Rise to Greatness

Rise to Greatness PDF

Author: David Von Drehle

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2012-10-30

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 080507970X

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"Von Drehle has chosen a critical year ('the most eventful year in American history' and the year Lincoln rose to greatness), done his homework, and written a spirited account."N"Publishers Weekly."

Freedom by the Sword

Freedom by the Sword PDF

Author: William A. Dobak

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-02-01

Total Pages: 616

ISBN-13: 1510720227

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The Civil War changed the United States in many ways—economic, political, and social. Of these changes, none was more important than Emancipation. Besides freeing nearly four million slaves, it brought agricultural wage labor to a reluctant South and gave a vote to black adult males in the former slave states. It also offered former slaves new opportunities in education, property ownership—and military service. From late 1862 to the spring of 1865, as the Civil War raged on, the federal government accepted more than 180,000 black men as soldiers, something it had never done before on such a scale. Known collectively as the United States Colored Troops and organized in segregated regiments led by white officers, some of these soldiers guarded army posts along major rivers; others fought Confederate raiders to protect Union supply trains, and still others took part in major operations like the Siege of Petersburg and the Battle of Nashville. After the war, many of the black regiments took up posts in the former Confederacy to enforce federal Reconstruction policy. Freedom by the Sword tells the story of these soldiers' recruitment, organization, and service. Thanks to its broad focus on every theater of the war and its concentration on what black soldiers actually contributed to Union victory, this volume stands alone among histories of the U.S. Colored Troops.

The Richmond Campaign of 1862

The Richmond Campaign of 1862 PDF

Author: Gary W. Gallagher

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780807825525

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Whiting's Confederate division in the battle of Gaines's Mill, the role of artillery in the battle of Malvern Hill, and the efforts of Radical Republicans in the North to use the Richmond campaign to rally support for emancipation."--BOOK JACKET.

Shiloh, 1862

Shiloh, 1862 PDF

Author: Winston Groom

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-03-20

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1426208790

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In the spring of 1862, many Americans still believed that the Civil War, "would be over by Christmas." The previous summer in Virginia, Bull Run, with nearly 5,000 casualties, had been shocking, but suddenly came word from a far away place in the wildernesses of Southwest Tennessee of an appalling battle costing 23,000 casualties, most of them during a single day. It was more than had resulted from the entire American Revolution. As author Winston Groom reveals in this dramatic, heart-rending account, the Battle of Shiloh would singlehandedly change the psyche of the military, politicians, and American people - North and South - about what they had unleashed by creating a Civil War. In this gripping telling of the first "great and terrible" battle of the Civil War, Groom describes the dramatic events of April 6 and 7, 1862, when a bold surprise attack on Ulysses S. Grant's encamped troops and the bloody battle that ensued would alter the timbre of the war. The Southerners struck at dawn on April 6th, and Groom vividly recounts the battle that raged for two days over the densely wooded and poorly mapped terrain. Driven back on the first day, Grant regrouped and mounted a fierce attack the second, and aided by the timely arrival of reinforcements managed to salvage an encouraging victory for the Federals. Groom's deft prose reveals how the bitter fighting would test the mettle of the motley soldiers assembled on both sides, and offer a rehabilitation of sorts for Union General William Sherman, who would go on from the victory at Shiloh to become one of the great generals of the war. But perhaps the most alarming outcome, Groom poignantly reveals, was the realization that for all its horror, the Battle of Shiloh had solved nothing, gained nothing, proved nothing, and the thousands of maimed and slain were merely wretched symbols of things to come. With a novelist's eye for telling and a historian's passion for detail, context, and meaning, Groom brings the key characters and moments of battle to life. Shiloh is an epic tale, deftly told by a masterful storyteller.

The Peninsula Campaign of 1862

The Peninsula Campaign of 1862 PDF

Author: Kevin Dougherty

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2010-01-08

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1604730617

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The largest offensive of the Civil War, involving army, navy, and marine forces, the Peninsula Campaign has inspired many history books. No previous work, however, analyzes Union general George B. McClellan's massive assault toward Richmond in the context of current and enduring military doctrine. The Peninsula Campaign of 1862: A Military Analysis fills this void. Background history is provided for continuity, but the heart of this book is military analysis and the astonishing extent to which the personality traits of generals often overwhelm even the best efforts of their armies. The Peninsula Campaign lends itself to such a study. Lessons for those studying the art of war are many. On water, the first ironclads forever changed naval warfare. At the strategic level, McClellan's inability to grasp Lincoln's grand objective becomes evident. At the operational level, Robert E. Lee's difficulty in synchronizing his attacks deepens the mystique of how he achieved so much with so little. At the tactical level, the Confederate use of terrain to trade space for time allows for a classic study in tactics. Moreover, the campaign is full of lessons about the personal dimension of war. McClellan's overcaution, Lee's audacity, and Jackson's personal exhaustion all provide valuable insights for today's commanders and for Civil War enthusiasts still debating this tremendous struggle. Historic photos and detailed battle maps make this study an invaluable resource for those touring the many battlegrounds from Young's Mill and Yorktown through Fair Oaks to the final throes of the Seven Days' Battles.

