Books in the Voices of the Civil War series

Shows readers the US Civil War through the recollections of Bartholomew Diggins, a young sailor who fought under US Admiral David G. Farragut in the battles for control of the Mississippi River. Diggins's memoir, one of a very few written by a sailor on either side, allows readers to experience a Northern seamen's daily existence and the perilous battles he endured during the war.

Many soldiers who served in the American Civil War found solace in their faith during the most trying times of the war. But few soldiers took such a providential view of life and the Civil War as Charles Henry Howard. Born in a small town in Maine, Howard came from a family with a distinguished history of soldiering: his grandfather was a Revolutionary War veteran and his brother, the older and more well-known Oliver Otis Howard, attended West Point and rose to command an army in the Civil War. Following in his brother's footsteps, Charles Henry Howard graduated from Bowdoin College in 1859. Following graduation, Charles visited his older brother at West Point during the tumultuous election of 1860. While at West Point, Howard saw the tensions between Northern and Southern cadets escalate as he weighed his options for a military or theological career. The choice was made for him on April 12, 1861, with the firing on Fort Sumter. Responding to his brother's plea for the sons of Maine to join the Union cause, Charles found himself a noncommissioned officer fighting in the disastrous Battle of First Bull Run. All told, Howard fought in several major battles of the Eastern Theater, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, and went on to participate in various military actions in the Western Theater including Sherman's bloody Atlanta Campaign. He was wounded twice, first at the Battle of Fair Oaks and again at Fredericksburg. Yet, despite facing the worst horrors of war, Howard rarely wavered in his faith and rose steadily in rank throughout the conflict. By war's end, he was a brevet brigadier general in command of the 128th U.S. Colored Troop Regiment. Howard's letters cover a wide-ranging period, from 1852 to 1908. His concern for his family is typical of a Civil War soldier, but his exceptionally firm reliance on divine providence is what makes these letters an extraordinary window into the mind of a Civil War officer. Howard's grounded faith was often tested by the viciousness of war, and as a result his letters are rife with stirring confessions and his emotional grappling with the harsh realities he faced. Howard's letters expose the greater theological and metaphysical dilemmas of the war faced by so many on both sides.

A Documentary History of the American Civil War Era is the first comprehensive collectionof public policy actions, political speeches, and judicial decisions related to the AmericanCivil War. Collectively, the four volumes in this series give scholars, teachers, and studentseasy access to the full texts of the most important, fundamental documents as well as hardto->The first two volumes of the series, Legislative Achievements and Political Arguments, were released last year. The final installment, Judicial Decisions, is divided into two volumes.The first volume, spanning the years 1857 to 1866, was released last year. This secondvolume of Judicial Decisions covers the years 1867 to 1896. Included here are some ofthe classic judicial decisions of this time such as the 1869 decision in Texas v. White andthe first judicial interpretation of the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment, the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases. Other decisions are well known to specialists but deserve wider readershipand discussion, such as the 1867 state and 1878 federal cases that upheld the separation ofthe races in public accommodations (and thus constituted the common law of commoncommerce) long before the more notorious 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson (also included).These judicial voices constitute a lasting and often overlooked aspect of the age of AbrahamLincoln. Mackey's headnotes and introductory essays situate cases within their historicalcontext and trace their lasting significance. In contrast to decisions handed downduring the war, these judicial decisions lasted well past their immediate political and legal>This document collection presents the raw "stuff" of the Civil War era so that students, scholars, and interested readers can measure and gauge how that generation met Lincoln'schallenge to "think anew, and act anew." A Documentary History of the American CivilWar Era is an essential acquisition for academic and public libraries in addition to being avaluable resource for courses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, legal history, politicalhistory, and nineteenth-century American history.