Author: MacKinlay Kantor Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company ISBN: 9781402751240 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 148
Book Description
From a Pulitzer Prize winner comes the story of an unforgettable moment in American history: the historic meeting between General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant that ended the Civil War. MacKinlay Kantor captures all the emotions and the details of those few days: the aristocratic Lee’s feeling of resignation; Grant’s crippling headaches; and Lee’s request--which Grant generously allowed--to permit his soldiers to keep their horses so they could plant crops for food.
Author: Caroline E. Janney Publisher: UNC Press Books ISBN: 1469663384 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 345
Book Description
The Army of Northern Virginia's chaotic dispersal began even before Lee and Grant met at Appomattox Court House. As the Confederates had pushed west at a relentless pace for nearly a week, thousands of wounded and exhausted men fell out of the ranks. When word spread that Lee planned to surrender, most remaining troops stacked their arms and accepted paroles allowing them to return home, even as they lamented the loss of their country and cause. But others broke south and west, hoping to continue the fight. Fearing a guerrilla war, Grant extended the generous Appomattox terms to every rebel who would surrender himself. Provost marshals fanned out across Virginia and beyond, seeking nearly 18,000 of Lee's men who had yet to surrender. But the shock of Lincoln's assassination led Northern authorities to see threats of new rebellion in every rail depot and harbor where Confederates gathered for transport, even among those already paroled. While Federal troops struggled to keep order and sustain a fragile peace, their newly surrendered adversaries seethed with anger and confusion at the sight of Union troops occupying their towns and former slaves celebrating freedom. In this dramatic new history of the weeks and months after Appomattox, Caroline E. Janney reveals that Lee's surrender was less an ending than the start of an interregnum marked by military and political uncertainty, legal and logistical confusion, and continued outbursts of violence. Janney takes readers from the deliberations of government and military authorities to the ground-level experiences of common soldiers. Ultimately, what unfolds is the messy birth narrative of the Lost Cause, laying the groundwork for the defiant resilience of rebellion in the years that followed.
Author: William Marvel Publisher: UNC Press Books ISBN: 0807860832 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 424
Book Description
Although Appomattox Court House is one of the most symbolically charged places in America, it was an ordinary tobacco-growing village both before and after an accident of fate brought the armies of Lee and Grant together there. It is that Appomattox--the typical small Confederate community--that William Marvel portrays in this deeply researched, compelling study. He tells the story of the Civil War from the perspective of those who inhabited one of the conflict's most famous sites. The village sprang into existence just as Texas became a state and reached its peak not long before Lee and Grant met there. The postwar decline of the village mirrored that of the rural South as a whole, and Appomattox served as the focal point for both Lost Cause myth-making and reconciliation reveries. Marvel draws on original documents, diaries, and letters composed as the war unfolded to produce a clear and credible portrait of everyday life in this town, as well as examining the galvanizing events of April 1865. He also scrutinizes Appomattox the national symbol, exposing and explaining some of the cherished myths surrounding the surrender there.
Author: Robert N. Webb Publisher: Courier Corporation ISBN: 0486492605 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
"New England is ripe for revolution in the fall of 1773, and a brother and sister carry secret messages to Sam Adams, Paul Revere, and other patriots"--
Author: Brooks D. Simpson Publisher: UNC Press Books ISBN: 1469617463 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
Historians have traditionally drawn distinctions between Ulysses S. Grant's military and political careers. In Let Us Have Peace, Brooks Simpson questions such distinctions and offers a new understanding of this often enigmatic leader. He argues that during the 1860s Grant was both soldier and politician, for military and civil policy were inevitably intertwined during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. According to Simpson, Grant instinctively understood that war was 'politics by other means.' Moreover, he realized that civil wars presented special challenges: reconciliation, not conquest, was the Union's ultimate goal. And in peace, Grant sought to secure what had been won in war, stepping in to assume a more active role in policymaking when the intransigence of white Southerners and the obstructionist behavior of President Andrew Johnson threatened to spoil the fruits of Northern victory.
Author: Gene Smith Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1504039750 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 370
Book Description
A biography of the two gifted Civil War commanders from a New York Times–bestselling author: “A great story . . . History at its best” (Publishers Weekly). Their names are forever linked in the history of the Civil War, but Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant could not have been more dissimilar. Lee came from a world of Southern gentility and aristocratic privilege while Grant had coarser, more common roots in the Midwest. As a young officer trained in the classic mold, Lee graduated from West Point at the top of his class and served with distinction in the Mexican–American War. Grant’s early military career was undistinguished and marred by rumors of drunkenness. As commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, Lee’s early victories demoralized the Union Army and cemented his reputation as a brilliant tactician. Meanwhile, Grant struggled mightily to reach the top of the Union command chain. His iron will eventually helped turn the tide of the war, however, and in April 1864, President Abraham Lincoln gave Grant command of all Union forces. A year later, he accepted Lee’s surrender at the Appomattox Court House. With brilliance and deep feeling, New York Times–bestselling author Gene Smith brings the Civil War era to vivid life and tells the dramatic story of two remarkable men as they rise to glory and reckon with the bitter aftermath of the bloodiest conflict in American history. Never before have students of American history been treated to a more personal, comprehensive, and achingly human portrait of Lee and Grant.
