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In 1978, Lawrence Lee Hewitt became the first manager of the Port Hudson State Historic Site. There, he began collecting photographs related to the Civil War battle. Carefully analyzing a vast and remarkable photographic record of Port Hudson, Hewitt has now brought his four decades of research and collecting together in this book. The quantity, diversity, and in some cases uniqueness of these photos help widen our perspective not only on Port Hudson and the Civil War's impact on its people and environment, but also on the history of photography. Together the six cameramen claimed many "firsts," including the first-ever photograph of soldiers engaged in battle, first exterior shots at night,...
As these soldiers fortified the bluff, they sought to avoid drawing fire from Union naval vessels already present in the area. Throughout their occupation of Port Hudson, the Confederate troops were able to hold their position tenaciously, fighting off federal efforts to block supply ships by controlling the mouth of the Red River. The Union's failure to starve out the Confederates eventually led them to launch a direct assault on Port Hudson. This attack was unsuccessful and was followed by an equally disastrous siege. Consequently, Port Hudson did not surrender until after the capitulation of Vicksburg in 1863. Hewitt also discusses a unique outcome of this period of the war: the increased enlistment of black soldiers in northern units. According to the author, the newspaper coverage of the charge by black troops at Port Hudson proved to be vital in convincing the northern masses to accept the enlistment of nearly 180,000 black soldiers in the Army before the end of the war.
This book contains never before published information, including artillery firing tables, for an Indiana infantry regiment converted to heavy artillery. It concentrates upon these Hoosiers' three-and-a-half years of duty in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and Gulf states during the Civil War, often as a separate command. They acted as infantry, cavalry and light artillery (with captured cannons) before being converted to heavy artillery in 1863. Their cannons and artillery equipment were hauled by hundreds of mules. The regiment participated in the taking of New Orleans, securing an important rail link to Morgan City, Louisiana, the Teche Campaign, the siege and reduction of Port Hudson, the Red River Campaign, and sieges and reductions of Fort Gaines, Fort Morgan, Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely, Alabama.
Inspired and informed by the latest research in African American, military, and social history, the fourteen original essays in this book tell the stories of the African American soldiers who fought for the Union cause. An introductory essay surveys the history of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) from emancipation to the end of the Civil War. Seven essays focus on the role of the USCT in combat, chronicling the contributions of African Americans who fought at Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Olustee, Fort Pillow, Petersburg, Saltville, and Nashville. Other essays explore the recruitment of black troops in the Mississippi Valley; the U.S. Colored Cavalry; the military leadership of Colonels Thomas...
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...
Drawing on six years of research, this book covers the military service and postwar lives of notable Confederate veterans who moved into Northern California at the end the Civil War. Biographies of 101 former rebels are provided, from the oldest brother of the Clanton Gang to the son of a President to plantation owners, dirt farmers, criminals and everything in between.
Drawing on primary and secondary sources, this book offers a new synthesis of the sixty years before the Civil War. James A. Ramage and Andrea S. Watkins explore this crucial but often overlooked period, finding that the early years of statehood were an era of great optimism and progress. Ramage and Watkins demonstrate that the eyes of the nation often focused on Kentucky, which was perceived as a leader among the states before the Civil War.--From publisher's description.
This book uses the history of Breathitt County, Kentucky, to examine political violence in the United States and its interpretation in media and memory. Violence in Breathitt County, during and after the Civil War, usually reflected what was going on elsewhere in Kentucky and the American South. In turn, the types of violence recorded there corresponded with discernible political scenarios.
Not quite twenty-years old, Sarah Morgan began her diary in January 1862, nine months after the start of the Civil War. She writes of her many brothers, the turmoil of the devasted South and events of the war. For the first time, the entire diary has been published unabridged.