That Fateful Lightning

That Fateful Lightning PDF Author: Richard Parry
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780345427281
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book

Book Description
In a village outside Saratoga Springs, New York, a weakened man sits with pen in hand, looking back at a life dominated by failure: as a farmer, a businessman, a politician--everything but as a soldier. Racked by cancer, Ulysses S. Grant is entering his final months, facing the prospect of leaving his beloved wife penniless. Now he begins one last campaign--to bring to life the only thing of value he still commands: his memoirs. In the weeks and days that follow, Grant tells a story of war and peace, of friends and enemies, and of a man born for one singular purpose--to lead an army into battle, and to lead it to victory. In this extraordinary novel, Richard Parry takes us on a powerful journey through the Civil War as seen through the shrewd, unwavering eyes of its most enigmatic and least understood protagonist. For as Grant wages a duel against death itself, and his friends and family gather around him, he reveals with stunning clarity his vision of the war: at once a tragedy and a challenge, a nightmare and a puzzle, an epic of carefully laid strategies and counter-strategies as well as a strokes of inexplicable, decisive chance. Within these pages we meet such powerful historical figures as Mark Twain, the book publisher trying desperately to rescue Grant from poverty in the last year of his life; William Tecumseh Sherman, brilliant and dynamic, but also unsure and sorely in need of Grant's nurturing in war and life; and General Robert E. Lee, whose differences from Grant vividly illustrate the cultural and social divide at the core of the Civil War. A rich, vivid, and action-packed addition to our nation's literature of the Civil War, That Fateful Lightning is apowerful portrait of a uniquely American hero, a simple but misunderstood man who felt truly at peace only amid the horror and chaos of war.

That Fateful Lightning

That Fateful Lightning PDF Author: Richard Parry
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780345427281
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book

Book Description
In a village outside Saratoga Springs, New York, a weakened man sits with pen in hand, looking back at a life dominated by failure: as a farmer, a businessman, a politician--everything but as a soldier. Racked by cancer, Ulysses S. Grant is entering his final months, facing the prospect of leaving his beloved wife penniless. Now he begins one last campaign--to bring to life the only thing of value he still commands: his memoirs. In the weeks and days that follow, Grant tells a story of war and peace, of friends and enemies, and of a man born for one singular purpose--to lead an army into battle, and to lead it to victory. In this extraordinary novel, Richard Parry takes us on a powerful journey through the Civil War as seen through the shrewd, unwavering eyes of its most enigmatic and least understood protagonist. For as Grant wages a duel against death itself, and his friends and family gather around him, he reveals with stunning clarity his vision of the war: at once a tragedy and a challenge, a nightmare and a puzzle, an epic of carefully laid strategies and counter-strategies as well as a strokes of inexplicable, decisive chance. Within these pages we meet such powerful historical figures as Mark Twain, the book publisher trying desperately to rescue Grant from poverty in the last year of his life; William Tecumseh Sherman, brilliant and dynamic, but also unsure and sorely in need of Grant's nurturing in war and life; and General Robert E. Lee, whose differences from Grant vividly illustrate the cultural and social divide at the core of the Civil War. A rich, vivid, and action-packed addition to our nation's literature of the Civil War, That Fateful Lightning is apowerful portrait of a uniquely American hero, a simple but misunderstood man who felt truly at peace only amid the horror and chaos of war.

The Fateful Lightning

The Fateful Lightning PDF Author: Jeff Shaara
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345549198
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 641

Get Book

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Jeff Shaara comes the riveting final installment in the Civil War series that began with A Blaze of Glory and continued in A Chain of Thunder and The Smoke at Dawn. November 1864: As the Civil War rolls into its fourth bloody year, the tide has turned decidedly in favor of the Union. A grateful Abraham Lincoln responds to Ulysses S. Grant’s successes by bringing the general east, promoting Grant to command the entire Union war effort, while William Tecumseh Sherman now directs the Federal forces that occupy all of Tennessee. In a massive surge southward, Sherman conquers the city of Atlanta, sweeping aside the Confederate army under the inept leadership of General John Bell Hood. Pushing through northern Georgia, Sherman’s legendary March to the Sea shoves away any Rebel presence, and by Christmas 1864 the city of Savannah falls into the hands of “Uncle Billy.” Now there is but one direction for Sherman to go. In his way stands the last great hope for the Southern cause, General Joseph E. Johnston. In the concluding novel of his epic Civil War tetralogy, Jeff Shaara tells the dramatic story of the final eight months of battle from multiple perspectives: the commanders in their tents making plans for total victory, as well as the ordinary foot soldiers and cavalrymen who carried out their orders until the last alarum sounded. Through Sherman’s eyes, we gain insight into the mind of the general who vowed to “make Georgia howl” until it surrendered. In Johnston, we see a man agonizing over the limits of his army’s power, and accepting the burden of leading the last desperate effort to ensure the survival of the Confederacy. The Civil War did not end quietly. It climaxed in a storm of fury that lay waste to everything in its path. The Fateful Lightning brings to life those final brutal, bloody months of fighting with you-are-there immediacy, grounded in the meticulous research that readers have come to expect from Jeff Shaara. Praise for The Fateful Lightning “Powerful and emotional . . . highly recommended.”—Historical Novels Review “Outstanding . . . Shaara combines his extensive knowledge of military history with his consummate skill as a storyteller.”—Booklist “Readers . . . looking for an absorbing novel will be well rewarded.”—The Clarion-Ledger “A great accomplishment and a more than fitting conclusion to Shaara’s work on the Civil War.”—Bookreporter

