A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation PDF Download

Author: John Matteson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393247082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Matteson illuminates three harrowing months of the Civil War and their enduring legacy for America. December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln’s government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country’s law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American. Guided by patriotism, driven by desire, all five moved toward singular destinies. A young Harvard intellectual steeped in courageous ideals, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. confronted grave challenges to his concept of duty. The one-eyed army chaplain Arthur Fuller pitted his frail body against the evils of slavery. Walt Whitman, a gay Brooklyn poet condemned by the guardians of propriety, and Louisa May Alcott, a struggling writer seeking an authentic voice and her father’s admiration, tended soldiers’ wracked bodies as nurses. On the other side of the national schism, John Pelham, a West Point cadet from Alabama, achieved a unique excellence in artillery tactics as he served a doomed and misbegotten cause. A Worse Place Than Hell brings together the prodigious forces of war with the intimacy of individual lives. Matteson interweaves the historic and the personal in a work as beautiful as it is powerful.

Author: Joan Waugh
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807898449
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Comprised of essays from twelve leading scholars, this volume extends the discussion of Civil War controversies far past the death of the Confederacy in the spring of 1865. Contributors address, among other topics, Walt Whitman's poetry, the handling of the Union and Confederate dead, the treatment of disabled and destitute northern veterans, Ulysses S. Grant's imposing tomb, and Hollywood's long relationship with the Lost Cause narrative. The contributors are William Blair, Stephen Cushman, Drew Gilpin Faust, Gary W. Gallagher, J. Matthew Gallman, Joseph T. Glatthaar, Harold Holzer, James Marten, Stephanie McCurry, James M. McPherson, Carol Reardon, and Joan Waugh.

Author: Shand Stringham
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1450278310
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
In the early 2000s in a top secret facility located deep beneath Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, years of research on time travel technology by the United States military finally comes together. But the initial excitement soon wanes when a startling reality surfaces and captures a moral dilemma. Suddenly, everyone is speculating what will happen if they start changing history. As the team, led by United States Army Colonel Barton Stauffer, begins testing the new time technology using the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg as an experimental bed, they focus on placing a defensive temporal capability in position before other global powers can develop time travel capabilities of their own. But harnessing time proves challenging, and Stauffers team soon discovers that their technology is inadequate. As incredible temporal energies are mistakenly unleashed, army officers begin disappearing into brilliant flashes of light. Stauffer soon realizes his team is doing much more than just observing battlefields through observation portalsthey possess the ability to reset history for all humankind. All it takes is a flip of a switch to return to the beginning and halt the project. Now Stauffer must decide which is more importantleaving the past as it was or saving the future.

Author: Michael Golay
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
'Fascinating social history.'-Publishers WeeklyA vivid, panoramic look at the closing months of the Civil War and the first months of peace and beyondAs the Civil War drew to a close, its final battles and unsolved issues left a complex legacy of pain for both the Southern plantation owners and the newly freed slaves. Using letters and diaries, gifted writer Michael Golay shows the impact of victory and defeat on ordinary Americans who both influenced events and were caught up in them. Golay takes a unique perspective by interweaving personal histories of soldiers and civilians with the larger events of the Civil War; illuminating the impact of Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas; postwar life in a devastated, chaotic South; and the promise of freedom for African American slaves. Based in large part on previously unpublished material, Golay provides a vivid look at the aftermath of a bitter struggle, and the efforts to solve problems where answers were elusive.

Author: Diane Monroe Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811767825
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
Washington Roebling is well known as the man who supervised construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. His path to overseeing that monumental task began during the Civil War. In addition to his brave, dramatic actions at Gettysburg, his Civil War service was remarkable: artilleryman, bridge builder, scout, balloonist, mapmaker, engineer, and staff officer. His story reveals much about Gettysburg but also about Civil War intelligence and engineering and the politics and infighting within the Army of the Potomac’s high command. Roebling’s service—leadership, engineering, decision-making, and managing personalities and politics—prepared him well for overseeing the Brooklyn Bridge.

