Author: Kevin John Weddle
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813923321
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
"Weddle reveals that the admiral was the victim of a double irony: although Du Pont championed technological innovation, he outspokenly opposed the use of the new ironclads to attack Charleston. Only when his objections were overridden did his use of these modern vessels bring his career to an end. Weddle exposes this historical misunderstanding, while also pinpointing Du Pont's crucial role in the development of United States naval strategy, his work in modernizing the navy between the Mexican War and the Civil War, and his push for the navy's technological transition from wood to iron.".
Author: Craig L. Symonds
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199751579
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 445
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Book Description
Reveals how Abraham Lincoln managed the men who ran the naval side of the Civil War and transformed himself into one of the greatest naval strategists of his age, in an account of the commander-in-chief during the Civil War.
Author: Craig Symonds
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199793123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 446
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Book Description
Abraham Lincoln began his presidency admitting that he knew "but little of ships," but he quickly came to preside over the largest national armada to that time, not eclipsed until World War I. Written by naval historian Craig L. Symonds, Lincoln and His Admirals unveils an aspect of Lincoln's presidency unexamined by historians until now, revealing how he managed the men who ran the naval side of the Civil War, and how the activities of the Union Navy ultimately affected the course of history. Beginning with a gripping account of the attempt to re-supply Fort Sumter--a comedy of errors that shows all too clearly the fledgling president's inexperience--Symonds traces Lincoln's steady growth as a wartime commander-in-chief. Absent a Secretary of Defense, he would eventually become de facto commander of joint operations along the coast and on the rivers. That involved dealing with the men who ran the Navy: the loyal but often cranky Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, the quiet and reliable David G. Farragut, the flamboyant and unpredictable Charles Wilkes, the ambitious ordnance expert John Dahlgren, the well-connected Samuel Phillips Lee, and the self-promoting and gregarious David Dixon Porter. Lincoln was remarkably patient; he often postponed critical decisions until the momentum of events made the consequences of those decisions evident. But Symonds also shows that Lincoln could act decisively. Disappointed by the lethargy of his senior naval officers on the scene, he stepped in and personally directed an amphibious assault on the Virginia coast, a successful operation that led to the capture of Norfolk. The man who knew "but little of ships" had transformed himself into one of the greatest naval strategists of his age. Co-winner of the 2009 Lincoln Prize Winner of the 2009 Barondess/Lincoln Prize by the Civil War Round Table of New York John Lyman Award of the North American Society for Oceanic History Daniel and Marilyn Laney Prize by the Austin Civil War Round Table Nevins-Freeman Prize of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago
Author: Edda L. Fields-Black
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019755279X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 849
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Book Description
COMBEE is based upon original research and offers the first full account of Tubman's Civil War service and the Combahee River Raid. In the process, it also offers the story of enslaved families living in bondage and fighting for their freedom, and does so using their own distinct and individual voices.
Author: Kevin J. Weddle
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199715998
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 545
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Book Description
In the late summer and fall of 1777, after two years of indecisive fighting on both sides, the outcome of the American War of Independence hung in the balance. Having successfully expelled the Americans from Canada in 1776, the British were determined to end the rebellion the following year and devised what they believed a war-winning strategy, sending General John Burgoyne south to rout the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it looked as if it was a matter of time before they would break the rebellion in the North. Less than three and a half months later, however, a combination of the Continental Army and Militia forces, commanded by Major General Horatio Gates and inspired by the heroics of Benedict Arnold, forced Burgoyne to surrender his entire army. The American victory stunned the world and changed the course of the war. Kevin J. Weddle offers the most authoritative history of the Battle of Saratoga to date, explaining with verve and clarity why events unfolded the way they did. In the end, British plans were undone by a combination of distance, geography, logistics, and an underestimation of American leadership and fighting ability. Taking Ticonderoga had misled Burgoyne and his army into thinking victory was assured. Saratoga, which began as a British foraging expedition, turned into a rout. The outcome forced the British to rethink their strategy, inflamed public opinion in England against the war, boosted Patriot morale, and, perhaps most critical of all, led directly to the Franco-American alliance. Weddle unravels the web of contingencies and the play of personalities that ultimately led to what one American general called "the Compleat Victory."
