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A Mortal Blow to the Confederacy
Abraham Lincoln knew if the Union could cut off shipping to and from New Orleans, the largest exporting port in the world, and control the Mississippi River, it would be a mortal blow to the Confederate economy. Union military leaders devised a secret plan to attack the city from the Gulf of Mexico with a formidable naval flotilla under one commander, David G. Farragut, a native New Orleanian. Jefferson Davis also understood the city’s importance—but he and his military leaders remained steadfastly undecided about where the threat to the city lay, sending troops to Tennessee rather than addressing the Union forces amassing in the Gulf. In the city, Confederate General Mansfield Lovell, a...
Sons of the White Eagle in the American Civil War
The untold stories of nine Polish Americans who bravely fought in the Civil War—includes photographs, maps, and illustrations. This unique history chronicles the lives of nine Polish American immigrants who fought in the Civil War. Spanning three generations, they are connected by the White Eagle—the Polish coat of arms—and by a shared history in which their home country fell to ruin at the end of the previous century. Still, each carried a belief in freedom that they inherited from their forefathers. More highly trained in warfare than their American brethren—and more inured to struggles for nationhood—the Poles made significant contributions to the armies they served. The first g...
Poland in a Colonial World Order
Poland in a Colonial World Order is a study of the interwar Polish state and empire building project in a changing world of empires, nation-states, dominions, protectorates, mandates, and colonies. Drawing from a wide range of sources spanning two continents and five countries, Piotr Puchalski examines how Polish elites looked to expansion in South America and Africa as a solution to both real problems, such as industrial backwardness, and perceived issues, such as the supposed overrepresentation of Jews in "liberal professions." He charts how, in partnership with other European powers and international institutions such as the League of Nations, Polish leaders made attempts to channel emigr...
Dreams of Victory
“Chick does a good job of portraying [General Beauregard] as the first real hero of the Confederacy, who at times proved his own worst enemy.” —The NYMAS Review Few Civil War generals attracted as much debate and controversy as Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard. He combined brilliance and charisma with arrogance and histrionics. He was a Catholic Creole in a society dominated by white Protestants, which made him appear exotic next to the likes of Albert Sidney Johnston and Robert E. Lee. He was reviled by Jefferson Davis and mocked by Mary Chesnut in her diary. Yet he was popular with his soldiers and subordinates. Outside of Lee, he was the South’s most consistently successful comman...
The Carnage was Fearful
“Profusely illustrated . . . an extraordinary and detailed account of a major battle that is often overlooked and underappreciated by Civil War historians.” —Midwest Book Review In early August 1862, Confederate Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson took to the field with his Army of the Valley for one last fight—one that would also turn out to be his last independent command. Near the base of Cedar Mountain, in the midst of a blistering heat wave, outnumbered Federal infantry under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks attacked Jackson’s army as it marched toward Culpeper Court House. A violent three-hour battle erupted, yielding more than 3,600 casualties. “The carnage was fearful,” one observer w...
Passing Through the Fire
This Civil War biography “draw[s] upon fresh material . . . to offer some important new insights. . . . An outstanding addition.” (NYMAS Book Review) As the brigade he commanded attacked a Confederate battery on a hill outside Petersburg in July 1864, a bursting shell blew Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain from the saddle and wounded his horse. After the enemy battery skedaddled, the brigade took the hill and dug in, and up came supporting Union guns. Chamberlain figured the day’s fighting ended. Then an unidentified senior officer ordered his brigade to charge and capture the heavily defended main Confederate line. Chamberlain protested the order, then complied, taking his men forward—unti...
To Hell or Richmond
In the spring of 1862, George McClellan and his massive army were slowly making their way up the Virginia Peninsula. Their goal: Capture the Confederate capital and end the rebellion. “To Hell or Richmond,” one Federal artillery unit vowed, sewing the words onto their flag. The outnumbered and outgunned Confederates under generals “Prince John” Magruder and Joseph E. Johnston kept pulling back, drawing McClellan away from his base at Fort Monroe and further up the peninsula—exactly the direction McClellan wanted to go. But if they could draw him just far enough, and out of position, they hoped to attack and defeat him. As McClellan approached the very gates of Richmond, a great battle brewed. Could the Confederates save their capital and, with it, their young nation? Could the Federals win the war with a single fatal blow? In To Hell or Richmond: The 1862 Peninsula Campaign, Doug Crenshaw and Drew Gruber follow the armies on their trek up the peninsula. The stakes grew enormous, surprises awaited, and the soldiers themselves had only two possible destinations in mind.
Force of a Cyclone
All of Middle Tennessee held its breath when the new year dawned in 1863. One day earlier on December 31, Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Army of Tennessee faced off against William Rosecrans’s Federal Army of the Cumberland just outside Murfreesboro along Stones River. The commanders, who led armies nearly equal in size, had prepared identical attack plans, but Bragg struck first. His morning attack bent the Federal line back upon itself. The desperate fighting seesawed throughout the day amid rocky outcroppings and cedar groves. The Federals managed to avoid a crushing defeat and hold on until dark as the last hours of the old year slipped away. The cold and exhausted soldiers rang in the ...
Unlike Anything That Ever Floated
A history of the American Civil War naval battle, the first confrontation between two Ironclads, featuring accounts from men who lived through it. “Ironclad against ironclad, we maneuvered about the bay here and went at each other with mutual fierceness,” reported Chief Engineer Alban Stimers following that momentous engagement between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (ex USS Merrimack) in Hampton Roads, Sunday, March 9, 1862. The day before, the Rebel ram had obliterated two powerful Union warships and was poised to destroy more. That night, the revolutionary—not to say bizarre—Monitor slipped into harbor after hurrying down from New York through fierce gales that almost sank he...
Six Miles from Charleston, Five Minutes to Hell
The small, curiously named village of Secessionville, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina was the site of an early war skirmish, the consequences of which might have been enormous had the outcome been different. It quickly would be forgotten, however, as the Seven Days battles, fought shortly afterward and far to the north, attracted the attention of Americans on both sides of the conflict. The battle at Secessionville was as bloody and hard fought as any similar sized encounter during the war. But it was poorly planned and poorly led by the Union commanders whose behavior did not do justice to the courage of their men. That courage was acknowledged by Confederate Lt. Iredell Jones wh...