Author: Sean Conant
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190227478
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
It is the most famous speech Lincoln ever gave, and one of the most important orations in the history of the nation. Delivered on November 19, 1863, among the freshly dug graves of the Union dead, the Gettysburg Address defined the central meaning of the Civil War and gave cause for the nation's incredible suffering. The poetic language and moral sentiment inspired listeners at the time, and have continued to resonate powerfully with groups and individuals up to the present day. What gives this speech its enduring significance? This collection of essays, from some of the best-known scholars in the field, answers that question. Placing the Address in complete historical and cultural context and approaching it from a number of fresh perspectives, the volume first identifies how Lincoln was influenced by great thinkers on his own path toward literary and oratory genius. Among others, Nicholas P. Cole draws parallels between the Address and classical texts of Antiquity, and Craig L. Symonds explores Daniel Webster's influence. The second half of the collection then examines the many ways in which the Gettysburg Address has been interpreted, perceived, and utilized in the past 150 years. Since 1863, African Americans, immigrants, women, gay rights activists, and international figures have invoked the speech's language and righteous sentiments on their respective paths toward freedom and equality. Essays include Louis P. Masur on the role the Address played in eventual emancipation; Jean H. Baker on the speech's importance to the women's rights movement; and Don H. Doyle on the Address's international legacy. Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg in a defining moment for America, but as the essays in this collection attest, his message is universal and timeless. This work brings together the foremost experts in the field to illuminate the many ways in which that message continues to endure.

Author: David Evans
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Book Description
Approaching Atlanta in July of 1864, William Tecumseh Sherman knew he was facing the most important campaign of his career. Lacking the troops and the desire to mount a long siege of the city, Sherman was eager for a quick, decisive victory. A change of tactics was in order. He decided to call on the cavalry. Over the next seven weeks, Sherman's horsemen -- under the command of Generals Rousseau, Garrard, Stoneman, McCook, and Kilpatrick -- destroyed supplies and tore up miles of railroad track in an attempt to isolate the city. This book tells the story of those raids. After initial successes, the cavalrymen found themselves caught up in a series of daring and deadly engagements, including a failed attempt to push south to liberate the prisoners at the infamous prison camp at Andersonville. Through exhaustive research, David Evans has been able to recreate a vivid, captivating, and meticulously detailed image of the day-by-day life of the Union horse soldier. Based largely upon previously unpublished materials, Sherman's Horsemen provides the definitive account of this hitherto neglected aspect of the American Civil War.

Author: John Matteson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393077578
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography Louisa May Alcott is known universally. Yet during Louisa's youth, the famous Alcott was her father, Bronson—an eminent teacher and a friend of Emerson and Thoreau. He desired perfection, for the world and from his family. Louisa challenged him with her mercurial moods and yearnings for money and fame. The other prize she deeply coveted—her father's understanding—seemed hardest to win. This story of Bronson and Louisa's tense yet loving relationship adds dimensions to Louisa's life, her work, and the relationships of fathers and daughters.

Author: Robert Orrison
Publisher: Savas Beatie
ISBN: 1611212448
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
A guide to the Gettysburg Civil War battlefields and their history, featuring lesser-known sites, side trips, and optional stops along the way. "I thought my men were invincible,” admitted Robert E. Lee. A string of battlefield victories through 1862 had culminated in the spring of 1863 with Lee’s greatest victory yet: the battle of Chancellorsville. Propelled by the momentum of that supreme moment, confident in the abilities of his men, Lee decided to once more take the fight to the Yankees and launched this army on another invasion of the North. An appointment with destiny awaited in the little Pennsylvania college town of Gettysburg. Historian Dan Welch follows in the footsteps of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac as the two foes cat-and-mouse their way northward, ultimately clashing in the costliest battle in North American history. Based on the Gettysburg Civil War Trails, and packed with dozens of lesser-known sites related to the Gettysburg Campaign, The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign offers the ultimate Civil War road trip. “Orrison and Welch have created something different. Historians must search for innovative ways to engage the public on the battle’s relevance. This book offers a new experience for tourists—one that enriches their visit to the site of one of the most consequential battles in American history.” —Matt Arendt, TCU, for Gettysburg Magazine “Shows a deep knowledge of the subject and the style of writing is clear and easy to follow . . . buy this book!” —Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy

Author: Dave Richard Palmer
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 159698791X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Discusses George Washington's military strategies during the American Revolution and how his particular tactics aided in defeating the British army, including his utilization of European training techniques and his moral leadership.