Fateful Lightning

Fateful Lightning PDF Author: Allen C. Guelzo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199939365
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 587

Get Book

Book Description
The Civil War is the greatest trauma ever experienced by the American nation, a four-year paroxysm of violence that left in its wake more than 600,000 dead, more than 2 million refugees, and the destruction (in modern dollars) of more than $700 billion in property. The war also sparked some of the most heroic moments in American history and enshrined a galaxy of American heroes. Above all, it permanently ended the practice of slavery and proved, in an age of resurgent monarchies, that a liberal democracy could survive the most frightful of challenges. In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo offers a marvelous portrait of the Civil War and its era, covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics, religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. And unlike other surveys of the Civil War era, it extends the reader's vista to include the postwar Reconstruction period and discusses the modern-day legacy of the Civil War in American literature and popular culture. Guelzo also puts the conflict in a global perspective, underscoring Americans' acute sense of the vulnerability of their republic in a world of monarchies. He examines the strategy, the tactics, and especially the logistics of the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on emancipation, the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and international law, and the role of intellectuals, North and South. Written by a leading authority on our nation's most searing crisis, Fateful Lightning offers a vivid and original account of an event whose echoes continue with Americans to this day.

The Fateful Lightning

The Fateful Lightning PDF Author: Kathleen Diffley
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820358568
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book

Book Description
The Fateful Lightning is the second volume of Kathleen Diffley’s trilogy on Civil War magazine fiction. While her first book of the trilogy, Where My Heart Is Turning Ever, charted the role of magazine fiction from the Northeast in “grounding the rites of citizenship” following the end of the Civil War, The Fateful Lightning traces the sectional conflicts in a postwar nation and how region shaped the political agendas of these postwar editorials. Diffley argues that the journals she examines present stories that give unpredictable results of sectional conflict and commemorate the Civil War differently from the northeastern publishing establishments. She weaves this argument through her analysis of four literary journals: Baltimore’s Southern Magazine, Charlotte’s The Land We Love, Chicago’s Lakeside Monthly, and San Francisco’s Overland Monthly. Diffley uses a method of literary analysis that looks at what is not only present in the text but also present throughout its historically informed context, gleaning cultural meanings from what the stories also filter out. Coupling this literary analysis with city studies, Diffley’s innovative approach demonstrates how these editorials offer varying gauges of continued political unrest, rising social opportunity, and conflicting commemorative investments as Reconstruction began to unfold.

Fateful Lightning

Fateful Lightning PDF Author: William R. Forstchen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780451451965
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Get Book

Book Description
The latest chapter in a unique, epic military science fiction series that sweeps from Civil War America to a time-warped world of horrifying conflict. The Civil War Yankees, lost in another world and time, find themselves part of a tactical retreat from the onslaught of the mysterious Merki hordes, reenacting the Russian retreats against the French and Germans.

Jeff Shaara's Civil War Battlefields

Jeff Shaara's Civil War Battlefields PDF Author: Jeff Shaara
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345493842
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
TRAVEL THROUGH A PIVOTAL TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY Jeff Shaara, America’s premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of the ten Civil War battlefields every American should visit: Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg/Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, New Market, Chickamauga, the Wilderness/Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg/Appomattox. Shaara explores the history, the people, and the places that capture the true meaning and magnitude of the conflict and provides • engaging narratives of the war’s crucial battles • intriguing historical footnotes about each site • photographs of the locations–then and now • detailed maps of the battle scenes • fascinating sidebars with related points of interest From Antietam to Gettysburg to Vicksburg, and to the many poignant destinations in between, Jeff Shaara’s Civil War Battlefields is the ideal guide for casual tourists and Civil War enthusiasts alike.

