On June 25, 1876, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led the 7th U. S. Cavalry into the valley of the Little Bighorn. By sunset, Custer and five of his companies lay dead—killed in battle against Sioux and Cheyenne warriors.Through the passage of time, Custer’s last fight has come to overshadow the rest of his military career, which had its brilliant beginning in the American Civil War.Plucked from obscurity by Maj. Gen. George McClellan, Custer served as a staff officer through the early stages of the war. His star began to rise in late June, 1863, when he catapulted several grades to brigadier general and was given brigade command. Shortly thereafter, at Gettysburg and Buckland Mills, he led his men—the Wolverines—in some of the heaviest cavalry fighting of the Eastern Theater.At Yellow Tavern, Custer’s assault broke the enemy line, and one of his troopers mortally wounded the legendary Confederate cavalryman, J.E.B. Stuart. At Trevilian Station, his brigade was nearly destroyed. At Third Winchester, he participated in an epic cavalry charge. Elevated to lead the Third Cavalry Division, Custer played a major role at Tom’s Brook and, later, at Appomattox, which ultimately led to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.Historian Daniel T. Davis, a long-time student of George Custer, has spent countless hours walking and studying the battlefields where Custer fought in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. In The Most Desperate Acts of Gallantry, he chronicles the Civil War experiences of one of the most recognized individuals to emerge from that tragic chapter in American history.

To many of the Federal soldiers watching the Stars and Stripes unfurl atop Lookout Mountain on the morning of November 25, 1863, it seemed that the battle to relieve Chattanooga was complete. The Union Army of the Cumberland was no longer trapped in the city, subsisting on short rations and awaiting rescue; instead, they were again on the attack.Ulysses S. Grant did not share their certainty. For Grant, the job he had been sent to accomplish was only half-finished. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Army of Tennessee still held Missionary Ridge, with other Rebels under James Longstreet threatening more Federals in Knoxville, Tennessee. Grant’s greatest fear was that the Rebels would slip away before he could deliver the final blows necessary to crush Bragg completely.That blow landed on the afternoon of November 25. Each of Grant’s assembled forces—troops led by Union Generals William T. Sherman, George H. Thomas, and Joseph Hooker—all moved to the attack. Stubbornly, Bragg refused to retreat, and instead accepted battle. That decision would cost him dearly.But everything did not go Grant’s way. Despite what Grant’s many admirers would later insist was his most successful, most carefully planned battle, Grant’s strategy failed him—as did his most trusted commander, Sherman. Victory instead charged straight up the seemingly impregnable slopes of Missionary Ridge’s western face, as the men of the much-maligned Army of the Cumberland swarmed up and over Bragg’s defenses in an irresistible blue tide.Caught flat-footed by this impetuous charge, Grant could only watch nervously as the men started up . . .All Hell Can’t Stop Them: The Battles for Chattanooga—Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, November 24-27, 1863—sequel to Battle Above the Clouds—details the dramatic final actions of the battles for Chattanooga: Missionary Ridge and the final Confederate rearguard action at Ringgold, where Patrick Cleburne held Grant’s Federals at bay and saved the Army of Tennessee from further disaster.

If there’s one conflict that was remarkable from a lot of points of view, it was the American Civil War, better known in France as the War of Secession. In this war the armies of the South opposed those of the North – the Union – of the almost hundred-years old republic of the United States of (North) America; it remains in the annals as the last classic war – in certain aspects the heir to the Napoleonic wars – and the first real modern war of the 20th Century in which “state of the art” technologies were used for the first time on a massive and intensive scale. This bloody conflict was the result of a long chain of political, economic and ideological compromises between two civilisations which barely concealed the differences opposing them. The ferocious appetites of the North against the principles of independence of the Southern States could only lead to an explosion. Four years of relentless, bloody and total war during which Johnny Reb gave no quarter to his brother Billy Yank. Everything has been said and written about this war: the joie de vivre of the South, its elegance, its chivalrous spirit, its attachment to secular traditions including slavery, facing the North’s industrial war machine, its humanist values, its small-minded courage, but also its avidity and its implacable spirit of organisation. From Gone with the Wind to Birth of a Nation, all the clichés have been used. This book gives you as large a panorama as possible of the uniforms worn by the belligerents during this conflict. The most characteristic silhouettes and the principles of basic organisation, as circumstances dictated, are shown in the now celebrated form of Heimdal’s books.

The Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley suffers from no lack of drama, interest, or importance. The ramifications of the May 1864 engagement, which involved only 10,000 troops, were substantial. Previous studies, however, focused on the Confederate side of the story. David Powell’s, Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah: Major General Franz Sigel and the War in the Valley of Virginia, May 1864, provides the balance that has so long been needed.Union General Ulysses S. Grant regarded a spring campaign in the Valley of Virginia as integral to his overall strategy designed to turn Robert E. Lee’s strategic western flank, deny his Army of Northern Virginia much needed supplies, and prevent other Confederates from reinforcing Lee. It fell to Union general and German transplant Franz Sigel to execute Grant’s strategy in the northern reaches of the Shenandoah while Maj. Gen. George Crook struck elsewhere in southwestern Virginia. Sigel’s record in the field was checkered at best, and he was not Grant’s first choice to lead the effort, but a combination of politics and other factors left the German in command.Sigel met Confederate Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge and his small army on May 15 just outside the crossroads town of New Market. The hard-fought affair hung in the balance until finally the Union lines broke, and Sigel’s Yankees fled the field. Breckinridge’s command included some 300 young men from the Virginia Military Institute’s Corps of Cadets. VMI’s presence and dramatic role in the fighting ensured that New Market would never be forgotten, but pushed other aspects of this interesting and important campaign into the back seat of history.Award-winning author David Powell’s years of archival and other research provides an outstanding foundation for this outstanding study. Previous works have focused on the Confederate side of the battle, using Sigel’s incompetence as sufficient excuse to explain why the Federals were defeated. This methodology, however, neglects the other important factors that contributed to the ruin of Grant’s scheme in the Valley.Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah delves into all the issues, analyzing the campaign from an operational standpoint.Complete with original maps, photos, and the skillful writing readers have come to expect from the pen of David Powell, Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah will satisfy the most demanding students of Civil War history.

John Bell Hood had done his job too well. In the fall of 1864, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee had harassed Federal forces in north Georgia so badly that the Union commander, William T. Sherman, decided to abandon his position. During his subsequent “March to the Sea,” Sherman’s men lived off the land and made Georgia howl.Rather than confront the larger Federal force directly, Hood chose instead to strike northward into Tennessee. There, he hoped to cripple the Federal supply infrastructure and the Federal forces that still remained there—the Army of the Cumberland under George Thomas. Hood hoped to defeat Thomas’s army in detail and force Sherman to come northward to the rescue.On November 30, in a small country town called Franklin, Hood caught part of Thomas’s army outside of its stronghold of Nashville. But what began as a promising opportunity for the outnumbered Confederate army soon turned grim. “I do not like the looks of this fight,” one of Hood’s subordinates said; “the enemy has an excellent position and is well fortified.”Hood was determined to root the Federals out.“Well,” said a Confederate officer, “if we are to die, let us die like men.”And thousands of them did. As wave after murderous wave crashed against the Federal fortifications, the Army of Tennessee shattered itself. It eventually found victory—but at a cost so bloody and so chilling, the name “Franklin” would ever after be synonymous with disaster.Historian William Lee White, whose devotion to the Army of Tennessee has taken him from the dense forests of northwest Georgia to the gates of Atlanta and back into Tennessee, now pens the penultimate chapter in the army’s storied history in Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864.

Thousands of soldiers who fought at the Battle of Gettysburg for both the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia settled in Texas after the Civil War. Throughout the days, weeks, and years after the battle, these soldiers captured their stories in diary entries, letters, interviews, and newspaper articles. From the first crossing of the Potomac River to the intense fighting on July 1, July 2, and ultimately at Pickett’s Charge on July 3, these Texans of the Blue and the Gray played a key role in the Gettysburg Campaign. This collection of soldiers' accounts written during and after the war provides a unique perspective from Texans in the ranks over the course of those historic days in the summer of 1863. Also included are the stories of civilians who bore witness to the tremendous battle and who settled in Texas after the Civil War. Collected for the first time in a single volume, this is essential reference for historians of the Lone Star State and Civil War researchers.