Author: Gregory P. Downs Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674241622 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 353
Book Description
“Original and revelatory.” —David Blight, author of Frederick Douglass Avery O. Craven Award Finalist A Civil War Memory/Civil War Monitor Best Book of the Year In April 1865, Robert E. Lee wrote to Ulysses S. Grant asking for peace. Peace was beyond his authority to negotiate, Grant replied, but surrender terms he would discuss. The distinction proved prophetic. After Appomattox reveals that the Civil War did not end with Confederate capitulation in 1865. Instead, a second phase of the war began which lasted until 1871—not the project euphemistically called Reconstruction, but a state of genuine belligerence whose mission was to shape the peace. Using its war powers, the U.S. Army oversaw an ambitious occupation, stationing tens of thousands of troops in outposts across the defeated South. This groundbreaking history shows that the purpose of the occupation was to crush slavery in the face of fierce and violent resistance, but there were limits to its effectiveness: the occupying army never really managed to remake the South. “The United States Army has been far too neglected as a player—a force—in the history of Reconstruction... Downs wants his work to speak to the present, and indeed it should.” —David W. Blight, The Atlantic “Striking... Downs chronicles...a military occupation that was indispensable to the uprooting of slavery.” —Boston Globe “Downs makes the case that the final end to slavery, and the establishment of basic civil and voting rights for all Americans, was ‘born in the face of bayonets.’ ...A remarkable, necessary book.” —Slate
Author: Elizabeth R. Varon Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199347921 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 316
Book Description
Winner, Library of Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction Winner, Eugene Feit Award in Civil War Studies, New York Military Affairs Symposium Winner of the Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize of the Austin Civil War Round Table Finalist, Jefferson Davis Award of the Museum of the Confederacy Best Books of 2014, Civil War Monitor 6 Civil War Books to Read Now, Diane Rehm Show, NPR Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind -- it was, many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing, a moment of patriotism untainted by ideology. But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked, who brought their own understanding of the war's causes, consequences, and meaning. In Appomattox, Varon deftly captures the events swirling around that well remembered-but not well understood-moment when the Civil War ended. She expertly depicts the final battles in Virginia, when Grant's troops surrounded Lee's half-starved army, the meeting of the generals at the McLean House, and the shocked reaction as news of the surrender spread like an electric charge throughout the nation. But as Varon shows, the ink had hardly dried before both sides launched a bitter debate over the meaning of the war and the nation's future. For Grant, and for most in the North, the Union victory was one of right over wrong, a vindication of free society; for many African Americans, the surrender marked the dawn of freedom itself. Lee, in contrast, believed that the Union victory was one of might over right: the vast impersonal Northern war machine had worn down a valorous and unbowed South. Lee was committed to peace, but committed, too, to the restoration of the South's political power within the Union and the perpetuation of white supremacy. These two competing visions of the war's end paved the way not only for Southern resistance to reconstruction but also our ongoing debates on the Civil War, 150 years later. Did America's best days lie in the past or in the future? For Lee, it was the past, the era of the founding generation. For Grant, it was the future, represented by Northern moral and material progress. They held, in the end, two opposite views of the direction of the country-and of the meaning of the war that had changed that country forever.
Author: S. C. Gwynne Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 150111624X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 432
Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell comes “a masterwork of history” (Lawrence Wright, author of God Save Texas), the spellbinding, epic account of the last year of the Civil War. The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of the most compelling narratives and one of history’s great turning points. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist S.C. Gwynne breathes new life into the epic battle between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln. “A must-read for Civil War enthusiasts” (Publishers Weekly), Hymns of the Republic offers many surprising angles and insights. Robert E. Lee, known as a great general and Southern hero, is presented here as a man dealing with frustration, failure, and loss. Ulysses S. Grant is known for his prowess as a field commander, but in the final year of the war he largely fails at that. His most amazing accomplishments actually began the moment he stopped fighting. William Tecumseh Sherman, Gwynne argues, was a lousy general, but probably the single most brilliant man in the war. We also meet a different Clara Barton, one of the greatest and most compelling characters, who redefined the idea of medical care in wartime. And proper attention is paid to the role played by large numbers of black union soldiers—most of them former slaves. Popular history at its best, Hymns of the Republic reveals the creation that arose from destruction in this “engrossing…riveting” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) read.
Author: Jenny Sockey Publisher: Xulon Press ISBN: 1591601215 Category : Languages : en Pages : 134
Author: MacKinlay Kantor
Author: Caroline E. Janney
Author: William Marvel
Author: Robert N. Webb
Author: Brooks D. Simpson
Author: Gene Smith
Author: Gregory P. Downs
Author: Elizabeth R. Varon
Author: S. C. Gwynne
Author: Jenny Sockey