Author: Eric J. Wittenberg Publisher: Savas Beatie ISBN: 1611212898 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 529
Book Description
A comprehensive, deeply researched history of the pivotal 1863 American Civil War battle fought in northern Virginia. June 1863. The Gettysburg Campaign is underway. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia pushes west into the Shenandoah Valley and then north toward the Potomac River. Only one significant force stands in its way: Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy’s Union division of the Eighth Army Corps in the vicinity of Winchester and Berryville, Virginia. What happens next is the subject of this provocative new book. Milroy, a veteran Indiana politician-turned-soldier, was convinced the approaching enemy consisted of nothing more than cavalry or was merely a feint, and so defied repeated instructions to withdraw. In fact, the enemy consisted of General Lee’s veteran Second Corps under Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell. Milroy’s controversial decision committed his outnumbered and largely inexperienced men against some of Lee’s finest veterans. The complex and fascinating maneuvering and fighting on June 13-15 cost Milroy hundreds of killed and wounded and about 4,000 captured (roughly one-half of his command), with the remainder routed from the battlefield. The combat cleared the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley of Federal troops, demonstrated Lee could obtain supplies on the march, justified the elevation of General Ewell to replace the recently deceased Stonewall Jackson, and sent shockwaves through the Northern states. Today, the Second Battle of Winchester is largely forgotten. But in June 1863, the politically charged front-page news caught President Lincoln and the War Department by surprise and forever tarnished Milroy’s career. The beleaguered Federal soldiers who fought there spent a lifetime seeking redemption, arguing their three-day “forlorn hope” delayed the Rebels long enough to allow the Army of the Potomac to arrive and defeat Lee at Gettysburg. For the Confederates, the decisive leadership on display outside Winchester masked significant command issues buried within the upper echelons of Jackson’s former corps that would become painfully evident during the early days of July on a different battlefield in Pennsylvania. Award-winning authors Eric J. Wittenberg and Scott L. Mingus Sr. combined their researching and writing talents to produce the most in-depth and comprehensive study of Second Winchester ever written, and now in paperback. Their balanced effort, based upon scores of archival and previously unpublished diaries, newspaper accounts, and letter collections, coupled with familiarity with the terrain around Winchester and across the lower Shenandoah Valley, explores the battle from every perspective.
Author: Allen Guelzo Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307740692 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 674
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.
Author: Scott L. Mingus, Sr. Publisher: LSU Press ISBN: 9780807136720 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
Previous works on Confederate brigadier general Harry T. Hays's First Louisiana Brigade -- better known as the "Louisiana Tigers" -- have tended to focus on just one day of the Tigers' service -- their role in attacking East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863 -- and have touched only lightly on the brigade's role at the Second Battle of Winchester, an important prelude to Gettysburg. In this commanding study, Scott L. Mingus, Sr., offers the first significant detailed exploration of the Louisiana Tigers during the entirety of the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. Mingus begins by providing a sweeping history of the Louisiana Tigers; their predecessors, Wheat's Tigers; the organizational structure and leadership of the brigade in 1863; and the personnel that made up its ranks. Covering the Tigers' movements and battle actions in depth, he then turns to the brigade's march into the Shenandoah Valley and the Tigers' key role in defeating the Federal army at the Second Battle of Winchester. Combining soldiers' reminiscences with contemporary civilian accounts, Mingus breaks new ground by detailing the Tigers' march into Pennsylvania, their first trip to Gettysburg in the week before the battle, their two-day occupation of York, Pennsylvania -- the largest northern town to fall to the Confederate army -- and their march back to Gettysburg. He offers the first full-scale discussion of the Tigers' interaction with the local population during their invasion of Pennsylvania and includes detailed accounts of the citizens' reactions to the Tigers -- many not published since appearing in local newspapers over a century ago. Mingus explores the Tigers' actions on the first two days of the Battle of Gettysburg and meticulously recounts their famed assault on East Cemetery Hill, one of the pivotal moments of the battle. He closes with the Tigers' withdrawal from Gettysburg and their retreat into Virginia. Appendices include an order of battle for East Cemetery Hill, a recap of the weather during the entire Gettysburg Campaign, a day-by-day chronology of the Tigers' movements and campsites, and the text of the official reports from General Hays for Second Winchester and Gettysburg. Comprehensive and engaging, Mingus's exhaustive work constitutes the definitive account of General Hays's remarkable brigade during the critical summer of 1863.
