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Berry, Stephen W.,
ALL THAT MAKES A MAN: Love and Ambition in the Civil War South.
NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 304 pages.
~~~
In May 1861, Jefferson Davis issued a general call for volunteers for
the Confederate Army. Men responded in such numbers that 200,000 had to
be turned away. Few of these men would have attributed their zeal to the
cause of states' rights or slavery. As All That Makes a Man: Love and
Ambition in the Civil War South makes clear, most southern men saw the
war more simply as a test of their manhood, a chance to defend the honor
of their sweethearts, fiances, and wives back home.
~~~ Drawing upon diaries and personal letters, Stephen Berry
seamlessly weaves together the stories of six very different men,
detailing the tangled roles that love and ambition played in each
man's life. Their writings reveal a male-dominated Southern culture
that exalted women as "repositories of divine grace" and treasured
romantic love as the platform from which men launched their bids for
greatness. The exhilarating onset of war seemed to these, and most
southern men, a grand opportunity to fulfill their ambition for glory
and to prove their love for women--on the same field of battle. As the
realities of the war became apparent, however, the letters and diaries
turned from idealized themes of honor and country to solemn reflections
on love and home.
~~~ Elegant and poetic, All That Makes a Man recovers the emotional
lives of unsung Southern men and women and reveals that the fiction of Cold
Mountain mirrors a poignant reality. In their search for a cause worthy of
their lives, many Southern soldiers were disappointed in their hopes for a
Southern nation. But they still had their women's love, and there they would
rebuild.
$24.95
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Bill, Alfred Hoyt, THE BELEAGUERED CITY:
Richmond, 1861-1865.
Alfred A. Knopf., 1946. VG/VG---. Second Printing. Some chips & closed tears to jacket. Moderate chip missing from top of front panel: lettering unaffected. A partially faded number about the size of a nickle written in what looks like red crayon on top right corner of jacket front panel. Two inch closed tear on rear panel of jacket. Jacket colors unfaded. Origninal "$3.00" price still intact. Book itself in clean, tight condition, except for front flyleaf where, in the right top corner, hard erasing by a previous owner has damaged the paper. Book otherwise in nice condition. Illustrations throughout from Harper's Weekly and London Illustrated News. Two fold-out maps. Notes, index, 331 pages.
$35.00
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COMPLETE BOOK OF CONFEDERATE TRIVIA..
Burd Street Press, 1996., NEW copy. Large trade paperback. Publisher's card laid in.
Over 4000 questions & answers. 357 pp.
$35.00
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Conrad, James Lee,
THE YOUNG LIONS: Confederate Cadets at War. NEW copy. Hardcover in dust jacket. Stackpole Books, 1997. First Edition. Maps, engravings, photographs, notes, bibliography, index, 198 pages.
From the Library Journal: "The Virginia Military Academy, which later became the Virginia Military Institute (VMI); the South Carolina Military Academy; the Georgia Military Academy; and the University of Alabama Corps of Cadets all served a vital role in preparing raw recruits for the military. They also served as de facto "West Points" for the South, and their graduates made up the majority of Confederate field officers. This is a detailed history of these schools and their role in the Civil War. It is also a very readable account of the problems involved in keeping the schools open during the war and the part that young students played. Conrad, a graduate of VMI, has divided his work in sections by year, and within each year he gives a detailed account of events at each institution, as well as any engagements in which its cadets participated."
$25.00
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Crabb, Alfred Leland,
DINNER AT BELMONT:
A Novel of Captured Nashville.
The Bobbs Merrill Company, 1942. VG/VG. First
Edition. Some chipping & small pieces missing from spine ends &
corners of dust jacket, but colors unfaded. Jacket in mylar
protector. Book itself a little dingy, but in good overall
condition. Price clipped. 385 pages. Author's first book, a novel of antebellum and
wartime Nashville, which portrays five dinners from 1858 to 1865.
$65.00
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[Cunningham] Simpson, John A.
S.A. CUNNINGHAM AND THE CONFEDERATE HERITAGE .
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. Fine in near fine dust jacket. Grey boards.
First edition.
~~~
"This is the first full-length biography of Sumner Archibald Cunningham (1843-1913), a central figure of the Lost Cause
movement in the post-Civil War South. The focus of John A. Simpson's study is on Cunningham's career as founder, owner,
and editor of one of the New South's most influential magazines, the Nashville-based Confederate Veteran. Reared on a
prosperous farm in middle Tennessee, Cunningham signed on in 1861 at age eighteen, as a private in the 41st Tennessee
Infantry. He fought in several battles, was captured, and escaped to fight again. By the end of his enlistment, he had
risen to the rank of sergeant-major. Like so many of his peers, Cunningham's pivotal life experience was his Confederate
service. The collective trauma of war and defeat, combined with what Cunningham assessed as a personally 'inglorious'
military record, drove his obsessive involvement in helping to form and then defend the most historically palatable image
possible of the Southern cause. In 1871, after several moderately successful years as a mercantilist in his hometown
of Shelbyville, Tennessee, Cunningham purchased a local newspaper and began his forty-two-year career in journalism.
Using his position of high visibility to help raise funds for a monument to Jefferson Davis, Cunningham soon became the
fund's general agent. From there he rose to the forefront of the movement to sanctify Confederate veteranhood. At his
death in 1913, Cunningham was eulogized across the South for his zealous dedication to the Confederate heritage. His
story, which enriches our understanding of the ongoing cultural phenomenon of the Lost Cause, also depicts one man's
personal struggle to rationalize his wartime inadequacies during an era of intense mythologizing."
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$25.00
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Davis, Edwin Adams,
FALLEN GUIDON: The Saga of Confederate General Jo Shelby's March to Mexico.
Texas A&M., NEW, still in shrinkwrap.
Hardcover with dust jacket
(white discoloration showing around edges of jacket are from shrinkwrap and are not on the jacket itself).
1 b&w photo, 16 line drawings, 2 maps,
192 pp. "The last organized unit of the Confederate army refused to
surrender, and the story of their effort to transplant Southern
ideals in Mexico gives new understanding
into the attitudes of those
men who returned to their homes after the Civil War and to the
poverty and the
pride that led to the cattle drive era."
$27.00
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JEFFERSON DAVIS
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Hendrick, Burton J., STATESMEN OF THE LOST CAUSE:
Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet.
VG/VG--. Some chipping & creasing to jacket, which is in mylar.
