$25.00
|
|
 {Abbott}
Scott, Robert Garth, ed.
FALLEN LEAVES: The Civil War Letters of Major Henry Livermore Abbott.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Kent State University Press. 1992).
Illustrations.
~~~
From Booknews: "Abbott, one of the company of young Union officers from Harvard that included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Russell Lowell, and Robert Gould Shaw, fought with the 20th Massachusetts Infantry from October 1861 to May 6, 1864, when he was killed in action. This collection of Abbott's wartime letters to his family and friends, the majority published here for the first time, is accompanied by an introduction and epilogue by Robert Garth Scott and by 36 photographs."
|
$25.00
|
|
[Benedict] Ward, Eric (ed), ARMY LIFE IN VIRGINIA: The Civil War Letters of George C. Benedict.
NEW copy. hardcover with dust jacket. (Stackpole Books, 2001). 272 pages.
~~~
"George G. Benedict was one of thousands of young
men who enlisted for the Union cause in the late summer of 1862 when the outcome of the Civil War was yet to be decided.
But in addition to his duties as a soldier, Benedict also worked as a correspondent for his hometown newspaper, the
Burlington (Vermont) Free Press. Benedict's thirty-one letters gave the folks back home a firsthand account of army
life in the Civil War. Now, by supplementing these letters with official documents, newspaper accounts, and comrade's
letters, editor Eric Ward expands on this account, providing a fuller and more accurate picture of army life in
Virginia."
|
$45.00
|
|
Britton, Wiley (Late, Sixth Kansas Cavalry), MEMOIRS OF THE REBELLION ON THE BORDER, 1863.
Bison Book, University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books, Reprinted from the original 1882 edition by Cushing, Thomas & Co., Chicago., NEW. 1st Bison Book edition. 458 pp. "...the best and most accurate first-person account of the long-overlooked western border war of 1863, presenting a detailed perspective of events on the frontiers of Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and the Indian territory. Britton describes some of the key engagements fought in the trans-Mississippi theatre, including the battles of Pea Ridge, Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, and Cabin Creek, as well as numerous lesser actions. ...(though not published until 1882), it is actually a diary written during the decisive year of 1863 and then rewritten by him as a published memoir... Britten recorded the drills, movements, raids, expeditions, reconnaissances, and campaigns while writing of the hopes, fears and thoughts of his comrades... In addition he wrote in detail of the untamed and wartorn regions through which he rode with his regiment, noting the geography, environment and setting of the seldom-described trans-Mississippi theatre.
|
$35.00
|
|
Carley, Kenneth, MINNESOTA IN THE CIVIL WAR.
Ross & Haines, Minneapolis, 1961., F/NF. As new except that price is clipped
from DJ. First Edition. 6 x 8.75. Photographs, B&W and color plates, maps,
bibliography, index, 168 pp. Table of Contents as follows: Introduction;
Gallantry at Gettysburg; Storming Missionary Ridge; Capture of Little Rock;
Victory at Vicksburg; Crises at Corinth; Breakthrough at Nashville; Hardship
at Helena; Chronology; Roster; Minnesota's Civil War Monuments;
Bibliography; Index.
|
|
ULYSSES S. GRANT
|
$30.00
|
|
[Grant]
Maihafer, Harry J.
THE GENERAL AND THE JOURNALISTS: Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, and Charles Dana
.
Washington DC: Brassey's, 1998. As new in as new dust jacket,
black boards. 1st edition.
~~~ As both general and president, Grant felt the full power of the press. By a remarkable twist of fate, not only his wartime successes but also his peacetime failures were directly influenced by Greeley and Dana, two of the greatest figures of American journalism. The trio provides a fascinating contrast: Grant the simple soldier, basically unchanged from the time he left West Point until the day he died, honor untarnished but reputation sullied by men in whom he placed too much trust; Greeley the idealistic, brilliant, opinionated kingmaker, alternating in wartime between hawk and dove, forever shifting in his allegiances; and Dana the perverse, pragmatic, cynical intellectual, one of the first to emphasize news over editorials. The General and the Journalists follows the three powerful men as their paths cross during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Vividly portraying the 19th century era of "personal journalism," when Greeley and Dana became major players on the national stage, Harry J. Maihafer shows how the media greatly affected the conduct of the Civil War and, to this day, has shaped the public's
perception of Lincoln's, Johnson's, and Grant's presidencies. Extensive quotes from contemporary
newspapers convey a feeling of immediacy, bringing to life a new and important aspect of Grant's
career , one of intense drama and bitter conflict.