Author: Thomas A. Horrocks
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809330296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
The Living Lincoln gives new voice to several aspects of Abraham Lincoln's career as seen through the lens of recent scholarship, in essays that show how the sixteenth president's appeal continues to endure and expand. Featuring eleven essays from major historians, the book offers thoughtful, provocative, and highly original examinations of Lincoln's role as commander-in-chief, his use of the press to shape public opinion, his position as a politician and party leader, and the changing interpretations of his legacy as a result of cultural and social changes over the century and a half since his death. In an opening section focusing largely on Lincoln's formative years, insightful explorations into his early self-education and the era before his presidency come from editors Frank J. Williams and Harold Holzer, respectively. Readers will also glimpse a Lincoln rarely discerned in books: calculating politician, revealed in Matthew Pinsker's illuminating essay, and shrewd military strategist, as demonstrated by Craig L. Symonds. Stimulating discussions from Edna Greene Medford, John Stauffer, and Michael Vorenberg tell of Lincoln's friendship with Frederick Douglass, his gradualism on abolition, and his evolving thoughts on race and the Constitution to round out part two. Part three features reflections on his martyrdom and memory, including a counterfactual history from Gerald J. Prokopowicz that imagines a hypothetical second term for the president, emphasizing the differences between Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson. Barry Schwartz's contribution presents original research that yields fresh insight into Lincoln's evolving legacy in the South, while Richard Wightman Fox dissects Lincoln's 1865 visit to Richmond, and Orville Vernon Burton surveys and analyzes recent Lincoln scholarship. This thought-provoking new anthology, introduced at a major bicentennial symposium at Harvard University, offers a wide range of ideas and interpretations by some of the best-known and most widely respected historians of our time. The Living Lincoln is essential reading for those seeking a better understanding of this nation's greatest president and how his actions resonate today.
Author: Gore Vidal
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780345312211
Category : Biographical fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 676
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Book Description
"The portrait is reasoned, judicious, straightforward and utterly convincing." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW In this profoundly moving work of epic proportion and intense human sympathy, Abraham Lincoln is observed by his loved ones, his rivals, and his future assassins. In this brilliantly realized, vividly imagined work of fiction, Gore Vidal gives us a portrait of America's great president that is at once intimate and public, stark and complex, and that will become for future generations the living Lincoln, the definitive Lincoln. "Richly entertaining....For the general reader the elegant explication of the issues of the day gives hearty satisfaction: history lessons with the blood still hot." THE WASHINGTON POST
Author: James M. McPherson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807835889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
A book with 23 illustrations, 19 maps, notes, a bibliography and an index offers a sweeping history of the Civil War navies in action.
Author: Kevin Dougherty
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1935149504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
A historian and Citadel tactical officer examines the Civil War’s naval conflicts to shed new light on the Union’s vital yet overlooked Anaconda campaign. A selection of the Military Book Club. While the Civil War is mainly remembered for epic land battles, the Union waged an equally important campaign at sea—dubbed “Anaconda”—to gradually deprive the South of industry, commerce, and resources. The Rebels responded with fast ships called blockade runners that tried to evade the Yankee fleets, while at the same time constructing fortifications that could protect the ports themselves. Ultimately, it was this coastal conflict that brought the Confederacy to its knees. In Strangling the Confederacy, historian and Citadel tactical officer Kevin Dougherty examines the Union’s naval actions from Virginia down the Atlantic Coast and through the Gulf of Mexico. The Union’s Navy Board leveraged superior technology, including steam power and rifled artillery, in ways that rendered the Confederate coastal defenses nearly obsolete. But when the Union encountered Confederate resistance at close quarters, the tables were turned—as in the failures at Fort Fisher, the debacle at Battery Wagner, the Battle of Olustee, and in other clashes. Offering a unique perspective, Dougherty concludes that, without knowing it, the Navy Board did an excellent job at following modern military doctrine. While the multitude of small battles that flared along the Rebel coast have been overshadowed by the more titanic inland battles, in a cumulative sense, Anaconda—the most prolonged of the Union campaigns—spelled doom for the Confederacy.
Author: John Adolphus Bernard Dahlgren
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781943604180
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