(Literary Guild, 1939). Engravings, photos, page-end notes, bibliography, index, 452 pages.
$30.00
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Early, LtGen Jubal A.,
A MEMOIR OF THE LAST YEAR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE, in the Confederate States of America, containing an Account of the Operations of His Commands in the Years 1864 and 1865.
NEW copy. (Harrisburg, PA: Archive Society, 1996).
Facsimile reprint of original 1867 Charles W. Button edition.
Finely bound in gray leatherette with stamped decorations, gilt inlays and
gilt edges. Marbled endpages. Sewn binding.
Extensive page-end notes, appendix, 135 pages.
~~~ This edition OUT OF PRINT.
$65.00
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Fletcher, William A.,
REBEL PRIVATE: Front and Rear.
NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK. (Plume Books). 223 pages.
~~~
First published in 1907, the memoirs of a former Confederate soldier who fought at
Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Second Mannassas, and Chickamunga reveal the
ground-level perspective of a Civil War private.
$14.00
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NATHAN
BEDFORD
FORREST
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(Forrest), Hurst, Jack, NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST:
A Biography.
NF/VG+. A very slight bit of rubbing to top of dust jacket
spine. (NY: Knopf, 1993). First Edition. Photographs, end notes, index, 434 pp.
$25.00
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Furgurson, Ernest B., ASHES OF GLORY: Richmond at War.
NF/NF. Remainder dot on bottom of book (page edges). (NY: Knopf, 1997). Third printing.
Map, photographs, extensive notes & bibliography, index, 419 pp.
~~~ From Kirkus Reviews: "In a real contribution to the literature on the Civil War, Furgurson
(Chancellorsville, 1863) paints a lively portrait of the Confederacy's first city in wartime.
Before the Civil War, Richmond, Virginia, the state capital, was a prosperous city; during the war, it served as the
South's administrative capital, military headquarters, and principal industrial center. As a result, Richmond was under
almost constant threat from Federal armies. In the early years of the war, the citizenry of Richmond exhibited enthusiasm
for the Confederate cause, tempered with nervousness during various Union invasions. After Grant launched his 1864
campaign to subdue the Southern capital, the city developed a siege mentality that ultimately sapped the will of the
South. As a result, in a metamorphosis that was a mirror image of Lincoln's in the North, the popularity of Jefferson
Davis waned through the war, until the man who once could not walk through Richmond without being mobbed could ride
through the streets of the capital without so much as a cheer. As Davis's western military effort collapsed, the war
became more and more a fight to preserve Richmond. Also, Furgurson shows that the struggle for mastery of Richmond
reached inside the capital, where Union sympathizers and Federal spies worked to undermine the Confederate government
and give aid and comfort to the large numbers of Northern prisoners there, interned at the notorious Libby and Belle
Isle prisons. While most Unionists made modest contributions, one spy, Elizabeth Van Lew, was acknowledged by generals
Butler and Grant to have given valuable information to the Union side throughout the war. The author points out that
the Confederate war effort survived the fall of the other major Southern cities -— New Orleans, Mobile, Atlanta -— but
ended immediately when the rebel government abandoned Richmond. A well-conceived, finely drawn portrait of wartime
Richmond."
$30.00
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(Gildersleeve) Ward W. Briggs (ed),
SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR: Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve and the Civil
War.
NEW copy, hard cover with dust jacket.
(University of Virginia Press, 1998). Photographs, 448 pages.
~~~ One of America's greatest
classical scholars, Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve (1831-1924) was also a Civil War
journalist. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, and a self-described "southerner
beyond dispute," he received his doctorate in Germany and returned to America an
enthusiastic advocate of Greek scholarship. Like every male member of his
immediate family (including his father), Gildersleeve enlisted after Fort
Sumter, but he continued to teach at the University of Virginia during the
winters. Frequenting Richmond during the war, this young intellectual and
passionate partisan who found the war, with its attendant social and political
issues, as stimulating as his beloved classics. In
Soldier and Scholar, editor
Ward Briggs has assembled a revealing collection of Gildersleeve's writings:
autobiographical essays, sixty-three editorials he
wrote for the Richmond
Examiner during the war, and a series of his reflections upon the causes and
effects of the Civil War thirty years later. Unlike published Civil War diaries,
the editorials do not merely record daily occurrences and impressions; they
analyze military, social, economic, and political events, setting them in a
larger ethical and historical context. Infused with the rhetoric of
Gildersleeve's classical training, these pieces are frequently vitriolic attacks
not only on the evil and immoral Yankees, miscegenation, Jews, and critics of
slavery, but also on Jefferson Davis, his hapless Confederate administration,
and the struggling Southern armies.
~~~ From Booknews: "In assembling
Gildersleeve's writings -- autobiographical,
newspaper editorials, and Southern essays, Briggs
brings to light the reflections of a University of
Virginia classics scholar during the
Civil War. His classical rhetoric lends a novel twist
to his loyalist but
critical views on the South's 'Good Cause,' in
chastising the Confederate
administration as well as critics of slavery and
Yankee poet 'sinners' against
the English language."
~~~ Currently in print at $55.00.
$45.00
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(Gorgas), Frank E. Vandiver,
PLOUGHSHARES INTO SWORDS: Josiah Gorgas and Confederate Ordnance.
(Texas A&M, 1994). NEW copy, still in
shrink-wrap. 349 pages.
~~~ A study of the life and Civil War
record of Josiah Gorgas, a West Point graduate of the class
of 1840 who entered the Union Ordnance Corps and defected to
the Confederacy. Vandiver (president emeritus, Texas A&M U.)
draws on numerous unpublished sources for this narrative,
first published in 1952.
$35.00
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(Grisamore), Bergeron, Arthur W., Jr. (ed),
THE CIVIL WAR REMINISCENCES OF MAJOR SILAS T. GRISAMORE, C.S.A..
(Louisiana State University Press, 1993). NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket.
Photographs, maps, notes, bibliography, index.
$25.00
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(Hampton), Manly Wade Wellman,
GIANT IN GRAY: A Biography of Wade Hampton of South Carolina.
NF/NF. Jacket in mylar.
(Dayton: Press of Morningside Bookshop, 1988). Facsimile reprint of original 1949 Scribner's edition.
Photographic plates, notes, bibliography, index, 387 pages.
