The Greatest Escape

The Greatest Escape PDF Author: Douglas Miller
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493051830
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Greatest Escape: A True American Civil War Adventure tells the story of the largest prison breakout in U.S. history. It took place during the Civil War, when more than 1,200 Yankee officers were jammed into Libby, a special prison considered escape-proof, in the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia. A small group of men, obsessed with escape, mapped out an elaborate plan and one cold and clear night, 109 men dug their way to freedom. Freezing, starving, clad in rags, they still had to travel 50 miles to Yankee lines and safety. They were pursued by all the white people in the area, but every Black person they encountered was their friend. In every instance, slaves risked their lives to help these Yankees, and their journey was aided by a female-led Union spy network. Since all the escapees were officers, they all could read and write well. Over 50 of them would publish riveting accounts of their adventures. This is the first book to weave together these contemporary accounts into a true-to-life narrative. Much like a Ken Burns documentary, this book uses the actual words the prisoners recorded more than 150 years ago, as found in their many diaries and journals.

The Greatest Escape

The Greatest Escape PDF Author: Douglas Miller
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493051830
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Greatest Escape: A True American Civil War Adventure tells the story of the largest prison breakout in U.S. history. It took place during the Civil War, when more than 1,200 Yankee officers were jammed into Libby, a special prison considered escape-proof, in the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia. A small group of men, obsessed with escape, mapped out an elaborate plan and one cold and clear night, 109 men dug their way to freedom. Freezing, starving, clad in rags, they still had to travel 50 miles to Yankee lines and safety. They were pursued by all the white people in the area, but every Black person they encountered was their friend. In every instance, slaves risked their lives to help these Yankees, and their journey was aided by a female-led Union spy network. Since all the escapees were officers, they all could read and write well. Over 50 of them would publish riveting accounts of their adventures. This is the first book to weave together these contemporary accounts into a true-to-life narrative. Much like a Ken Burns documentary, this book uses the actual words the prisoners recorded more than 150 years ago, as found in their many diaries and journals.

The American P.O.W. experience

The American P.O.W. experience PDF Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428990542
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 85

Get Book Here

Book Description


Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy

Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy PDF Author: Peter Carlson
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 1610391543
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
Tells the story of two correspondents for the New York Tribune who escaped the Confederacy's most notorious prison after being captured at the Battle of Vicksburg and relied on secret signals and covert sympathizers to travel back to Union territory.

Gettysburg's Most Hellish Battleground

Gettysburg's Most Hellish Battleground PDF Author: Phillip Thomas Tucker
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

Get Book Here

Book Description
During the crucial three days of combat at Gettysburg, the most nightmarish place on the entire battlefield was appropriately named the Devil's Den. This jumble of huge boulders situated at the southern end of Houck's Ridge was truly a hell on earth during the decisive afternoon of July 2, 1863. The tenacious struggle that raged beyond control at the battle-line's southern end was all-important, because the Devil's Den and Houck's Ridge anchored the left flank of the over-extended Union battle-line, before Federal troops occupied Little Round Top to the east. The battle-hardened veterans of Lieutenant General James Longstreet's First Corps captured this vital sector— the first Union left flank—in one of the few Southern successes of the second day, after some of the war's most bitter fighting. Nevertheless, the dramatic story of the successful turning of the first Union left flank has been long overlooked and ignored largely because of the giant historical shadow cast by the more famous struggle at Little Round Top, which was only the second and last fight for the southern flank of both armies on July 2. Therefore, the important contest for possession of the first Union left flank at the Devil's Den and Houck's Ridge was crucial on the bloody afternoon that decided the fate of America. • Includes 22 colour and sepia-tinted photographs

"The Bloody Fifth" Vol. 2

Author: John F. Schmutz
Publisher: Grub Street Publishers
ISBN: 1611213355
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book Here

Book Description
Second in the sweeping history of the Fifth Texas Infantry that fought with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. In the first volume, Secession to the Suffolk Campaign, John F. Schmutz followed the regiment from its inception through the successful foraging campaign in southeastern Virginia in April 1863. Gettysburg to Appomattox continues the regiment’s rich history from its march north into Pennsylvania and the battle of Gettysburg, its transfer west to Georgia and participation in the bloody battle of Chickamauga, operations in East Tennessee, and the regiments return to Virginia for the overland battles (Wilderness to Cold Harbor), Petersburg campaign, and the march to Appomattox Court House. The narrative ends by following many of the regiment’s soldiers on their long journey home. Schmutz’s definitive study is based upon years of archival and battlefield research that uncovered hundreds of primary sources, many never before used. The result is a lively account of not only the regiments marches and battles but a personal look into the lives of these Texans as they struggled to survive a vicious war more than 1,000 miles from home. “The Bloody Fifth”: The 5th Texas Infantry Regiment, Hood’s Texas Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, with photos, original maps, explanatory footnotes, and important and useful appendices, is a significant contribution to the history of Texas and the American Civil War. “A scholarly work enhanced with maps and exhaustive notes, yet thoroughly accessible to readers of all backgrounds.” —Midwest Book Review

The Maps of Gettysburg

The Maps of Gettysburg PDF Author: Bradley M. Gottfried
Publisher: Savas Beatie
ISBN: 1611210259
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 732

