Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home
Draws on the letters, diaries, & memoirs of common soldiers to show how
mid-19th-century ideas & images of the home & family shaped the Union
soldiers approach to everything from military discipline to battlefield
bravery. Many experienced the war as a coming-of-age rite, a test of such
virtues as self-control, endurance, & courage. They served in companies
recruited from the same communities, & they wrote letters reporting on
each others performance. So, too, were they deeply affected by letters
from their families, as wives & mothers complained of suffering or
demanded greater valor. Illustrated
Aspiring Writers
Grant Takes Command
Part two of the classic Civil War study of General Ulysses S. Grant is a
detailed portrait of the enigmatic commander-in-chief of the Union forces
during the last year and a half of the Civil War. Illustrated.
From the Publisher
In the summer of 1863 after the climatic battle at Vicksburg, Lincoln's
government was more interested in Ulysses Simpson Grant than any other
man alive. Although he was their most successful soldier, few men in
Washington had even met him. Over the next several months his face, his
morals, his total conduct would become commonly known and discussed
by a nation tragically divided by the Civil War. Richard Henry Dana, Jr.,
was later to describe him as having "no gait, no manner, and no station-
and as looking like "nobody at all." Yet as his close comrade-in-arms,
General William T. Sherman, put it: "To me he is a mystery, and I believe
he is a mystery to himself."
Grant Takes Command gives us invaluable assistance in untangling the
enigma of this remarkable Union warrior who has puzzled so many for so
long. It gives a detailed and revealing portrait of Grant during the last year
and a half of the war. Because he was made commander in chief after his
decisive victory at Chattanooga, the account of his activities becomes in
essence the story of how the war was won. As any good history should, it
thereby answers the crucial questions concerning its topic-why Lincoln
who could win the war for him; now Grant kept his footing amidst the
tangle of political snares that had brought many of his predecessors to
grief; and why Robert E. Lee was unable to break out of this Yankee's
grip and frustrate his aim, as that courtly Confederate had done so
successfully heretofore. Thus the book shows what sort of man it was
whom Lincoln took into partnership and what that man did with his share
of the responsibilities.
The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy
Wiley offers a rare but complete portrait of the ordinary soldier of the
Confederacy during the Civil War, via extensive research of letters,
newspaper stories, official records, and excerpts from diary entries.
From the Publisher
When Bell Irvin Wiley's composite portrait of the rank-and-file
Confederate soldier was published in 1943, it was enthusiastically
received by professional historians and general readers alike. A half
century later, the book still is regarded as one of the best available
accounts of the ordinary citizens who made up the Confederate army. The
Life of Johnny Reb is not about the battles and skirmishes fought by the
Confederate foot soldier. Rather, it is an intimate history of the soldier's
daily life - the songs he sang, the foods he ate, the hopes and fears he
experienced, the reasons he fought. Wiley has examined countless letters,
diaries, newspaper accounts, and official records in constructing this
frequently poignant, sometimes humorous account of the life of Johnny
Reb.
The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union
Through excerpted letters, diary entries, newspaper accounts, and official
records, Wiley offers the reader a complete portrait of the ordinary foot
soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War.
From the Publisher
The Life of Billy Yank is a frank, intimate, and warm study of the Union
soldier by one of the most prolific and revered of all Civil War historians.
Here, through excerpts from wartime letters and diaries and from other
carefully documented research, Bell Irvin Wiley presents an absorbing
account of the small and sometimes moving events that made up the daily
life of the common Union soldier, a moral but fallible human who could
laugh at lewd jokes, be stripped of his courage under fire, or save an entire
company from certain death.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/