~~~ Wade Hampton was one of only three men promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in the Confederate army without a formal military education. Despite his lack of training, Hampton's presence would be profoundly felt at many battles, including First Manassas, the Peninsula Campaign, GEttysburg, and Petersburg.
~~~ Before the onset of the war, Hampton was widely known to be one of the most wealthy men in the South. He raised and equipped the Hampton Legion at his own expense, and left his home in Charleston, South Carolina, for Virginia, where he was seriously wounded in the battle of First Manassas. ~~~
Hampton would also suffer a severe head wound iat the battle of Gettysburg. Weary after an all night march, his brigade, made up of the 1st North Carolina, the 2st and 2nd South Carolina, the Jeff Davis Legion and Georgea legions of Cobb and Phillips, arrived at Gettysburg on the second day. They suffered heavy losses in a fight against BrigGen Judson Kilpatrick's divisions and on the third day met the cavalry brigades of Col J. Irvin Gregg and BrigGen George A. Custer. Hampton's Confederate cavalry did not, however, lay down without a fight; Pennsylvania Capt William Miller would later write, "A grander spectacle than their advance has seldom been beheld."
~~~ Hampton was appointed commander of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia after the death of MajGen J.E.B. Stuart. He served General Lee in this capacity until the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House.
~~~ After the War, Hampton was elected twice to the Governorship of South Carolina, and then to the US Senate. He was commissioner of Pacific Railways until his death in 1902.
~~~ OUT OF PRINT; increasingly difficult to find.
$55.00
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Inscoe, John C. and Gordon B. McKinney,
THE HEART OF CONFEDERATE APPALACHIA:
Western North Carolina in the Civil War.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (University
of North Carolina Press, 2000). 384 pages.
~~~ In the mountains of western North Carolina,
the Civil War was fought on different terms than
those found throughout most of the South. Though
relatively minor strategically, incursions by both
Confederate and Union troops disrupted life and
threatened the social stability of many communities.
Even more disruptive were the internal divisions
among western Carolinians themselves. Differing
ideologies turned into opposing loyalties, and the resulting strife
proved as traumatic as anything imposed by outside armies. As the mountains
became hiding places for deserters, draft dodgers, fugitive slaves, and escaped
prisoners of war, the conflict became a more localized and internalized
guerrilla war, less rational and more brutal, mean-spirited, and personal--and
ultimately more demoralizing and destructive.
~~~ From the valleys of the French Broad and Catawba Rivers to the peaks of the
Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, the people of western North Carolina
responded to the war in dramatically different ways. Men and women, masters and
slaves, planters and yeoman, soldiers and civilians, Confederates and Unionists,
bushwhackers and home guardsmen, Democrats and Whigs--all their stories are told
here.
~~~ Currently in print at $39.95.
$35.00
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STONEWALL JACKSON
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(Jackson), John Bowers, STONEWALL JACKSON.
VG. Trade PAPERBACK. (Avon Books, 1990). Photographs, index, 367 pp.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly: "Arguably the Civil War's most interesting figure, Thomas Jonathan Jackson was
a rigid Calvinist, unforgiving of human weakness, but also a man of considerable depth, adored by his ragged soldiers. A
ludicrously incompetent professor at the Virginia Military Institute, `Tom Fool' Jackson, to the astonishment of all,
turned into a brilliant military leader early in the war, leading his troops (among them many former students) to one
classic victory after another. Though seemingly indestructible, he fell at Chancellorsville on May 2, 1862, shot
accidentally by his own men while scouting forward of the lines. Bowers's descriptions of the battles are beautifully
wrought but remain secondary to the portrait of the man himself. No previous biographer has delved as sensitively into
Jackson's background, his death-haunted youth, his love life, the formation of his unique character, or the reasons for
his eccentric behavior."
$15.00
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(Jackson), John Bowers, STONEWALL JACKSON.
VG+/VG+. (NY: William Morrow & Co, 1989). Book Club Edition. Photographs, index, 375 pages.
$25.00
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[Jackson] Colonel G.F.R. Henderson, C.B.,
STONEWALL JACKSON AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.
Two volumes, NEW.
(Harrisburg, PA: The Archive Society, 1996).
Facsimile of the 1913 edition by Longmans, Green, and Company, New York.
With an introduction by Field-Marshal the Right Hon. Viscount Wolseley.
Finely bound in gray leatherette with gilt inlays and
gilt edges. Marbled endpapers.
Maps (also a fold-out map laid in), appendices, index. Vol I: 447 pages; Vol II: 528 pages.
~~~ Thomas Jonathan Jackson, best known by his nickname "Stonewall," rose
from obscure beginnings to the front rank of the officers of the Confederacy.
Known for his daring and strategic prowess, Jackson, early in the War Between
the States, became a hero of the South.
~~~ In 1861, an unknown major in the Virginia Militia, he was sent to Richmond
and made a colonel of Confederate Infantry. By June, 1861 he was made a
Brigadier General. With the Battle of Bull Run-where he got his name when it was
said "There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall."-he made Major General.
~~~ From there on, nothing could stop the fearless Jackson. Soon a close confidant
of Lee, his ideas, especially in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, dramatically
altered the methods of warfare for the remainder of the Civil War. His mastery
of tactics and strategy was an enormous boon to the South.
~~~ His two-part attack, with Lee, on Hooker's troops at Chancellorsville and the
subsequent routing of the Federal XI Corps was one of the most stirring and
striking victories of the war. It was also to Jackson's swan song when, in the
dim light at sunset, he was accidently wounded by some of his troops, and
succumbed on May 10, 1863. Only two years into the war, the Confederacy lost a
brilliant commander.
~~~ Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War is the definitive
biography of the man and the most complete history of his military career,
philosophy and strategies.
~~~ Regarding the author, F.R. Henderson, Civil War-historian Daniel
E. Sutherland (Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark
Campaign), writes: "The British military observer George F.R. Henderson analyzed both
battles (Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville), though he witnessed neither one. In 1886,
he wrote The Campaign of Fredericksburg, Nov.-Dec., 1862: A Tactical
Study for Officers (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and
Company), and the book remains useful for its insights into command decisions
and descriptions of terrain. Henderson's Stonewall Jackson
and the American Civil War, 2 vols. (London: Longmans,
Green, 1898), is more broadly conceived. He intended it as nothing less than a
treatise on the art of war, and it remains one of the most authoritative works
on Jackson's role at both Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville."