Get Book Here

Book Description
A comprehensive collection of Civil War maps and battle plans that brought Union and Confederate forces to the largest battle ever fought on American soil. Thousands of books and articles have been written about Gettysburg—but the military operation itself remains one of the most complex and difficult to understand. Here, Bradley M. Gottfried gives readers a unique and thorough study of the campaign that decided the fate of a nation. Enriched with 144 detailed, full-page color maps comprising the entire campaign, The Maps of Gettysburg shows the action as it happened—down to the regimental and battery level, including the marches to and from the battlefield, and virtually every significant event in-between. Paired with each map is a fully detailed text describing the units, personalities, movements, and combat it depicts—including quotes from eyewitnesses—all of which bring the Gettysburg story to life. Perfect for the armchair historian or first-hand visitor to the hallowed ground, “no academic library can afford not to include The Maps of Gettysburg as part of their American Civil War Reference collections” (Midwest Book Review).

Gettysburg

Gettysburg PDF Author: Allen C. Guelzo
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385349645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History An Economist Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year The Battle of Gettysburg has been written about at length and thoroughly dissected in terms of strategic importance, but never before has a book taken readers so close to the experience of the individual soldier. Two-time Lincoln Prize winner Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights and the sounds of nineteenth-century combat: the stone walls and gunpowder clouds of Pickett’s Charge; the reason that the Army of Northern Virginia could be smelled before it could be seen; the march of thousands of men from the banks of the Rappahannock in Virginia to the Pennsylvania hills. What emerges is a previously untold story of army life in the Civil War: from the personal politics roiling the Union and Confederate officer ranks, to the peculiar character of artillery units. Through such scrutiny, one of history’s epic battles is given extraordinarily vivid new life.

A Soldier's Letters to Charming Nellie

A Soldier's Letters to Charming Nellie PDF Author: Joseph Benjamin Polley
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572336137
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Get Book Here

Book Description
"One of the most cited collections of letters by a Civil War soldier, A Soldier's Letters to Charming Nellie was originally published in 1908. A unit history of the 4th Texas Infantry in epistolary form, Joseph B. Polley's letters make available the correspondence of a soldier who participated in virtually all military action in the Eastern Theater. Polley was an unusually gifted writer, with a talent for satire and humor unmatched by most Civil War diarists." "In this definitive, annotated edition, Richard B. McCaslin has prepared new transcriptions of the letters and compared variant versions of them, resolving many of the historiographical puzzles that surround this wonderful collection. McCaslin also includes an analysis of when, how, and why Polley wrote the letters." "The volume will aid historians interested in the activities of the Army of Northern Virginia and its commanders, and especially students of Hood's Texas Brigade."--BOOK JACKET.

Hood's Texas Brigade

Hood's Texas Brigade PDF Author: Susannah J. Ural
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807167614
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 510

Get Book Here

Book Description
One of the most effective units to fight on either side of the Civil War, the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia served under Robert E. Lee from the Seven Days Battles in 1862 to the surrender at Appomattox in 1865. In Hood’s Texas Brigade, Susannah J. Ural presents a nontraditional unit history that traces the experiences of these soldiers and their families to gauge the war’s effect on them and to understand their role in the white South’s struggle for independence. According to Ural, several factors contributed to the Texas Brigade’s extraordinary success: the unit’s strong self-identity as Confederates; the mutual respect among the junior officers and their men; a constant desire to maintain their reputation not just as Texans but as the top soldiers in Robert E. Lee’s army; and the fact that their families matched the men’s determination to fight and win. Using the letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper accounts, official reports, and military records of nearly 600 brigade members, Ural argues that the average Texas Brigade volunteer possessed an unusually strong devotion to southern independence: whereas most Texans and Arkansans fought in the West or Trans- Mississippi West, members of the Texas Brigade volunteered for a unit that moved them over a thousand miles from home, believing that they would exert the greatest influence on the war’s outcome by fighting near the Confederate capital in Richmond. These volunteers also took pride in their place in, or connections to, the slave-holding class that they hoped would secure their financial futures. While Confederate ranks declined from desertion and fractured morale in the last years of the war, this belief in a better life—albeit one built through slave labor— kept the Texas Brigade more intact than other units. Hood’s Texas Brigade challenges key historical arguments about soldier motivation, volunteerism and desertion, home-front morale, and veterans’ postwar adjustment. It provides an intimate picture of one of the war’s most effective brigades and sheds new light on the rationales that kept Confederate soldiers fighting throughout the most deadly conflict in U.S. history.

Portals to Hell

Portals to Hell PDF Author: Lonnie R. Speer
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803293427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

Get Book Here

Book Description
The holding of prisoners of war has always been both a political and a military enterprise, yet the military prisons of the Civil War, which held more than four hundred thousand soldiers and caused the deaths of fifty-six thousand men, have been nearly forgotten. Now Lonnie R. Speer has brought to life the least-known men in the great struggle between the Union and the Confederacy, using their own words and observations as they endured a true ?hell on earth.? Drawing on scores of previously unpublished firsthand accounts, Portals to Hell presents the prisoners? experiences in great detail and from an impartial perspective. The first comprehensive study of all major prisons of both the North and the South, this chronicle analyzes the many complexities of the relationships among prisoners, guards, commandants, and government leaders.