[PDF] The Most Desperate Acts Of Gallantry eBook

Author : Daniel T. Davis
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 43,49 MB
Release : 2018-08-19
Category : History
ISBN : 1611214122

GET BOOK

“Presents Custer’s Civil War accomplishments in clear and engaging prose, while its ample images and battle maps place unfamiliar readers in the action.” —The Civil War Monitor Through the passage of time, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s last fight, the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, has come to overshadow the rest of his military career, which had its brilliant beginning in the American Civil War. Plucked from obscurity by Maj. Gen. George McClellan, Custer served as a staff officer through the early stages of the war. His star began to rise in late June, 1863, when he catapulted several grades to brigadier general and was given brigade command. Shortly thereafter, at Gettysburg and Buckland Mills, he led his men—the Wolverines—in some of the heaviest cavalry fighting of the Eastern Theater. At Yellow Tavern, Custer’s assault broke the enemy line, and one of his troopers mortally wounded the legendary Confederate cavalryman, J.E.B. Stuart. At Trevilian Station, his brigade was nearly destroyed. At Third Winchester, he participated in an epic cavalry charge. Elevated to lead the Third Cavalry Division, Custer played a major role at Tom’s Brook and, later, at Appomattox, which ultimately led to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Historian Daniel T. Davis, a long-time student of George Custer, has spent countless hours walking and studying the battlefields where Custer fought in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. In The Most Desperate Acts of Gallantry, he chronicles the Civil War experiences of one of the most recognized individuals to emerge from that tragic chapter in American history. “A fast-paced study, engaging study.” —Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era

Author : Lambton J. H. Young
Publisher : Hardpress Publishing
Page : 382 pages
File Size : 11,58 MB
Release : 2019-07-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781318650408

GET BOOK

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

Author : Derek Maxfield
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 19,32 MB
Release : 2020-05-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1611214882

GET BOOK

An in-depth history of the inhumane Union Civil War prison camp that became known as “the Andersonville of the North.” Long called by some the “Andersonville of the North,” the prisoner of war camp in Elmira, New York, is remembered as the most notorious of all Union-run POW camps. It existed only from the summer of 1864 to July 1865, but in that time, and for long after, it became darkly emblematic of man’s inhumanity to man. Confederate prisoners called it “Hellmira.” Hastily constructed, poorly planned, and overcrowded, prisoner of war camps North and South were dumping grounds for the refuse of war. An unfortunate necessity, both sides regarded the camps as temporary inconveniences—and distractions from the important task of winning the war. There was no need, they believed, to construct expensive shelters or provide better rations. They needed only to sustain life long enough for the war to be won. Victory would deliver prisoners from their conditions. As a result, conditions in the prisoner of war camps amounted to a great humanitarian crisis, the extent of which could hardly be understood even after the blood stopped flowing on the battlefields. In the years after the war, as Reconstruction became increasingly bitter, the North pointed to Camp Sumter—better known as the Andersonville POW camp in Americus, Georgia—as evidence of the cruelty and barbarity of the Confederacy. The South, in turn, cited the camp in Elmira as a place where Union authorities withheld adequate food and shelter and purposefully caused thousands to suffer in the bitter cold. This finger-pointing by both sides would go on for over a century. And as it did, the legend of Hellmira grew. In this book, Derek Maxfield contextualizes the rise of prison camps during the Civil War, explores the failed exchange of prisoners, and tells the tale of the creation and evolution of the prison camp in Elmira. In the end, Maxfield suggests that it is time to move on from the blame game and see prisoner of war camps—North and South—as a great humanitarian failure. Praise for Hellmira “A unique and informative contribution to the growing library of Civil War histories...Important and unreservedly recommended.” —Midwest Book Review “A good book, and the author should be congratulated.” —Civil War News

Author : Sean Michael Chick
Publisher : Savas Beatie
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 17,8 MB
Release : 2022-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 1611215226

GET BOOK

“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 commander, winning at Bull Run, defending Charleston in 1863, and defeating Benjamin Butler at Bermuda Hundred and Ulysses Grant and George Meade at Petersburg. Yet, he lived his life in the shadow of his one major defeat: Shiloh. Beauregard’s career before and after the war was no less tumultuous. He was born among the Creole elite of Louisiana, but rejected the life of a planter in favor of the military, inspired by tales of Napoléon. He was considered a shining light of the antebellum army and performed superbly in the Mexican-American War. Yet he complained about a lack of promotion and made a frustrating stab at being mayor of New Orleans in 1858. After the war, he was a successful railroad executive and took a stand against racism, violence, and corruption during Reconstruction, but he was ousted from both railroads he oversaw and his foray into Reconstruction politics came to naught. And though he provided for his family and left them a hefty sum after his death, the money was mostly gained by working for the corrupt Louisiana Lottery. In Dreams of Victory: General P.G.T. Beauregard in the Civil War, Sean Michael Chick explores a life of contradictions and dreams unrealized—in a biography of one of the most fascinating figures of the Civil War.

