Author: John Horn
Publisher: H.E. Howard
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Author: John Horn
Publisher: Savas Beatie
ISBN: 1611212170
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A revised and expanded tactical study General Grant’s Fourth Offensive during the American Civil War. The nine-month siege of Petersburg was the longest continuous operation of the American Civil War. A series of large-scale Union “offensives,” grand maneuvers that triggered some of the fiercest battles of the war, broke the monotony of static trench warfare. Grant’s Fourth Offensive, August 14–25, the longest and bloodiest operation of the campaign, is the subject of John Horn’s revised and updated Sesquicentennial edition of The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864. Frustrated by his inability to break through the Southern front, General Grant devised a two-punch combination strategy to sever the crucial Weldon Railroad and stretch General Lee’s lines. The plan called for Winfield Hancock’s II Corps (with X Corps) to move against Deep Bottom north of the James River to occupy Confederate attention while Warren’s V Corps, supported by elements of IX Corps, marched south and west below Petersburg toward Globe Tavern on the Weldon Railroad. The move triggered the battles of Second Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Second Reams Station, bitter fighting that witnessed fierce Confederate counterattacks and additional Union operations against the railroad before Grant’s troops dug in and secured their hold on Globe Tavern. The result was nearly 15,000 killed, wounded, and missing, the severing of the railroad, and the jump-off point for what would be Grant’s Fifth Offensive in late September. Revised and updated for this special edition, Horn’s outstanding tactical battle study emphasizes the context and consequences of every action and is supported by numerous maps and grounded in hundreds of primary sources. Unlike many battle accounts, Horn puts Grant’s Fourth Offensive into its proper perspective not only in the context of the Petersburg Campaign and the war, but in the context of the history of warfare. “A superior piece of Civil War scholarship.” —Edwin C. Bearss, former Chief Historian of the National Park Service and award-winning author of The Petersburg Campaign: Volume 1, The Eastern Front Battles and Volume 2, The Western Front Battles “It’s great to have John Horn’s fine study of August 1864 combat actions (Richmond-Petersburg style) back in print; covering actions on both sides of the James River, with sections on Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Reams Station. Utilizing manuscript and published sources, Horn untangles a complicated tale of plans gone awry and soldiers unexpectedly thrust into harm’s way. This new edition upgrades the maps and adds some fresh material. Good battle detail, solid analysis, and strong characterizations make this a welcome addition to the Petersburg bookshelf.” —Noah Andre Trudeau, author of The Last Citadel: Petersburg, June 1864–April 1865

Author: Ethan S. Rafuse
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742551268
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
In this reexamination of the last two years of Lee's storied military career, Ethan S. Rafuse offers a clear, informative, and insightful account of Lee's ultimately unsuccessful struggle to defend the Confederacy against a relentless and determined foe. This book provides a comprehensive, yet concise and entertaining narrative of the battles and campaigns that highlighted this phase of the war and analyzes the battles and Lee's generalship in the context of the steady deterioration of the Confederacy's prospects for victory.

Author: William L. Richter
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 081087959X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1033

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Book Description
The importance of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the history of the United States cannot be overstated. Many historians regard the Civil War as the defining event in American history. At stake was not only freedom for 3.5 million slaves but also survival of the relatively new American experiment in self-government. A very real possibility existed that the union could have been severed, but a collection of determined leaders and soldiers proved their willingness to fight for the survival of what Abraham Lincoln called "the last best hope on earth." The second edition of this highly readable, one-volume Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction looks to place the war in its historical context. The more than 800 entries, encompassing the years 1844-1877, cover the significant events, persons, politics, and economic and social themes of the Civil War and Reconstruction. An extensive chronology, introductory essay, and comprehensive bibliography supplement the cross-referenced dictionary entries to guide the reader through the military and non-military actions of one of the most pivotal events in American history. The dictionary concludes with a selection of primary documents. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Author: Sean Michael Chick
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1612347126
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
The Battle of Petersburg was the culmination of the Virginia Overland campaign, which pitted the Army of the Potomac, led by Ulysses S. Grant and George Gordon Meade, against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In spite of having outmaneuvered Lee, after three days of battle in which the Confederates at Petersburg were severely outnumbered, Union forces failed to take the city, and their final, futile attack on the fourth day only added to already staggering casualties. By holding Petersburg against great odds, the Confederacy arguably won its last great strategic victory of the Civil War. In The Battle of Petersburg, June 15–18, 1864, Sean Michael Chick takes an in-depth look at an important battle often overlooked by historians and offers a new perspective on why the Army of the Potomac’s leadership, from Grant down to his corps commanders, could not win a battle in which they held colossal advantages. He also discusses the battle’s wider context, including politics, memory, and battlefield preservation. Highlights include the role played by African American soldiers on the first day and a detailed retelling of the famed attack of the First Maine Heavy Artillery, which lost more men than any other Civil War regiment in a single battle. In addition, the book has a fresh and nuanced interpretation of the generalships of Grant, Meade, Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, and William Farrar Smith during this critical battle.

