Books in the Emerging Civil War Series series

Do not bring on a general engagement, Confederate General Robert E. Lee warned his commanders. The Army of Northern Virginia, slicing its way through south-central Pennsylvania, was too spread out, too vulnerable, for a full-scale engagement with its old nemesis, the Army of the Potomac. Too much was riding on this latest Confederate invasion of the North. Too much was at stake.As Confederate forces groped their way through the mountain passes, a chance encounter with Federal cavalry on the outskirts of a small Pennsylvania crossroads town triggered a series of events that quickly escalated beyond Lee's-or anyone's-control. Waves of soldiers materialized on both sides in a constantly shifting jigsaw of combat. "e;You will have to fight like the devil . . ."e; one Union cavalryman predicted.The costliest battle in the history of the North American continent had begun.July 1, 1863 remains the most overlooked phase of the battle of Gettysburg, yet it set the stage for all the fateful events that followed.Bringing decades of familiarity to the discussion, historians Chris Mackowski and Daniel T. Davis, in their always-engaging style, recount the action of that first day of battle and explore the profound implications in Fight Like the Devil.

"“I thought my men were invincible,” admitted Robert E. Lee.A string of battlefield victories through 1862 had culminated in the spring of 1863 with Lee’s greatest victory yet: the battle of Chancellorsville. Propelled by the momentum of that supreme moment, confident in the abilities of his men, Lee decided to once more take the fight to the Yankees and launched this army on another invasion of the North.An appointment with destiny awaited in the little Pennsylvania college town of Gettysburg.Historian Dan Welch follows in the footsteps of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac as the two foes cat-and-mouse their way northward, ultimately clashing in the costliest battle in North American history.Based on the Gettysburg Civil War Trails, and packed with dozens of lesser-known sites related to the Gettysburg Campaign, The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign offers the ultimate Civil War road trip.

This latest entry into the Emerging Civil War Series tells of the leaders and men who fought for control of New Orleans, the largest city in the South, the key to the Mississippi, and the commercial gateway for the Confederacy.

They melted like snow on the ground, one officer said-wave after wave of Federal soldiers charging uphill across an open, muddy plain. Confederates, fortified behind a stone wall along a sunken road, poured a solid hail of lead into them as they charged . . . and faltered . . . and died.

John Bell Hood had done his job too well. In the fall of 1864, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee had harassed Federal forces in north Georgia so badly that the Union commander, William T. Sherman, decided to abandon his position. During his subsequent ¿March to the Sea,¿ Sherman¿s men lived off the land and made Georgia howl.Rather than confront the larger Federal force directly, Hood chose instead to strike northward into Tennessee. There, he hoped to cripple the Federal supply infrastructure and the Federal forces that still remained there¿the Army of the Cumberland under George Thomas. Hood hoped to defeat Thomas¿s army in detail and force Sherman to come northward to the rescue.On November 30, in a small country town called Franklin, Hood caught part of Thomas¿s army outside of its stronghold of Nashville. But what began as a promising opportunity for the outnumbered Confederate army soon turned grim. ¿I do not like the looks of this fight,¿ one of Hood¿s subordinates said; ¿the enemy has an excellent position and is well fortified.¿Hood was determined to root the Federals out.¿Well,¿ said a Confederate officer, ¿if we are to die, let us die like men.¿And thousands of them did. As wave after murderous wave crashed against the Federal fortifications, the Army of Tennessee shattered itself. It eventually found victory¿but at a cost so bloody and so chilling, the name ¿Franklin¿ would ever after be synonymous with disaster.Historian William Lee White, whose devotion to the Army of Tennessee has taken him from the dense forests of northwest Georgia to the gates of Atlanta and back into Tennessee, now pens the penultimate chapter in the army¿s storied history in Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864.