Author: Timothy Orr Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 147284839X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 97
Book Description
This first volume of three discusses the tactical decisions made on day one and the ensuing combat, while also including a brief summary of the grand strategy in the Eastern Theater of the war, the conduct of the Pennsylvania Campaign from June 6 to 30, 1863, and the plight of civilians caught up in the conflict. The Battle of Gettysburg, which took place July 1–3, 1863 in and around the town of Gettysburg, PA resulted in the largest number of casualties of the entire American Civil War and is seen as the key turning point in the conflict. On its first day, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia sought to destroy the Union army, forcing its men to retreat through the streets of the Pennsylvania town to the hills just to the south. This volume, the first of three to cover the battle in depth, includes the morning cavalry skirmish, the morning clash at the Herbst's Woodlot and at the railroad cut, the afternoon clash at Oak Ridge, the afternoon fight at the Edward McPherson farm, the afternoon rout of the 11th Corps, the last stand of the 1st Corps at Seminary Ridge, the Union retreat through town, and the positions of the armies at nightfall.
Author: Scott L. Mingus Publisher: Savas Beatie ISBN: 1611215854 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 482
Book Description
Scott L. Mingus Sr. and Eric J. Wittenberg, the authors of more than forty Civil War books, have once again teamed up to present a history of the opening moves of the Gettysburg Campaign in the two-volume study “If We Are Striking for Pennsylvania”: The Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac March to Gettysburg. This compelling study is one of the first to integrate the military, media, political, social, economic, and civilian perspectives with rank-and-file accounts from the soldiers of both armies as they inexorably march toward their destiny at Gettysburg. This first installment covers June 3–21, 1863, while the second, spanning June 22–30, completes the march and carries the armies to the eve of the fighting. Gen. Robert E. Lee began moving part of his Army of Northern Virginia from the Old Dominion toward Pennsylvania on June 3, 1863. Lee believed his army needed to win a major victory on Northern soil if the South was to have a chance at winning the war. Transferring the fighting out of war-torn Virginia would allow the state time to heal while he supplied his army from untapped farms and stores in Maryland and the Keystone State. Lee had also convinced Pres. Jefferson Davis that his offensive would interfere with the Union effort to take Vicksburg in Mississippi. The bold movement would trigger extensive cavalry fighting and a major battle at Winchester before culminating in the bloody three-day battle at Gettysburg. As the Virginia army moved north, the Army of the Potomac responded by protecting the vital roads to Washington, D.C., in case Lee turned to threaten the capital. Opposing presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, meanwhile, kept a close watch on the latest and often conflicting military intelligence gathered in the field. Throughout northern Virginia, central Maryland, and south-central Pennsylvania, meanwhile, civilians and soldiers alike struggled with the reality of a mobile campaign and the massive logistical needs of the armies. Thousands left written accounts of the passage of the long martial columns. Mingus and Wittenberg mined hundreds of primary accounts, newspapers, and other sources to produce this powerful and gripping account. As readers will quickly learn, much of it is glossed over in other studies of the campaign, which cannot be fully understood without a firm appreciation of what the armies (and civilians) did on their way to the small crossroads town in Pennsylvania.
Author: Spencer C. Tucker Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1851096825 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 3030
Book Description
This expansive, multivolume reference work provides a broad, multidisciplinary examination of the Civil War period ranging from pre-Civil War developments and catalysts such as the Mexican-American War to the rebuilding of the war-torn nation during Reconstruction. The Civil War was undoubtedly the most important and seminal event in 19th-century American history. Students who understand the Civil War have a better grasp of the central dilemmas in the American historical narrative: states rights versus federalism, freedom versus slavery, the role of the military establishment, the extent of presidential powers, and individual rights versus collective rights. Many of these dilemmas continue to shape modern society and politics. This comprehensive work facilitates both detailed reading and quick referencing for readers from the high school level to senior scholars in the field. The exhaustive coverage of this encyclopedia includes all significant battles and skirmishes; important figures, both civilian and military; weapons; government relations with Native Americans; and a plethora of social, political, cultural, military, and economic developments. The entries also address the many events that led to the conflict, the international diplomacy of the war, the rise of the Republican Party and the growing crisis and stalemate in American politics, slavery and its impact on the nation as a whole, the secession crisis, the emergence of the "total war" concept, and the complex challenges of the aftermath of the conflict.
Author: William Davis Publisher: University Press of Kentucky ISBN: 0813125103 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 234
Book Description
The fascinating third book in the Virginia at War series focuses on the Virginia experience at mid-conflict. The collection provides a comprehensive overview of the conflict’s impact on children, religion, and newly freed slaves. Also included are essays that probe the South’s view of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War careers of the Hatfields and the McCoys. The 1863 installment of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire’s valuable Diary of a Southern Refugee during the War rounds out the collection.