Helsinki

Helsinki PDF

Author: Neil Kent

Publisher: Interlink Publishing

Published: 2014-07-30

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 162371060X

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Helsinki is one of the world's most northerly capitals, but it is by no means a city frozen in northern wastes. Situated along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, magnificent lakes and forests reach into Helsinki's urban heart, a rare event in today's world of suburban sprawl. The city’s natural beauty, emphasized by parks and islands, is matched by an extraordinary cultural richness, the result of fruitful foreign influences and home-grown creativity. The Finnish capital offers a spectacular display of architecture and design: from the neoclassical magnificence imposed by a Russian Czar to the modernist chic of Nordic functionalism. Neil Kent explores the history and culture of the Daughter of the Baltic, a small fishing village that became a powerhouse of design and technology. Tracing its dramatic past of conflict and conflagration, he explores the evolution of a national, and urban, identity through architecture, art and writing. Through such differing cultural phenomena as saunas, railway stations and tango, he explains why Helsinki is a distinctive mix of tradition and innovation. • The city of architects and designers: Engel, Czar Alexander I and the creation of an imperial metropolis; Alvar Aaalto and the birth of the modern; functionalism and high-tech innovation. • The city of music and the arts: Sibelius, the national composer; conductors and performers; art galleries and installations; National Romanticism and the Nordic aesthetic. • The city of hospitality: Art Nouveau hotels and cafes; sauna culture; famous visitors and refugees: Lenin and Hitler; multicultural Helsinki and a history of migration.

Shenandoah 1862

Shenandoah 1862 PDF

Author: Peter Cozzens

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2009-11-05

Total Pages: 640

ISBN-13: 0807898473

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One of the most intriguing and storied episodes of the Civil War, the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign has heretofore been related only from the Confederate point of view. Moving seamlessly between tactical details and analysis of strategic significance, Peter Cozzens presents a balanced, comprehensive account of a campaign that has long been romanticized but little understood. He offers new interpretations of the campaign and the reasons for Stonewall Jackson's success, demonstrates instances in which the mythology that has come to shroud the campaign has masked errors on Jackson's part, and provides the first detailed appraisal of Union leadership in the Valley Campaign, with some surprising conclusions.

The American Indian in the Civil War, 1862-1865

The American Indian in the Civil War, 1862-1865 PDF

Author: Annie Heloise Abel

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9780803259195

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Annie Heloise Abel describes the 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge, a bloody disaster for the Confederates but a glorious moment for Colonel Stand Watie and his Cherokee Mounted Rifles. The Indians were soon enough swept by the war into a vortex of confusion and chaos. Abel makes clear that their participation in the conflict brought only devastation to Indian Territory. Born in England and educated in Kansas, Annie Heloise Abel (1873?1947) was a historical editor and writer of books dealing mainly with the trans-Mississippi West. They include The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist (1915), also reprinted as a Bison Book. Abel's distinguished career is noted in an introduction by Theda Perdue, the author of Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society (1979), and Michael D. Green, whose Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis (1982) was published by the University of Nebraska Press.

Corinth 1862

Corinth 1862 PDF

Author: Timothy B. Smith

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2016-10-07

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 0700623450

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In the spring of 1862, there was no more important place in the western Confederacy-perhaps in all the South-than the tiny town of Corinth, Mississippi. Major General Henry W. Halleck, commander of Union forces in the Western Theater, reported to Washington that "Richmond and Corinth are now the great strategical points of war, and our success at these points should be insured at all hazards." In the same vein, Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard declared to Richmond that "If defeated at Corinth, we lose the Mississippi Valley and probably our cause." Those were odd sentiments concerning a town scarcely a decade old. By this time, however, it sat at the junction of the South's two most important rail lines and had become a major strategic locale. Despite its significance, Corinth has received comparatively little attention from Civil War historians and has been largely overshadowed by events at Shiloh, Antietam, and Perryville. Timothy Smith's panoramic and vividly detailed new look at Corinth corrects that neglect, focusing on the nearly year-long campaign that opened the way to Vicksburg and presaged the Confederacy's defeat in the West. Combining big-picture strategic and operational analysis with ground-level views, Smith covers the spring siege, the vicious attacks and counterattacks of the October battle, and the subsequent occupation. He has drawn extensively on hundreds of eyewitness accounts to capture the sights, sounds, and smells of battle and highlight the command decisions of Halleck, Beauregard, Ulysses S. Grant, Sterling Price, William S. Rosecrans, and Earl Van Dorn. This is also the first in-depth examination of Corinth following the creation of a new National Park Service center located at the site. Weaving together an immensely compelling tale that places the reader in the midst of war's maelstrom, it substantially revises and enlarges our understanding of Corinth and its crucial importance in the Civil War.