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$150.00
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[Jackson], Robert K. Krick,
STONEWALL JACKSON AT CEDAR MOUNTAIN.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990).
Photographs, maps, appendices, extensive notes, bibliography, index, 472 pages.
~~ At Cedar Mountain on August 9, 1862, Stonewall Jackson exercised independent
command of a campaign for the last time. Robert Krick untangles the myriad
accounts by participants on both sides of the battle to offer an illuminating
portrait of the Confederate general commanding his troops under the
extraordinary pressures of combat. From diaries, reminiscences, letters, and
newspaper articles, Krick reconstructs a vivid and detailed account of the
confrontation at Cedar Mountain and Jackson's victory there.
~~~ From Library Journal: "Of all of Stonewall Jackson's
battles, Cedar Mountain remains his least understood. Long neglected, it reveals
much about the colorful and eccentric Jackson, a man who could be cold, cruel,
distant, and secretive and then generous, friendly, and brilliant. Fifty percent
of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was in the hands of this general
whose job it was to halt the advance into Virginia of a newly created federal
army under General John Pope. Relying upon both published and unpublished
primary sources, Krick provides a virtual minute-by-minute account of the battle
and of the Confederate commander. It was at this battle that Jackson exercised
independent command for the last time, and Krick unravels the many conflicting
accounts--on both sides--of the importance of the battle and of Jackson's
management of the fighting."
$45.00
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[Jackson], Allen Tate, STONEWALL JACKSON:
The Good Soldier. NEW copy. Trade PAPERBACK. (JS Sanders & Co, Southern Classics Series, 1991).
Reprint of the 1928 GP Putnam's Sons edition.
Preface by Thomas Landess. Maps, appendices, 322 pp.
~~ His courage at 1st Manassas saved the Confederate army and earned him his enduring nickname. In the brilliant Shenandoah
Valley campaign his outnumbered men marched with such speed that they were henceforth known as "foot cavalry." At Chancellorsville,
Lee used him to execute his most daring tactical maneuver of the war. His untimely death was a loss from which the Army of Northern
Virginia never recovered. In this fast-paced biography of one of the South's ablest (and most enigmatic) commanders, Allen Tate
portrays the qualities that made "Stonewall" Jackson the warrior whom Lee would mourn as "my right arm." It is a rich and dramatic
account that should interest any reader of American biography or the War Between the States.
$15.00
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Johnston, Joseph E., General, C.S.A,
NARRATIVE OF MILITARY OPERATIONS, DIRECTED DURING THE LATE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.
NEW copy. A speck-sized flaw in the leatherette on the rear cover, evidently from time
of manufacture, as it does not appear to be an injury, and there is no danger of its
increasing in size. A half-inch slight scrape to bottom edge of front cover where
it sits on shelf. Book is otherwise pristine.
(Harrisburg, PA: Archive Society, 1995).
Facsimile reprint of original 1874 D. Appleton edition.
Finely bound in gray leatherette with elaborate stamped decorations, gilt inlays and
gilt edges. Gray marbled endpages. Sewn binding. Illustrated with superb steel-engraving
portraits and maps. Occasional page-end notes, A seventy-page appendix of field-orders and dispatches.
602 pages. A truly majestic book.
~~~ Petty considerations over rank and military etiquette and wounds cost the
Confederacy, for lengthy periods, the services of one of its most effective, top
commanders, Joseph E. Johnston. The Virginia native and West Pointer (1829),
rated by many as more capable than Lee, was the highest-ranking regular army
officer to resign and join the Confederacy. With the staff rank of brigadier
general, he had been the national army's quartermaster general for almost a year
when he quit on April 22, 1861. ~~~ His earlier career had included
eight years in the artillery before he was transferred to the topographical
engineers in 1838, when he rejoined the army a year after his resignation.
During the Mexican War he won two brevets and was wounded at both Cerro Gordo
and Chapultepec. He had also been brevetted for earlier service against the
Seminoles in Florida. Having been appointed quartermaster general on June 28,
1860, he remained in the service until after the secession of his native state.
~~~ His Virginia and Confederate assignments included: major general,
Virginia Volunteers (April 1861); brigadier general, CSA (May 14, 1861);
commanding Army of the Shenandoah June 30 - July 20, 1861); commanding Army of
the Potomac July 20 - October 22,1861); general, CSA (August 31, 1861, to rank
from July 21); commanding Department of Northern Virginia (October 22, 1861 -
May 31, 1862); commanding Department of the West (December 4, 1862 - December
1863); commanding Army of Tennessee (December 27, 1863 - July 18, 1864);
commanding Army of Tennessee and Department of Tennessee and Georgia (February
25 - April 26, 1865); also commanding Department of South Carolina, Georgia and
Florida (February 25 - April 26, 1865); and also commanding Department of North
Carolina (March 16 - April 26, 1865). ~~~ Initially commissioned in the
Virginia forces, he relieved Thomas J. (later "Stonewall")Jackson in command at
Harpers Ferry and continued the organization of the Army of the Shenandoah. When
the Virginia forces were absorbed into the Confederate army he was reduced to a
brigadier generalship.
~~~ When the Union army under Irvin McDowell
moved out of Washington and Alexandria to attack Pierre G.T. Beauregard at
Manassas, Johnston managed to totally fool Pennsylvania General Robert Patterson
with a small force in the Shenandoah Valley and move the bulk of his forces to
Beauregard's support. During the battle of lst Bull Run, Johnston, although
senior to Beauregard, left the general direction of the battle to the junior
officer due to a lack of familiarity with the terrain. Johnston was basically
engaged in forwarding freshly arrived Valley troops to the threatened sectors.