A Chain of Thunder

A Chain of Thunder PDF Author: Jeff Shaara
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345527399
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 610

Get Book

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Continuing the series that began with A Blaze of Glory, Jeff Shaara returns to chronicle another decisive chapter in America’s long and bloody Civil War. In A Chain of Thunder, the action shifts to the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. There, in the vaunted “Gibraltar of the Confederacy,” a siege for the ages will cement the reputation of one Union general—and all but seal the fate of the rebel cause. In May 1863, after months of hard and bitter combat, Union troops under the command of Major General Ulysses S. Grant at long last successfully cross the Mississippi River. They force the remnants of Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton’s army to retreat to Vicksburg, burning the bridges over the Big Black River in its path. But after sustaining heavy casualties in two failed assaults against the rebels, Union soldiers are losing confidence and morale is low. Grant reluctantly decides to lay siege to the city, trapping soldiers and civilians alike inside an iron ring of Federal entrenchments. Six weeks later, the starving and destitute Southerners finally surrender, yielding command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces on July 4—Independence Day—and marking a crucial turning point in the Civil War. Drawing on comprehensive research and his own intimate knowledge of the Vicksburg Campaign, Jeff Shaara once again weaves brilliant fiction out of the ragged cloth of historical fact. From the command tents where generals plot strategy to the ruined mansions where beleaguered citizens huddle for safety, this is a panoramic portrait of men and women whose lives are forever altered by the siege. On one side stand the emerging legend Grant, his irascible second William T. Sherman, and the youthful “grunt” Private Fritz Bauer; on the other, the Confederate commanders Pemberton and Joseph Johnston, as well as nineteen-year-old Lucy Spence, a civilian doing her best to survive in the besieged city. By giving voice to their experiences at Vicksburg, A Chain of Thunder vividly evokes a battle whose outcome still reverberates more than 150 years after the cannons fell silent. Praise for A Chain of Thunder “[Jeff] Shaara continues to draw powerful novels from the bloody history of the Civil War. . . . The dialogue intrigues. Shaara aptly reveals the main actors: Grant, stoic, driven, not given to micromanagement; Sherman, anxious, high-strung, engaged even when doubting Grant’s strategy. . . . Worth a Civil War buff’s attention.”—Kirkus Reviews “Searing . . . Shaara seamlessly interweaves multiple points of view, as the plot is driven by a stellar cast of real-life and fictional characters coping with the pivotal crisis. . . . [A] riveting fictional narrative.”—Booklist “Shaara’s historical accuracy is faultless, and he tells a good story. . . . The voices of these people come across to the reader as poignantly as they did 150 years ago.”—Historical Novels Review “The writing is picturesque and vibrant. . . . [an] engrossing tale.”—Bookreporter

Secret Missions of the Civil War

Secret Missions of the Civil War PDF Author: Philip Van Doren Stern
Publisher: Garrett County Press
ISBN: 1891053604
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
Civil War historian and celebrated author Philip Van Doren Stern presents an underground history woven from first hand accounts of Civil War spies, scouts, detectives and double agents. Secret Missions of the Civil War gives an inside look into the birth of modern spy warfare: secret codes, Allen Pinkerton, assassinations, McClellan's personal spy, European arms dealing, the Secret Service, Morgan and Mosby, the stunning Mrs. Rose O’Neal, privateers, the New York draft riots and torpedoes. Through astute and carefully documented commentary, Stern shows how seemingly random acts of underground warfare dramatically influenced the course of the war and American history.

Battle Hymn

Battle Hymn PDF Author: William R. Forstchen
Publisher: Roc
ISBN: 9780451452863
Category : Science fiction, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
A group of American Civil War soldiers are swept away from the battlefields of Earth to a distant alien world--where the only place for a human is an early grave! But the Union 35th Maine regiment embodies the radical ideas of freedom and democracy, and they're willing to lay down their lives to stop this alien reign of terror!

Writing History with Lightning

Writing History with Lightning PDF Author: Matthew Christopher Hulbert
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807170909
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Get Book

Book Description
Films possess virtually unlimited power for crafting broad interpretations of American history. Nineteenth-century America has proven especially conducive to Hollywood imaginations, producing indelible images like the plight of Davy Crockett and the defenders of the Alamo, Pickett’s doomed charge at Gettysburg, the proliferation and destruction of plantation slavery in the American South, Custer’s fateful decision to divide his forces at Little Big Horn, and the onset of immigration and industrialization that saw Old World lifestyles and customs dissolve amid rapidly changing environments. Balancing historical nuance with passion for cinematic narratives, Writing History with Lightning confronts how movies about nineteenth-century America influence the ways in which mass audiences remember, understand, and envision the nation’s past. In these twenty-six essays—divided by the editors into sections on topics like frontiers, slavery, the Civil War, the Lost Cause, and the West—notable historians engage with films and the historical events they ostensibly depict. Instead of just separating fact from fiction, the essays contemplate the extent to which movies generate and promulgate collective memories of American history. Along with new takes on familiar classics like Young Mr. Lincoln and They Died with Their Boots On, the volume covers several films released in recent years, including The Revenant, 12 Years a Slave, The Birth of a Nation, Free State of Jones, and The Hateful Eight. The authors address Hollywood epics like The Alamo and Amistad, arguing that these movies flatten the historical record to promote nationalist visions. The contributors also examine overlooked films like Hester Street and Daughters of the Dust, considering their portraits of marginalized communities as transformative perspectives on American culture. By surveying films about nineteenth-century America, Writing History with Lightning analyzes how movies create popular understandings of American history and why those interpretations change over time.