~~~ Hardcover OUT OF PRINT.
|
$35.00
|
|
 [Grant]
Jean Edward Smith,
GRANT
.
NEW copy. (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2001). 781 pages.
~~~ From Publisher's Weekly: Grant's reputation as a general has steadily improved in the past quarter
century, and the preceding decade has seen reevaluation of a presidency
previously dismissed as an eight-year disaster. Smith, until now best known for
his work in 20th-century U.S. foreign policy (George Bush's War), integrates
Grant's career and achievements in what is by far the best comprehensive
biography to date of a man who remains in enigma. A West Pointer who disliked
the army enough to resign from it in 1854, Grant failed unobtrusively at every
civilian enterprise he attempted. His return to arms in 1861 was marked by no
spectacular triumph. Instead, from Shiloh through Vickburgh to Chattanooga, he
established himself as the North's best general by a combination of flexibility,
resilience and determination. Lee's unconditional surrender was accompanied by
Grant's de facto pardon of the defeated army, and Smith persuasively interprets
this as an early turning point of reconstruction, preventing Northern reprisals
that might have left the nation permanently divided emotionally. Elected
president in 1868, Grant above all sought reconciliation, yet made measured and
effective use of the army to protect black rights in the south. Smith makes a
strong case that the financial scandals that dogged Grant's second term
reflected individual misfeasance rather than structural malaise-Grant was better
at judging military subordinates than political advisers. His mediation of the
Hayes-Tilden election in 1876 helped avert a national crisis. As a conqueror who
was also a healer of war's wounds, Grant stands with no superiors and few
equals, Smith forcefully argues. (Apr.) Forecast: The timing of this book is
right, with Colin Powell as secretary of state and an election whose questions
of black disenfranchisement and small electoral margin of victory are analogous
to Hayes-Tilden. Add to that this book's comprehensiveness, rigor and
readability, and it should do quite well.
|
|
$45.00
|
|
Hyman, Harold M., UNION AND CONFIDENCE: THE 1860s.
Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976. VG. First Edition. Bound in glossy dark brown
paper with gilt letter. In matching slipcase. Front hinge cracked on outside about one
inch at bottom. Binding secure on inside. Book otherwise in very nice condition, as is
slipcover. Line decorations, photographs, engravings, tables, page-end notes, index,
302 pages.
|
$40.00
|
|
Johnson, Mark W.,
THAT BODY OF BRAVE MEN: The U.S. Regular Infantry and the Civil War in the West.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (De Capo Press, 2003).
548 pages.
~~~ Two separate components made up the bulk of the Union Army: state volunteer
regiments and the Regular Army. The volunteers have stood forefront in the mind
of the American public, perhaps because the vast majority of Northern soldiers
served in volunteer units. Much has been written about the volunteer units, but
there has been very little attention paid to the 75,000 soldiers of the Union's
Regular Army - until now.
~~~ The author covers in detail the history of the four Regular Army regiments
that fought in the Civil War's Western Theater. Using old regimental records
from the Civil War, as well as diaries and letters, the author has unearthed a
wealth of new material about this long-neglected topic. He covers every unit and
every battle in compelling narrative and exhaustive detail, and reaches some
surprising conclusions about the significant role these troops played in the
Union's eventual victory.
~~~ Currently in print at $45.
|
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
|
$27.00
|
|
[Lincoln], Ronald C. White, Jr.,
THE ELOQUENT PRESIDENT: A Portrait of Lincoln.
Random House, 2005. NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket.
480 pages. ~~ "If America lasts a millennium, it is
unlikely that ever a time will come when
candidates for office every quadrennium do not turn to the
words of Abraham
Lincoln, either because their own are inadequate, or because
they hope to imbue
their own aspirations with some of the mythic echoes of
holiness that seem to
attend anything that came from the Emancipator's pen. We look
to Lincoln's words
for comfort in crisis, inspiration for a cause, and most
of all to give
ourselves a place in the passing ages. He wrote or said
something that
applies—or can be made to apply — to virtually every human
condition and
aspiration, and often, when we cannot find him saying what
we want him to, we
put our own words in his mouth. It is rather in the form
of Winston Churchill's
conclusions on the legendary King Arthur, that if he did
not really live, he
should have; if Lincoln did not say something trenchant for
every occasion, he
should have. ~~ Certainly there is one thing Lincoln
should have done that,
alas, he was not given life enough to do, and that was to pen
his own memoir.