Author: A. Wilson Greene
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572336102
Category : Petersburg (Va.)
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
The Petersburg Campaign was what finally did it. After months of relentless conflict throughout 1864, the Confederate army led by General Robert E. Lee holed up in the Virginia city of Petersburg as Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's vastly superior forces lurked nearby. The brutal fighting that took place around the city during 1864 and into 1865 decimated both armies as Grant used his manpower advantage to repeatedly smash the Confederate lines, a tactic that eventually resulted in the decisive breakthrough that ultimately doomed the Confederacy. The breakthrough and the events that led up to it are the subject of A. Wilson Greene's groundbreaking book The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign, a significant revision of a much-praised work first published in 2000. Surprisingly, despite Petersburg's decisive importance to the war's outcome, the campaign has received scant attention from historians. Greene's book, with its incisive analysis and compelling narrative, changes this, offering readers a rich account of the personalities and strategies that shaped the final phase of the fighting. Greene's ultimate focus on the climatic engagements of April 2, 1865, the day that Confederate control of Richmond and Petersburg was effectively ended. The book tells this story from the perspectives of the two army groups that clashed on that day: the Union Sixth Corps and the Confederate Third Corps. But Greene does more than just recount the military tactics at Petersburg; he also connects the reader intimately with how the war affected society and spotlights the soldiers, both officers and enlisted men, whose experiences defined the outcome. Thanks to his extensive research and consultation of rare source materials, Greene gives readers a vibrant perspective on the campaign that broke the Confederate spirit once and for all. A. Wilson Greene is president of Pamplin Historical Park & The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier near Petersburg, Virginia. He also has taught at Mary Washington College and worked for sixteen years with the National Park Service.

Author: Theodore P. Savas
Publisher: Savas Publishing
ISBN: 1954547234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Balanced and in-depth military coverage (all theaters, North and South) in a non-partisan format with detailed notes, offering meaty, in-depth articles, original maps, photos, columns, book reviews, and indexes. 10th Louisiana Infantry (Yellow Jackets Battalion) – 20th Massachusetts Infantry (Copperhead Regiment) – 1st Florida Special Battalion from Olustee to Appomattox

Author: Earl J. Hess
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807882356
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
In the Trenches at Petersburg, the final volume of Earl J. Hess's trilogy of works on the fortifications of the Civil War, recounts the strategic and tactical operations around Petersburg during the last ten months of the Civil War. Hess covers all aspects of the Petersburg campaign, from important engagements that punctuated the long months of siege to mining and countermining operations, the fashioning of wire entanglements and the laying of torpedo fields to impede attacks, and the construction of underground shelters to protect the men manning the works. In the Trenches at Petersburg humanizes the experience of the soldiers working in the fortifications and reveals the human cost of trench warfare in the waning days of the struggle.

Author: Sheridan R. Barringer
Publisher: Savas Beatie
ISBN: 1611212634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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A remarkable biography of a Confederate brigadier general’s experiences during—and after—the Civil War: “Well-written and deeply researched” (Eric J. Wittenberg, author of Out Flew the Sabers). Rufus Barringer fought on horseback through most of the Civil War with General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and rose to lead the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade in some of the war’s most difficult combats. This book details his entire history for the first time. Barringer raised a company early in the war and fought with the 1st North Carolina Cavalry from the Virginia peninsula through Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He was severely wounded at Brandy Station, and as a result missed the remainder of the Gettysburg Campaign, returning to his regiment in mid-October, 1863. Within three months he was a lieutenant colonel, and by June 1864 a brigadier general in command of the North Carolina Brigade, which fought the rest of the war with Lee and was nearly destroyed during the retreat from Richmond in 1865. The captured Barringer met President Lincoln at City Point; endured prison; and after the war did everything he could to convince North Carolinians to accept Reconstruction and heal the wounds of war. Drawing upon a wide array of newspapers, diaries, letters, and previously unpublished family documents and photographs, as well as other firsthand accounts, this is an in-depth, colorful, and balanced portrait of an overlooked Southern cavalry commander. It is easy today to paint all who wore Confederate gray with a broad brush because they fought on the side to preserve slavery—but this biography reveals a man who wielded the sword and then promptly sheathed it to follow a bolder vision, proving to be a champion of newly freed slaves—a Southern gentleman decades ahead of his time.

Author: George G. Kundahl
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807895709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, in 1837, Stephen Dodson Ramseur rose meteorically through the military ranks. Graduating from West Point in 1860, he joined the Confederate army as a captain. By the time of his death near the end of the war at the Battle of Cedar Creek, he had attained the rank of major general in the Army of Northern Virginia. He excelled in every assignment and was involved as a senior officer in many of the war's most important conflicts east of the Appalachians. Ramseur's letters--over 180 of which are collected and transcribed here by George Kundahl--provide his incisive observations on these military events. At the same time, they offer rare insight into the personal opinions of a high-ranking Civil War officer. Correspondence by Civil War figures is often strictly professional. But in personal letters to his wife, Nellie, and best friend, David Schenk, Ramseur candidly expresses beliefs about the social, military, and political issues of the day. He also shares vivid accounts of battle and daily camp life, providing colorful details on soldiering during the war.