The two generals shared the glory and were critical of supply problems which
they felt prevented a march on Washington. ~~~ The next month Johnston
became one of five men advanced to the grade of full general-all Confederate
generals wore the same insignia of rank, three stars in a wreath-but was not
pleased with the relative ranking of the five. He felt that since he was the
senior officer to leave the "Old" service and join the Confederacy he should not
be ranked behind Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, and Robert E. Lee. Only
Beauregard was placed behind Johnston on the list. This led to much bad blood
between Johnston and Jefferson Davis. There would be more. ~~~ With his
increased rank, Johnston was given command of the Department of Northern
Virginia and became engaged in what was virtually a phony war with the
Washington-based army of George B. McClellan. Throughout the winter of 1861-62
he maintained his position at Manassas junction and then withdrew just as
McClellan's superior force advanced. In the meantime he had engaged in a dispute
with his president over a policy of brigading troops from the same state
together. Johnston argued that a reorganization could not with propriety be
carried out in the face of an active enemy. ~~~ When he withdrew his
army from the line of Bull Run he reinforced John B. Magruder on the Peninsula
east of Richmond and took command there. With McClellan again facing him, he
held Yorktown for a month before pulling back just before his opponent again
advanced. His forces fought a rearguard action at Williamsburg and were then
encamped on the very outskirts of the new nation's capital. In an effort to
drive McClellan off, Johnston launched an attack south of the Chickahominy River
at the end of May 1862. The battle of Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, turned out to
be a confusion of errors in the confusing terrain. For years afterwards there
was acrimonious debate among various Confederate generals over who was to blame
for the limited success. ~~~ On the first day of the battle Johnston
re-exhibited his tendency to attract enemy bullets and was succeeded the next
day by Robert E. Lee who was to lead the Army of Northern Virginia for the
balance of the war. Upon his recovery he was given charge of a largely
supervisory command entitled the Department of the West. He was in charge of
Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee and John C. Pemberton's Department of
Mississippi and East Louisiana. With few troops under his immediate command he
proved powerless in attempting to relieve the besieged garrison of Vicksburg
under Pemberton. ~~~ Following the river city's fall, he made a feeble
attempt to hold Jackson, Mississippi, against the advance of William T. Sherman.
Following Bragg's disastrous defeat at Chattanooga, Johnston was given immediate
command of his army and the next spring and summer directed a masterful delaying
campaign against Sherman during his advance on Atlanta. However, his continued
withdrawals raised the ire of Jefferson Davis, and he was relieved in front of
the city.
His successor, John B. Hood, then began his destruction of
the Army of Tennessee with reckless tactics. With Sherman having marched clear
through Georgia and begun his drive through the Carolinas, a clamor arose in the
Confederate Congress for johnston's resumption of command. Davis finally
relented in early 1865 and the general took eventual command of three
departments. Unfortunately for the Confederacy his forces were heavy on generals
but weak on men. He could do little but hope for a linkup with Lee's army so
that they could turn on either Grant or Sherman and then on the other. It never
came off and he surrendered his forces following some difficulties over terms,
bordering on the political, on April 26, 1865, at the Bennett House near Durham
Station, North Carolina. He had been one of the most effective Confederate
commanders when he was not hampered by directives from the president.
Following the war he sat in Congress and was a federal railroad
commissioner. Engaged in much debate over the causes of the Confederate defeat,
he wrote his Narrative of Military Operations which was highly critical
of Davis and many of his fellow generals. In an example of the civil
relationships between former wartime opponents, Johnston died of a cold caught
while attending the funeral of his arch-opponent, Sherman.
~~~ This edition OUT OF PRINT.
$110.00
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Jones, Virgil Carrington,
GRAY GHOSTS AND REBEL RAIDERS.
VG/VG--. Jacket chipped at top front panel and head of spine; 2-inch closed tear at heel of spine;
price-clipped. Book itself is clean and tight. (NY: Henry Holt & Co, 1956). First Edition. Maps on end-pages, photographs, extensive notes, index, 431 pages.
~~~ 
The most definitive volume on guerrilla warfare during the Civil War features a foreword by the
distinguished scholar Bruce Catton and 22 photos and maps. Gray Ghosts introduces a cast of daring and dashing
Southern soldiers: John Singleton Mosby, Turner Ashby, and Harry Gilmore, among others. These men used irregular
troops and even more irregular methods against the invading Union Army. A fast-paced narrative describes daredevil
acts performed by these small, bold bands of fighters, and shows how, over and over again, they managed to thwart
Union efforts. Defiant to the end, the "gray ghosts" and rebel raiders resisted surrender after Appomattox and
continued to fight until all hope was gone.
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$45.00
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ROBERT E. LEE
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[Lee], Gary W. Gallagher,
LEE AND HIS ARMY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
320 pages.
~~~
"Was Robert E. Lee a gifted soldier whose only weaknesses lay in the depth of his
loyalty to his troops, affection for his lieutenants, and dedication to the cause
of the Confederacy? Or was he an ineffective leader and poor tactician whose
reputation was drastically inflated by early biographers and Lost Cause
apologists? These divergent characterizations represent the poles between which
scholarly opinion on Lee has swung over time. Here, renowned Civil War historian
Gary Gallagher proffers his own refined thinking on the figure who has loomed so
large in our understanding of America's great national crisis. In eight essays,
Gallagher explores the relationship between Lee's operations and Confederate
morale, the quality and nature of Lee's generalship, and the question of how
best to handle Lee's legacy in light of the many distortions that grew out of
Lost Cause historiography." Relying on contemporary evidence, rather than on
hindsight, Gallagher draws on letters, diaries, newspapers, and other wartime
sources to capture a fuller sense of how Lee was viewed during and immediately
after the war and underscore the remarkable faith that soldiers and citizens
maintained in Lee's leadership even after his army's fortunes had begun to
erode. He also engages various dimensions of the Lee myth - not just from
the perspective of revisionist historians who have attacked what they consider
a hagiographic literature, but also with an eye toward admirers who have insisted
that their hero's faults as a general represented exaggerations of his personal
virtues.
~~~
From James M. McPherson: "In these essays Gary Gallagher once again demonstrates
the mastery of sources, elegance of style, and lucidity of explanation and
interpretation that have made him the foremost historian of the Army of Northern
Virginia.
~~~
From the New York Review of Books: "Better than any other historian of the
Confederacy,Gallagher understands the importance of . . . contingent turning points
that eventually made it possible for superior numbers and resources to prevail. He
understands as well that the Confederate story cannot be written except in
counterpoint with the Union story."
$32.50
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(Lee), McKenzie, John D., UNCERTAIN GLORY:
Lee's Generalship Re-examined. NEW copy, hardcover with
dust jacket. (Hippocrene Books, 1997). First Edition. Thirty-one maps, bibliography,
index, 384 pp.
~~~ Re-evaluates Lee's reputation as a strategist and general,
arguing that the early victories resulted from Jackson's strategies and tactics and that,
when the Union finally managed to field competent generals and Jackson was lost, Lee was
unable to organize victory.