None but he could fill in the innumerable gaps in what
we know, or think we
know, of his life and times. In The Eloquent President:
A Portrait of Lincoln
through His Words, Ronald C. White, Jr., has made himself
Lincoln's
co-author. 'Lincoln's eloquence may prove to be his most
lasting legacy,' White
concludes, and certainly he is well qualified to make such
a judgment. The
author of Lincoln's Greatest Speech, White has
thoroughly plumbed
virtually every known written or oral expression left by
Lincoln. White shows
the development of Lincoln's ideas on Union, slavery, and
mankind. At the same
time he explores the development of Lincoln's written
style and literary
eloquence, the influences of Elizabethan cadence, biblical
rhetoric, and
idiomatic American expression. ~~ From
Lincoln's earliest recollections of his youth to the hours
prior to his death,
White explores all the dimensions of what the man had to
say about his own life
and where he came from, geographically, socially, and
spiritually. In the
process he illuminates many of the time-worn expressions
that have seen their
meaning lost or clouded through careless repetition. He
disassembles some of
them almost mathematically, and then delves into the
component parts to find the
process of Lincoln's thinking as first he persuaded himself,
and then crafted
his phrases to persuade others. Many have written analyses
of Lincoln's style,
but no one has explored so deeply or profitably the man's
literary thinking, and
shown how his words reveal and mirror his own growth.
~~ The Eloquent
President ought rightfully to stand as a lasting monument to White's
industry and innovation, and to the ageless meaning of his subject's words. As
always, and for as long as humankind survive, Lincoln will have the last word."
|
$30.00
|
|
[Lincoln], Wert, Jeffry D., THE SWORD
OF LINCOLN: The Army of the Potomac.
Simon & Schuster, 2005. NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket.
560 pages. ~~ "Bruce Catton referred to it as 'Mr. Lincoln's Army.'
Indeed, he wrote a
three-volume history of the Army of the Potomac, the final
volume of which
earned him the Pulitzer Prize for History. Jeffry D. Wert
refers to the army as
'The Sword of Lincoln,' and so it was, as he ably demonstrates in his new book
of the same title. It is one of the ironies of the Civil War that while other
armies arguably achieved more, in the collective-and selective-memory of most
Americans, the Union Army in the Civil War was the Army of the Potomac.
~~ The Army of the Tennessee under its several commanders, most notably
William T. Sherman, marched thousands of miles and took the war from Kentucky,
across Tennessee, over northern Alabama and across Georgia, then up through
South and North Carolina, and was on the verge of entering Virginia when the war
ended. It defeated a succession of armies, took several state capitals, and
conquered tens of thousands of square miles of the Confederacy, virtually
breaking its backbone. By contrast, the Army of the Potomac was never more than
130 miles from Washington and spent its entire war career in the state of
Virginia except for dogging Confederate marches into Maryland and Pennsylvania
in 1862 and 1863. ~~ Lincoln’s Army ~~ Part of the reason for the
continuing focus on the Army of the Potomac is its foe, Robert E. Lee and the
Army of Northern Virginia. No other Yankee commander faced a foe so wily or
able. More of the reason lies in the army’s special relationship with the
president. Lincoln almost virtually built that army himself, out of the
volunteers he first called to arms in 1861. Because part of its assignment was
the protection of Washington, Lincoln saw the army often, knew its officers
better than any others, and the men in the ranks had the opportunity to see him
repeatedly, thus forging a bond between the two. ~~ Wert describes in
telling detail the birth and development of the army, the makeup of its officer
corps, the culture that developed within the circles of leadership, often
working against its goals, and the spirit of the men in the ranks. Those
soldiers endured more defeat than any other Union enlisted men, yet they stayed
the course, often in spite of inept leaders, and in the face of the growing
legend of invincibility of their foe. They suffered higher casualties than any
other Union field army, in the process fighting the most studied and storied
battles of the war, from Antietam to Gettysburg, the Wilderness and Petersburg,
before Grant and fate finally brought them Appomattox. Wert’s research is
pleasingly thorough, and his judgments mature and well informed, as we would
expect from the author of half a dozen distinguished Civil War military works.
On a subject as big as this, many books could be written, and surely more will
be, but Wert’s achievement is to capture the spirit of this virtual city of
armed men on whom Lincoln pinned so much of his hope for the salvation of the
Union."
|
|
$34.95
|
|
Miller, Edward A., THE BLACK CIVIL WAR
SOLDIERS OF ILLINOIS: The Story of the Twenty-Ninth U.S. Colored
Infantry.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(University of South Carolina Press, 67 photographs, 267 pages.