Author : Jon-Erik M. Gilot
Publisher : Savas Beatie
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 24,98 MB
Release : 2023-03-31
Category : History
ISBN : 1611215986

GET BOOK

The first shot of the American Civil War was not fired on April 12, 1861, in Charleston, South Carolina, but instead came on October 16, 1859, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia—or so claimed former slave turned abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The shot came like a meteor in the dark. John Brown, the infamous fighter on the Kansas plains and detester of slavery, led a band of nineteen men on a desperate nighttime raid that targeted the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. There, they planned to begin a war to end slavery in the United States. But after 36 tumultuous hours, John Brown’s Raid failed, and Brown himself became a prisoner of the state of Virginia. Brown’s subsequent trial further divided north and south on the issue of slavery as Brown justified his violent actions to a national audience forced to choose sides. Ultimately, Southerners cheered Brown’s death at the gallows while Northerners observed it with reverence. The nation’s dividing line had been drawn. Herman Melville and Walt Whitman extolled Brown as a “meteor” of the war. Roughly one year after Brown and his men attacked slavery in Virginia, the nation split apart, fueled by Brown’s fiery actions. John Brown’s Raid tells the story of the first shots that led to disunion. Richly filled with maps and images, it includes a driving and walking tour of sites related to Brown’s Raid so visitors today can follow the path of America’s meteor.

Author : Bradley M. Gottfried
Publisher : Savas Beatie
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 10,7 MB
Release : 2024-02-27
Category : History
ISBN : 1611217032

GET BOOK

Even before the guns fell silent at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee was preparing for the arduous task of getting his defeated Confederate army back safely into northern Virginia. It was an enormous, complex, and exceedingly dangerous undertaking—all in a pouring rainstorm and all under the shadow of a possible attack from the Federal Army of the Potomac. Lee first needed to assemble two wagon trains, one to transport the wounded and the other to deliver the tons of supplies acquired by the army as it roamed across Pennsylvania and Maryland on the way to Gettysburg. Once the wagon trains were set, he mapped routes for his infantry and artillery on different roads to speed the journey and protect his command. The victor of Gettysburg, George Meade, remained unsure of Lee’s next move and dispatched Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s VI Corps on a reconnaissance-in-force. The thrust found the Confederate army in full retreat: Lee was heading back to Virginia. Meade launched a pursuit along different routes hoping to catch his beaten enemy without unduly exposing his own battle-exhausted troops to a devastating counterattack or ambush. Union cavalry moved out after the vulnerable Confederate wagon trains. The encounters that followed—including several engagements with Jeb Stuart’s horsemen—resulted in the loss of hundreds of vehicles, the capture of large numbers of wounded, and the seizure of tons of valuable supplies. The majority of Lee’s wagons reached Williamsport, Maryland, only to find the pontoon bridge had been cut loose by Union troops. Lee’s army, meanwhile, reached Hagerstown, Maryland, largely unscathed and erected a strong defensive line while racing to build a pontoon bridge across the swollen Potomac at Falling Waters. Even as Meade hurriedly pursued Lee, he sought opportunities to launch an attack that might crush Lee’s army—and even end the war—once and for all. Bradley M. Gottfried and Linda I. Gottfried share the high-stakes story of Gettysburg’s aftermath in Race to the Potomac: Lee and Meade After Gettysburg, July 4–14, 1863.

Author : Jonathan A. Noyalas
Publisher : Savas Beatie
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 13,16 MB
Release : 2024-05-03
Category : History
ISBN : 1611217164

GET BOOK

Decades after the Civil War’s end, Confederate veteran John Alexander Stikeleather reflected on his experiences as a soldier in the 4th North Carolina Infantry. He had served in many engagements during his four years of service, but there was one in particular that Stikeleather believed should “never be forgotten”: Cool Spring. While largely overlooked or treated as a footnote to Gen. Jubal A. Early’s raid on Washington in the summer of 1864, the fight at Cool Spring, which one soldier characterized as “a sharp and obstinate affair,” proved critical to Washington’s immediate safety. The virtually unknown combat became a transformative moment for those who fought along the banks of the Shenandoah River in what ultimately became the war’s largest and bloodiest engagement in Clarke County, Virginia. The Blood-Tinted Waters of the Shenandoah examines Gen. Horatio Wright’s pursuit of Jubal Early into the Shenandoah and the clash on July 17–18, 1864. It analyzes the decisions of leaders on both sides, explores the environment’s impact on the battle, and investigates how the combat impacted the soldiers and their families—in its immediate aftermath and for decades thereafter. Years of archival research—including an investigation into the backgrounds of the Union and Confederate soldiers who perished in the fighting—coupled with intimate knowledge of the battlefield helps preserve the memory of the fight that should “never be forgotten.” Author Jonathan Noyalas’s study offers not only a history of an overlooked engagement in the oft-contested Shenandoah Valley, but—as Pulitzer Prize finalist Brian Matthew Jordan notes in the book’s Foreword—“a keen reminder that Civil War battles are rich laboratories in which to observe the human experience in all its complexity.”