$28.00
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[Lee], Henry Alexander White, ROBERT E. LEE AND THE SOUTHERN
CONFEDERACY, 1807-1870. NEW copy, hardcover issued without
dust jacket.
(Haskell House, 1968). A facsimile reprint of the 1897 edition. Illustrations, maps,
index, 467 pp.
~~~ "First published in 1897 by a scholar at Washington & Lee
University (where Lee was President), this was the first scholarly study of Lee's life
& his military accomplishments. Includes many close studies of the great Civil War
battles and battle maps."
~~~ Currently in print at $75.
$65.00
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[Lee] John Esten Cooke,
A LIFE OF GEN. ROBERT E. LEE.
NEW copy. (Harrisburg, PA: Archive Society, 1995).
Facsimile reprint of original 1871 D. Appleton edition.
Finely bound in gray leatherette with stamped decorations, gilt inlays and
gilt edges. Marbled endpages. Sewn binding. Full-page engravings,
maps, occasional page-end notes, index, 579 pages. A truly beautiful book.
~~~ The first full biography of Lee, published only months after he died. Cooke knew
many of the people involved directly in Lee's life.
~~~ This edition OUT OF PRINT.
$85.00
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[Lee] Jennings Cropper Wise,
THE LONG ARM OF LEE: The History of the Artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia,
With a Brief Account of the Confederate Bureau of Ordnance.
NEW copy. (Harrisburg, PA: Archive Society, 1995). Two volumes.
Facsimile reprint of original 1915 JP Bell Company edition.
Finely bound in gray leatherette with stamped decorations, gilt inlays and
gilt edges. Marbled endpages. Sewn binding. Full-page portraits,
maps, occasional page-end notes. Volume I: 496 pages. Volume II: about the same size, but can't confirm page numbers as volume is still in shrink-wrap.
~~~ This edition OUT OF PRINT.
$135.00
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[Maxey] Waugh, John L.
SAM BELL MAXEY AND THE CONFEDERATE INDIANS.
(Abilene: McWhiney. 1998). VG+. TRADE PAPERBACK. Illustrations. 1st edition.
~~~ General Maxey, dignified, articulate, and confident, arrives in Indian Territory in 1863 to assume command of a diverse and motley army of Indians. The troops are in disarray; they are suspicious of tribal alliances, weakened from malnutrition, their crops have been pillaged, and they are discouraged by a series of battlefield setbacks at the hands of the Union Army invading from Kansas. Maxey calls upon all of his leadership and administrative skills and his insight into Indian culture to win the confidence and loyalty of these soldiers. Desperately he fights to secure badly needed munitions and provisions from the Confederate bureaucracy, which is focused on the plight of its eastern armies. All the while he struggles with his own field commander, the able and ambitious Douglas Cooper, friend of Jefferson Davis, who is eager to supplant him. Yet, Maxey perseveres and succeeds in molding this "army without infantry" into an effective fighting force that plays an important role in the Red River and Arkansas Campaigns and ultimately helps prevent a Union invasion of north Texas. A little known story, dramatically told by a distinguished author.
$11.50
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MOSBY'S RANGERS
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[Mosby], Jeffry D. Wert,
MOSBY'S RANGERS.
VG+/VG+. (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1990). Book-of-the-Month-Club edition. Maps on end-pages, photographs, appendices, notes,
bibliography, index, 384 pages.
~~~ No single battalion was more
feared during the Civil War than the 43rd Battalion of Virginia Cavalry. As one
contemporary said, 'They had...all the glamour of Robin Hood...all the courage
and bravery of the ancient crusaders.' Better known as Mosby's Rangers, they
were an elite guerilla unit that operated with stunning success in northern
Virginia and Maryland from 1863 to the last days of the war.
In this vivid account of the famous command of John Singleton Mosby, Jeffrey
D. Wert explores the personality of this iron-will commander and brilliant
tactician and gives us colorful profiles of the officers who served under him.
Drawing on contemporary documents, including letters and diaries, this is the
most complete and vivid account to date of the fighting unit that was so hated
by General Ulysses S. Grant that he ordered any captured Ranger to be summarily
executed without trial.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly: "In 1863, John Singleton Mosby
and his band of irregulars, recruited in Union-occupied northern Virginia, began
raiding Yankee outposts, wagon trains, troop detachments, headquarters and
railroad lines. Their most celebrated exploit: capturing a Union general behind
enemy lines without firing a shot. After each sortie, the Confederate guerrillas
would hide in `safe houses' provided by the citizens of two northern Virginia
counties. Mosby was captured once (and exchanged) and wounded several times, but
continued to plan and personally lead guerrilla raids throughout the final two
years of the war. Wert ( From Winchester to Cedar Creek ) has written the first
comprehensive study of Mosby's Rangers and offers new material about its
organization, membership and tactics, plus biographical information about Mosby
himself. He reveals that the partisan band rarely exceeded 200, that a large
percentage of them were teenagers, that the civilians who sheltered them paid a
high price in Yankee retribution. Well-researched, objectively written, this is
a first-class history."
~~~ From Library Journal: "Perhaps no figures of the Civil
War have been surrounded with more romanticism than John S. Mosby and his band
of rebel rangers. Formed in mid-1863, Mosby's partisans confounded all Union
attempts to destroy them, and for 28 months supplied Lee with priceless
intelligence while wreaking havoc behind federal lines in northern Virginia. In
telling anew Mosby's story, Wert has drawn extensively on previously neglected
primary sources and provided a balanced history of the famous battalion.
Although acknowledging that Mosby and the rangers were `among some of the
finest guerrillas in history,' Wert avoids attributing monumental importance to
them. They did not prolong the war nor siphon off thousands of Union troops. In
the long run they simply increased the harshness and cost of the conflict. This
book sets new standards for such studies; it is essential for scholars but great
for general readers too."
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$30.00
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(Mosby's Rangers),
Wert, Jeffry D., MOSBY'S RANGERS.
Touchstone Book, 1990., NEW,
PAPERBACK. Photographs, extensive notes & bibliography, 384
pp.
$15.00
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McArthur, Judith N. and Orville Vernon Burton,
A
GENTLEMAN AND AN OFFICER.
Oxford, 1996., NEW copy. TRADE PAPERBACK. Extensive notes, appendices, index, 362 pages.