~~~ Historian Edward A. Miller, Jr., chronicles the Civil War experience of a
representative African American regiment--the 29th United States Colored
Infantry. In a comprehensive examination of the unit's composition,
contribution, and post-war fate, Miller demonstrates the value of the 29th as a
means of understanding the Civil War experience of African American soldiers,
including the prejudice that shaped their service.
|
$49.95
|
|
Neely, Mark E. and Harold Holzer,
UNION IMAGE:
Popular Prints of the Civil War North.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
296 pages.
~~~ This handsome, oversized volume
with a scholarly but lively text, contributes to our
understanding of life,
politics and public opinion in the North, and is also
an important contribution
to the history of popular art in America . . . The
Union Image captures the
spirit of the time and evokes, at least in part, what
it must have been
like to live in the North during the war. The magic
of this book, which belongs
in the library of anyone interested in the Civil War,
is that it helps remind
one that it was not so long ago, and that the people
who lived through it were
not so different from us.
~~~ From Library Journal: "Neely and
Holzer follow their
previous Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost
Cause (out of print) with a look at the
uplifting propaganda prints of the North during and
after the war. When the war
opened with 4000 shells showering down on Fort Sumter
in April 1861, not a
single life was claimed, but the shelling shredded
the American flag. The New
York lithography firm of Currier & Ives immediately
issued copies of
"Bombardment of Fort Sumter" showing a soldier
holding the tattered banner,
which created a flag mania. Other companies soon
joined in. Images of commanders
nobly mounted, life in camp, tearful good-byes,
lavish battle scenes showing
Confederates in retreat, and dying soldiers with an
angel hovering overhead were
enthusiastically displayed in Northern homes to show
patriotism. The 1864
Presidential campaign spawned more popular images.
Over the years, the authors
have scoured public and private collections to locate
the 150 original prints
represented here as well as new information on the
artists and the printing
processes. Their intent to recapture the spirit in
which these prints were first
published and their importance to American culture is
successfully realized.
|
$35.00
|
|
Prokopowicz, Gerald J.,
ALL FOR THE REGIMENT: The Army of the Ohio, 1861-1862.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(University of North Carolina Press, 2001). 280 pages.
~~~
Despite its important role in the early years of the Civil War, the
Army of the Ohio remains one of the least studied of all Union
commands. With All for the Regiment, Gerald Prokopowicz
deftly fills this gap. He offers an engaging history of the Army
of the Ohio from its formation in 1861 to its costly triumph at
Shiloh and its failure at Perryville in 1862. ~~~ All for the
Regiment traces how the amateur soldiers who formed the Army of
the Ohio bridged widely varying backgrounds to organize themselves
into individual regiments of remarkable strength and cohesion.
Successive commanders Robert Anderson, William T. Sherman, and
Don Carlos Buell all failed to integrate those regiments into an
effective organization, however. The result was a decentralized
and elastic army that was easily disrupted and difficult to
command -- but also nearly impossible to destroy in combat.
~~~ Exploring the army's behavior at minor engagements such as
Rowlett's Station and Logan's Cross Roads, as well as major battles
such as Shiloh and Perryville, Prokopowicz shows how its regiment-
oriented culture prevented the army from experiencing decisive
results -- either complete victory or catastrophic defeat -- on
the battlefield. Regimental solidarity was at once the Army of
the Ohio's greatest strength, he argues, and its most dangerous
vulnerability. ~~~ More than a traditional campaign narrative,
the book uses the Army of the Ohio's example to advance an
innovative argument regarding battlefield performance in the
Civil War. How an army fared in battle was primarily determined
not by the skill of its commander or the technological
sophistication of its weapons, Prokopowicz says, but by the way
in which it was recruited and organized.
~~~ "An insightful and incisive analysis of Civil War
military culture, of the disorganization of Civil War armies -— the
key to their sloppy, indecisive, and deadly performances. This is an
excellent anti-romance, original and unusual in approach and
refreshingly honest." ~~Michael Fellman.
~~~ "This book fills an important niche in the history of
Civil War armies. Lucid and lively, All for the Regiment shows how
recruitment, training, and combat forged the bonds of comradeship
that sustained morale and fighting power." ~~James M. McPherson
~~~ Currently in print at $37.50.
|
$30.00
|
|
Pullen, John J., A SHOWER OF STARS: The Medal of Honor and the 27th Maine.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket, Stackpole Books, 1997. Originally published in 1966; this edition contains new material. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index, 269 pages. "The story of a group of nine-month volunteers from York County who were issued 864 Medals of Honor, one for every member of the regiment. The hero of this story is Colonel Mark E. Wentworth, the commander of the 27th Maine, later of the 32nd Maine, who thwarted the forces that threatened ignominty on the Medal of Honor, and revealed the true character of valor." Hardcover OUT OF PRINT; softcover in print at $24.95.
|
$30.00
|
|
Silber, Nina, ed.
