Books in the Civil War America series

One of the most controversial figures in nineteenth-century American history, Thaddeus Stevens is best remembered for his role as congressional leader of the radical Republicans and as a chief architect of Reconstruction. Long painted by historians as a vindictive 'dictator of Congress,' out to punish the South at the behest of big business and his own ego, Stevens receives a more balanced treatment in Hans L. Trefousse's biography, which portrays him as an impassioned orator and a leader in the struggle against slavery. Trefousse traces Stevens's career through its major phases: from his days in the Pennsylvania state legislature, when he antagonized Freemasons, slaveholders, and Jacksonian Democrats, to his political involvement during Reconstruction, when he helped author the Fourteenth Amendment and spurred on the passage of the Reconstruction Acts and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Throughout, Trefousse explores the motivations for Stevens's lifelong commitment to racial equality, thus furnishing a fuller portrait of the man whose fervent opposition to slavery helped move his more moderate congressional colleagues toward the implementation of egalitarian policies.

Between 1861 and 1865, approximately 200,000 women were widowed by the deaths of Civil War soldiers. They recorded their experiences in diaries, letters, scrapbooks, and pension applications. In Love and Duty, Angela Esco Elder draws on these materials to explore white Confederate widows' stories.

Many accounts of the secession crisis overlook the sharp political conflict that took place in the Border South states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. Michael D. Robinson expands the scope of this crisis to show how the fate of the Border South, and with it the Union, desperately hung in the balance during the fateful months surrounding the clash at Fort Sumter.

Examines the Freedmen's Bureau 's attempt to document and deploy hard information about the reality of the violence that Black communities endured in the wake of Emancipation. William Blair uses the accounts of far-flung Freedmen's Bureau agents to ask questions about the early days of Reconstruction.

In 1861, as part of a last-ditch effort to preserve the Union and prevent war, Abraham Lincoln offered to accept a constitutional amendment that barred Congress from interfering with slavery in the slave states. Daniel Crofts unearths the hidden history and political manoeuvring behind the stillborn attempt to enact this amendment.

Offering new and definitive interpretations of the battle of Peach Tree Creek's place within the Atlanta campaign, Earl J. Hess describes how several Confederate regiments and brigades made a pretense of advancing but then stopped partway to the objective and then took cover. Hess shows that morale played an unusually important role in determining the outcome at Peach Tree Creek.

The only full biography of Don Carlos Buell, the talented Union general who led the Army of Ohio in 1861-62. A pro-slavery Democrat, Buell was removed from command in 1862 because of his failure to pursue Union objectives.

From battlefields, boxcars, and forgotten warehouses to notorious prison camps, prisoners seemed to be everywhere during the American Civil War. Living by Inches is the first book to examine how imprisoned men in the Civil War perceived captivity through the basic building blocks of human experience - their five senses.

How did the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction shape the masculinity of white Confederate veterans? Drawing on personal letters and diaries, James Broomall argues that the crisis of defeat ultimately necessitated new forms of expression between veterans and among men and women.

Offers the first book-length examination of the pivotal Spotsylvania campaign of 7-21 May, 1864. Drawing on extensive research in manuscript collections and an exhaustive reading of the available literature, William Matter sets the strategic stage for the campaign before turning to a detailed description of tactical movements.

Tells the story of how Americans attempted to define what it meant to be a citizen of the United States, at a moment of fracture in the republic's history. As Erik Mathisen demonstrates, prior to the Civil War, American national citizenship amounted to little more than a vague bundle of rights. But during the conflict, citizenship was transformed.

Delving into wartime diaries kept by women of the southern slave-owning class, Steven Stowe recaptures their motivations to keep the days close even as war tore apart the brutal system of slavery that had benefited them. In studying the inner lives of these unsympathetic characters, Stowe also explores the importance - and the limits - of historical empathy as a condition for knowing the past.

While slavery is often at the heart of debates over the causes of the Civil War, historians are not agreed on precisely what aspect of slavery--with its various social, economic, political, cultural, and moral ramifications--gave rise to the sectional rift. In Calculating the Value of the Union, James Huston integrates economic, social, and political history to argue that the issue of property rights as it pertained to slavery was at the center of the Civil War.In the early years of the nineteenth century, southern slaveholders sought a national definition of property rights that would recognize and protect their ownership of slaves. Northern interests, on the other hand, opposed any national interpretation of property rights because of the threat slavery posed to the northern free labor market, particularly if allowed to spread to western territories. This impasse sparked a process of political realignment that culminated in the creation of the Republican Party, ultimately leading to the secession crisis.Deeply researched and carefully written, this study rebuts recent trends in antebellum historiography and persuasively argues for a fundamentally economic interpretation of the slavery issue and the coming of the Civil War.

Offers a view from the trenches of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. This book is not the story of the commanders, but rather shows in intimate detail what the war in the western theatre was like for the enlisted men. Larry Daniel argues that the unity of the Army of Tennessee can be understood only by viewing the army from the bottom up rather than the top down.

In this engaging and nuanced political history of Northern communities in the Civil War era, Adam I.P. Smith offers a new interpretation of the familiar story of the path to war and ultimate victory. Smith looks beyond the political divisions between abolitionist Republicans and Copperhead Democrats to consider the everyday conservatism that characterized the majority of Northern voters.

Lincoln's Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky

Historians have given a great deal of attention to the lives and experiences of Civil War soldiers, but surprisingly little is known about navy sailors who participated in the conflict. Michael J. Bennett remedies the longstanding neglect of Civil War seamen in this comprehensive assessment of the experience of common Union sailors from 1861 to 1865.

The role of slaves and free blacks in the politics of secession.

Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War

One of the most intriguing and storied episodes of the Civil War, the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign has previously 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 romanticised but little understood.

In the years after the Civil War, black and white Union soldiers who survived the horrific struggle joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)-the Union army's largest veterans' organisation. In this thoroughly researched and groundbreaking study, Barbara Gannon chronicles black and white veterans' efforts to create and sustain the nation's first interracial organisation.

In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat

Earl J.Hess's study of armies and fortifications turns to the 1864 Overland Campaign to cover battles from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor. Drawing on primary sources and examination of battlefields at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Bermuda Hundred, and Cold Harbor, Hess analyses Union and Confederate movements and tactics and the new way Grant and Lee employed entrenchments.

Why did many Irish Americans, who did not have a direct connection to slavery, choose to fight for the Confederacy? This perplexing question is at the heart of Gleeson's comprehensive analysis of the Irish in the Confederate States of America.

When Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 prompted several Southern states to secede, the North was sharply divided over how to respond. This book, the study in over fifty years of how the North handled the secession crisis, follows the decision-making process from bitter partisan rancor to consensus.