~~~ "A remarkable collection of
eighty previously unpublished Civil War letters which provide both a
penetrating
look at the middle ranks from the Virginia and South Carolina
fronts as well as an intensely personal drama both on the
home front and
the Peninsula battlefield." Covers the entire Civil War from Fort Sumter to
Reconstruction.
$15.00
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(McLaws), John C. Oeffinger (ed),
A SOLDIER'S GENERAL:
The Civil War Letters of Major General Lafayette McLaws.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
320 pages.
~~~ During his service in the Confederate army,
Major General Lafayette McLaws
(1821-1897) served under and alongside such famous
officers as Robert E. Lee,
Joseph E. Johnston, James Longstreet, and John B. Hood.
He played a significant
role in some of the most crucial battles of the Civil
War, including Harpers
Ferry, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and
Gettysburg. A prolific
letter writer, McLaws left behind a wealth of
handwritten material documenting
his experiences before and during the war. Despite all
this, no biography of
McLaws or history of his division has ever been
published. In effect, says John
Oeffinger, the public has all but forgotten one of the
first major generals
appointed in the Army of Northern Virginia.
A Soldier's General gathers
ninety-five letters written by McLaws to his wife and
other family members
between 1858 and 1865, making these rich sources
available to a wide audience
for the first time. The letters, painstakingly
transcribed from McLaws's
notoriously poor handwriting, contain a wealth of
opinion and information about
life and morale in the Confederate army, Civil War-era
politics, the impact of
war on the Confederate home front, the Southern press,
and a man's efforts to
advise and remain connected with his wife and
children while engaged in a
distant conflict. Among the fascinating threads woven
through the letters is the
story of McLaws's fractured relationship with
childhood friend Longstreet, who
had McLaws relieved of command in 1863. (McLaws
ultimately demanded a
court-martial to restore his honor).
~~~ Currently in print at $39.95.
$35.00
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Neely, Mark E., Harold Holzer and Gabor S. Boritt,
THE CONFEDERATE IMAGE:
Prints of the Lost Cause.
NEW copy, oversized PAPERBACK. (University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
288 pages.
~~~ The Confederate Image examines for the first
time the popular lithographs and engravings cherished by
Southerners after the Civil War. Until now, few of the pictures
have been reproduced in books, and many have been relegated to
dusty corners of museums, unframed and uncataloged. This book
establishes the importance of such prints, for they helped
revive and sustain Southern identity after the collapse of
the Confederacy. If the myth of the Lost Cause was a Southern
civil religion, then this book is a study of its icons.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly: "In part because
historians have preferred to use photographs to illustrate the
Civil War and partly because the South's heat and humidity
destroyed many extant copies, the popular lithographs and
engravings of the `Lost Cause' have been neglected, even by
museums, where they frequently were stored unframed,
uncatalogued and unrepaired. Here print historians Neely,
Holzer and Boritt offer a wide selection of such prints
(141 in total), which, ironically, mainly were produced by
Northern printmakers for Southerners who wanted to revive and
sustain the region's identity after the Confederate defeat in
1865. Images include heroes, martyrs and emblems of the
Confederacy and are presented in varying size and quality
`beautiful pictures, crude and ugly ones, large ones and small,
maudlin scenes and inspiring ones.' In this pioneering study,
the authors provide an extensively researched, scholarly text
that places this popular art in its cultural and commercial
context."
~~~ From Library Journal: "Southerners provided a ready market
for those who made inexpensive prints of Confederate heroes. Ironically,
the authors find that most of these surviving pictures produced from
1865 to the early 1900s were manufactured in the North by
profit-seeking businessmen, including Currier and Ives. Lost
Cause prints were both mementos of past loyalty and inspirational
icons for future generations of southerners. This book is
imaginative, insightful, and well written. It crosses several
fields: analysis of art, printing, 19th-century popular culture,
and Civil War history."
~~~ This paperback edition currently in print at $39.95.
$35.00
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(Pryor), John C. Waugh,
SURVIVING THE CONFEDERACY: Rebellion, Ruin, and Recovery--Roger and Sara
Pryor During the Civil War.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Harcourt, 2002).
464 pages.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly: Roger Pryor
was an influential
Virginia newspaper editor and politician before the
war and a Democratic
congressman in Washington until he resigned as the
Southern states began to
secede. His 'fair lady,' as he first addressed her,
was the former Sara Agnes
Rice, whose family had been in Virginia since 1680.
Waugh (The Class of 1846)
bases this engaging account of their lives and times
in part on Roger's
correspondence and on two memoirs that Sara wrote
after the war. Commanding the
Third Virginia regiment during the Civil War, Roger
competently led through the
Seven Days, Second Manassas and Antietam, where he was
elevated to division
command and failed terribly. He was relegated to a
secondary command and
eventually resigned in disgust, reenlisting as a
private in a Virginia cavalry
regiment. Captured at Petersburg in 1864, he was
imprisoned in a New York fort
until released in early 1865. While he was away from
home, Sara coped with six
children, scraping by for food, clothing and shelter
during her long stay in the
Petersburg area, but keeping the family intact. In
late 1865, Roger went to New
York City, invited by friends he had known before the
war. He became a lawyer,
struggled for several years, then made enough money to
bring his family to the
city, forging a successful legal career (and making
speeches noting that he was
glad the South lost and the nation was now reunited)
before retiring in 1899.
Waugh describes vividly the society in which the
Pryors moved and their
struggles during the war, but the reconstructed
dialogue and breathless
descriptions ('Sara's heart pounded as she read the
telegram from Roger in
Norfolk in May,' begins one chapter) may deter the
more historically minded."
~~~ From Library Journal: "Award-winning
author Waugh (The Class of 1846; Reelecting Lincoln)
takes us deep into the heart of Dixie in this
life-and-times dual biography of the Pryors Virginia
secessionists, ardent
Confederates, and postwar Unionists. Roger Pryor made
his name first as a
fire-eating editor, then as a soldier, and finally as
a lawyer, each of which
positions allowed the Pryors to move in the highest
social circles in antebellum
Washington, DC, wartime Richmond, and postwar New York
City. Waugh describes in
great detail the travails of a family separated by
war, the petticoat politics
of the Confederate capital, the privations and
despair of retreat and defeat,
and the difficulties of leaving the South and finding
a new life in the North.
