Florida citizens maintained regional loyalties rather than considering themselves “Floridians.” He shows that service in Confederate armies helped to ease tensions between various political factions and worked to reduce the state’s regional divisions. Sheppard also addresses the practices of prisoner parole and exchange, unit consolidation and its effects on morale and unit identity, politics within the Army of Tennessee, and conscription and desertion in the Southern armies. These issues come together to demonstrate the connection between the front lines and the home front.
William B. Feis offers us the first scholarly examination of the use of military intelligence under Ulysses S.øGrant?s command during the Civil War. Feis makes the new and provocative argument that Grant?s use of the Army of the Potomac?s Bureau of Military Information played a significant role in Lee?s defeat. Feis?s work articulately rebuts accusations by Grant?s detractors that his battlefield successes involved little more than the bludgeoning of an undermanned and outgunned opponent.