YANKEE CORRESPONDENCE: Civil War Letters between New England Soldiers and the Home Front .
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996. New in new dust jacket; blue boards; illustrations. 1st edition.
"The letters in this book present a range of views from a variety of social and occupation strata on race, politics, and other matters and reveal the growing differences between New England and the rest of the country." From Booknews: "
A collection of letters written by New England soldiers and their families, many published for the first time, grouped in six major themes: the military experience, the meaning of the war, views of the South, politics on the home front, the personal sacrifices of war, and finally, the correspondence of one particular family."
|
$25.00
|
|
Smith, W. Wayne, THE PRICE OF PATRIOTISM:
Indiana County, Pennsylvania and the Civil War.
NEW copy, though some light smudging to rear panel of dust
jacket. (Burd Street Press, 1998). Photographs, maps,
decorated end pages, notes, bibliography, index, 124 pages.
|
$17.95
|
|
(Strother) Cecil D. Eby, Jr. (ed),
VIRGINIA YANKEE IN THE CIVIL WAR:
The Diaries of David Hunter Strother.
NEW copy, though some light smudging to rear panel of dust
jacket. (Burd Street Press, 1998). Photographs, maps,
decorated end pages, notes, bibliography, index, 124 pages.
~~~ The Civil War diaries of David
Hunter Strother, known better to his contemporaries as "Porte
Crayon," chronicle his three years of service in the Union army
with the same cogency and eye for
detail that made him one of the most popular writers and
illustrators in America
in his time. A Virginian strongly opposed to secession, Strother
joined the
Federal army as a civilian topographer in July of 1861 and was
soon
commissioned, rising eventually to the rank of brigadier general.
He served
under a succession of commanders, including Generals Patterson,
Banks, Pope, and
McClellan, winning their respect as well as their confidence.
First published by
UNC Press in 1961, A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War is
a fascinating firsthand
record of the conflict and of the divided loyalties it produced
that is further
enlivened by Strother's remarkable humor and insight.
|
$25.00
|
|
Weinert, Richard P. Jr., & Colonel Robert Arthur,. DEFENDER OF THE CHESAPEAKE:
THE STORY OF FORT MONROE.
White Mane Publishing Company, 1989. Fine/VG. 3rd Revised Edition. New
copy, but some light smudging to dust jacket, which still has old $19.95 price.
Currently in print at $25. Photographs, drawings, diagrams, decorated
endpages, appendices, notes, bibliography, index, 361 pages. Covers history
of Ft Monroe from its founding in 1823 through World War II, with particular
emphasis on the Civil War.
|
$35.00
|
|
[Willcox] Robert Garth Scott (ed),
FORGOTTEN VALOR: The Memoirs, Journals, and Civil War Letters of Orlando B. Willcox.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1999). 732 pages.
~~~ The papers of Major General Orlando Bolivar Willcox,
one of the most prominent division commanders in the Union army,
were recently discovered locked in a trunk in a Washington,
D.C., attic, virtually untouched since his death nearly a
century ago.
Editor Robert Garth Scott has sifted through
what is arguably the largest collection of Civil War-related
material to surface in fifty years. From his childhood in
Detroit through his cadetship at West Point, his service
in the Mexican, Seminole, and Civil Wars, and his post-Civil
War experiences in the West, Willcox’s story is published here
for the first time.
~~~ Currently in print at $39.00.
|
$35.00
|
|
[Winters] Steven E. Woodworth (ed),
THE MUSICK OF THE MOCKING BIRDS, THE ROAR OF THE CANNON: The Civil War Diary and
Letters of William Winters. NEW copy.
Hardcover with dust jacket. (University of Nebraska Press, 1998)
154 pages.
~~~
William Winters was unlike most of the young soldiers who answered the Union’s appeal for men in 1861 and 1862. He was different from many of his comrades in age and point of view, and his war service was also out of the ordinary.
~~~
The last great surge of popular voluntary enlistment swept up Winters, a thirty-two-year-old saddle and harness maker and father of three from Indiana. Like so many others in the Civil War, Winters was a prolific correspondent, and through his letters we have a record of some lesser-known campaigns. Winters served in the siege of Vicksburg and in the Red River Campaign, frequently as a nurse, a role that emphasized for him the darker side of the war. These letters and journal entries show a sensitive man who reflects upon both the loveliness of the southern locales in which he found himself and the hideousness of war.
|
|