Waugh's accounts of battles and leaders do not redraw
what we already know of
the Virginia campaigns, but his vivid portrayals of
private lives at war match
anything in print. Waugh overdramatizes by including
dialog and imputing motives
to actions that the sources do not wholly sustain, and
he sees the world
uncritically from the Pryors' eyes. But in the Pryors
he has found the couple he
was seeking to retell the war. Not since Robert Manson
Myers's Pulitzer
Prize-winning Children of Pride has a white
Southern family come so fully and
fiercely to life."
$28.00
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Richardson, James D., A COMPILATION OF THE
MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE CONFEDERACY, INCLUDING THE
DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE, 1861-1865.
Two volumes, NEW.
(The Archive Society, 1996) . Facsimile of the 1905 edition by the United States
Publishing Company, Nashville. "Published by permission of Congress by James D. Richardson,
a Representative from the State of Tennessee, compiler and editior of 'Messages and
Papers of the President'".
Finely bound in gray leatherette with gilt inlays and
gilt edges. Marbled endpapers.
Photographs, engravings, index.
Vol I: 643 pages. Vol II: 760 pages.
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$125.00
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Rollins, Richard,
"THE DAMNED RED FLAGS OF THE REBELLION"
. NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK. (Redondo Beach, CA: Rank and File Publications, 1997).
Illustrations, maps, diagrams, tables, 38 color plates of individual battle flags,
appendices, index, 262 pages.
~~~ The Confederate battle flag was arguably the most powerful symbol produced during the Civil War. Confederate flags incorporated the language of color, shape, design, and inscription, weaving them into a new icon that offered a material and highly visible representation of the differences between North and South. In this unique study, Richard Rollins outlines the meaning Confederate battle flags had for both sides, details their deep roots in the American experience, and analyzes their use in combat. A special section includes 41 full-color photographs of flags captured during the Gettysburg campaign.
$19.95
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Sifakis, Stewart,
COMPENDIUM OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES: LOUISIANA. NY: Facts on File, 1995. NF in gray
boards with red stamped lettering. Alphabetical listing all Louisiana units in the Civil War, showing nickname,
organization history, officers, assignments and battles for most units. Units divided into artillery, cavalry
and infantry. Bibliography, index, 189 pages.
~~~
With the release of five new volumes, Facts on File's landmark survey of the Confederacy's military units is nearly
complete. This survey compares most favorably with Frederick Dyer's A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion
(Morningside Bookshop, 1994), the standard reference for regiments of the Union armies since its original publication
in 1908. For the most part, Compendium of the Confederate Armies is organized into individual volumes for each
large state of the Confederacy; smaller states and miscellaneous forces are grouped as appropriate. Units are categorized
by service branch. Entries are provided for every known Confederate unit, establishing its identity and presenting a
brief narrative of its service, war record, and commanders. Information given for several South Carolina regiments was
found to be consistent with Augustus Dickert's History of Kershaw's Brigade, published circa 1899. Although this does not
assure the accuracy of Sifakis's facts, it is indicative of the resources he consulted. And therein lies the strength of
the series: information from a wide variety of relatively inaccessible or little-known Confederate sources is now
available in a single, well-organized work . Researchers at all levels of Civil War scholarship, including
enthusiasts and genealogists, will find the series an invaluable reference.
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$25.00
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JEB STUART
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(Stuart), Burke Davis, JEB STUART: THE LAST CAVALIER.
Wings Books, 1992.,
F/F, like new. No price on dust jacket. Photographs, maps, end notes,
bibliography, index. 462 pages.
~~~
Here is a full biography of the dashing and enigmatic Confederate hero of the
Civil War, General J. E. B. Stuart." "This portrait of Stuart surveys his life
from childhood through his training at West Point, his years on the Western
frontier, and his decision to stand with Virginia when war arrived. His
brilliant Civil War career is covered in detail, from the raid on Chambersburg
through to his final, fatal clash at Yellow Tavern.
$25.00
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(Stuart), Thomason, John W, Jr, Captain USMC,
JEB STUART
$30.00
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(Taylor), Parrish, T. Michael.
RICHARD TAYLOR:
Soldier Prince of Dixie.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (University of North Carolina Press, 1992). First Edition.
Period illustrations, extensive notes, bibliography,
index, 553 pp.
~~~ "The only son of President Zachary Taylor, brother-in-law of
Jefferson Davis, Richard Taylor (1826-79) epitomized the ideals
of the Old
South, graduating from Yale to become a prominant
Louisiana sugar planter
and influential politician. Aristocratic and
self-indulgent, Taylor was widely
admired for his intelligence and wit. Like many
southern conservatives, he
resisted but finally succumbed to secession, fearing
the northern abolitionist
threat as a greater evil. Taylor joined the South's
cause as colonel of the
Ninth Louisiana Infantry. Rising to command the famous
Louisiana Brigade,
he was Stonewall Jackson's most effective brigadier
in the 1862 Shenandoah
Valley Campaign. Promoted at Jackson's behest to major
general, Taylor took
charge of reviving Louisiana's faltering war effort.
For nearly two years he
clashed continually with his immediate superior,
Edmund Kirby Smith,
commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department,
especially over the
chronic need for troops to resist the devastating
effects of total war
upon Louisiana civilians. In the spring of 1864 Taylor
deliberately ignored
Smith's explicit instructions by vigorously repulsing
Nathaniel P. Banks's
Red River Campaign. Convinced of Smith's arrogant
ambition and
incompetence, Taylor sought to be relieved, but
President Davis instead gave him command of the
Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East
Louisiana,
with a promotion to lieutenant general. From the
autumn of 1864 to war's end,
Taylor resisted a relentless succession of Federal
invaders, relying mainly on
Nathan Bedford Forrest's superb cavalrymen. After the
war, Taylor was a
powerful exponent of southern conservatism within the
national Democratic
party's inner circle of leaders. Shortly before his
death, he authored
Destruction and Reconstruction, a memoir that
ranks as one of the most literate
and influential memoirs of the Civil War era."
$35.00
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Williams, Edward B. (editor), REBEL BROTHERS:
The Civil War Letters of the Truehearts.
Texas A&M., NEW, still in shrinkwrap. Hardcover with dust jacket. 3 photos,
5 maps, 296 pp. "Letters from brothers who served in many capacities~ from
cavalry to ranger to assistant surgeon~ display real literary talent in
describing the scenes of war. Some of the letters provide glimpses of
Confederate military leaders suich as Robert E. Lee not found elsewhere."
$33.00
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