A brilliant American combat officer and this country's most famous traitor, Benedict Arnold is one of the most fascinating and complicated people to emerge from American history. His contemporaries called him "the American Hannibal" after he successfully led more than 1,000 men through the savage Maine wilderness in 1775. The objective of Arnold and his heroic corps was the fortress city of Quebec, the capital of British-held Canada. The epic campaign to bring Canada into the war as the 14th colony is the subject of Benedict Arnold's Army: The 1775 American Invasion of Canada during the Revolutionary War, now available in paperback.George Washington provided the initiative for the assault when he learned that a fast moving detachment could surprise Quebec by following a chain of rivers and lakes through nearly uncharted wilderness. Washington picked Col. Benedict Arnold, an obscure and controversial Connecticut officer, to command the corps of men who signed up for the secret and dangerous mission.Instead of a twenty-day march, the route consumed months as Arnold's men toiled across 270 miles of treacherous rapids, raging waterfalls, and trackless forests—at times up to their waists in freezing water dragging and pushing their clumsy boats through surging rapids and hauling them up and over waterfalls. In one of the greatest exploits in American military history, Arnold led his famished corps through the early winter snow up and over the Appalachian Mountains to the St. Lawrence River. On the distant riverbank, Quebec beckoned. Arnold crossed his corps and besieged the British. When the second prong of the invasion arrived under General Montgomery, the officers launched a daring assault on the last day of the year upon the walled city.Based upon extensive primary sources and a keen understanding of the terrain, Benedict Arnold's Army examines in fascinating detail a largely unknown but important period of both the Revolution and Arnold's fascinating life. An award-winning author, Arthur Lefkowitz provides key insights into Arnold's character during the earliest phase of his military career, revealing his aggressive nature, his need for recognition, his experience as a competitive businessman, and his obsession with honor. When readers close this book, they will understand for the first time what started one of Washington's favorite and most capable officers down the fateful path to treason.While preparing to write this book, Lefkowitz made numerous trips along the same route that Arnold's army marched. This knowledge, coupled with his peerless research, makes him uniquely qualified to write Benedict Arnold's Army.There is a growing interest in the Founding Fathers and the Revolutionary War as a source of national pride and identity. The Arnold Expedition, as told in the pages of Benedict Arnold's Army, is one of the greatest adventure stories in American history.

In 2014, Eric J. Wittenberg published “The Devil’s to Pay”: John Buford at Gettysburg. A History and Walking Tour, an award-winning study of Union cavalry delaying actions at Gettysburg. Fast-forward four years to 2018 and Wittenberg’s latest release, a companion Western Theater study entitled Holding the Line on the River of Death: Union Mounted Forces at Chickamauga, September 18, 1863.This volume focuses on the two important delaying actions conducted by mounted Union soldiers at Reed’s and Alexander’s bridges on the first day of Chickamauga. A cavalry brigade under Col. Robert H. G. Minty and Col. John T. Wilder’s legendary “Lightning Brigade” of mounted infantry made stout stands at a pair of chokepoints crossing Chickamauga Creek. Minty’s small cavalry brigade held off nearly ten times its number on September 18 by designing and implementing a textbook example of a delaying action. Their dramatic and outstanding efforts threw Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s entire battle plan off its timetable by delaying his army’s advance for an entire day. That delay cost Bragg’s army the initiative at Chickamauga. Wittenberg brings his expertise with Civil War cavalry operations to bear with vivid and insightful descriptions of the fighting and places the actions in their full and proper historic context.This thoroughly researched and well-written book includes three appendices—two orders of battle and a discussion of the historic context of some of the tactics employed by the Union mounted force on September 18, and an epilogue on how the War Department and National Park Service have remembered these events. It also includes a detailed walking and driving tour complete with the GPS coordinates, a trademark of Wittenberg’s recent works. Complete with more than 60 photos and 15 maps by master cartographer Mark Anderson Moore, Holding the Line on the River of Death: Union Mounted Forces at Chickamauga, September 18, 1863 will be a welcome addition to the burgeoning Chickamauga historiography.

From First Manassas in 1861 to Third Winchester in 1864, Robert Rodes served in all the great battles and campaigns of the legendary Army of Northern Virginia. Jedediah Hotchkiss, Stonewall Jackson’s renowned mapmaker, expressed the feelings of many contemporaries when he declared that Rodes was the best division commander in Lee’s army. A combat officer of this stature deserves a complete and deeply researched biography, and now he finally has one in Major General Robert E. Rodes of the Army of Northern Virginia: A Biography.A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and a prewar railroad engineer, Rodes was one of only a handful of officers in the Confederate army to rise so high without the benefit of a West Point education. That fact that he did so speaks to his well-earned reputation as a courageous and inspiring leader who routinely delivered hard-hitting attacks and stout defensive efforts. His greatest moment on the field came at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, when he spearheaded Stonewall Jackson’s famous flank attack that crushed the left wing of General Hooker’s Army of the Potomac. But like all men, he was not perfect. In his next fight at Gettysburg, Rodes faltered, turning in a curiously disjointed and apathetic performance that to this day raises questions that remain only partially answered.But he was much more than just a combat leader. Rodes’ prewar life, which has been left largely unexplored, shaped the general he was destined to become. The native of Lynchburg, Virginia, was a VMI instructor, a hard working engineer, a loving husband, a loyal friend, and a very complex man. The strict disciplinarian entered the conflict with a deep yearning for recognition and glory, coupled with an indifferent attitude toward religion and salvation. When he was killed at the height of his combat career at Third Winchester on September 19, 1864, a trove of prayer books and testaments were found on his corpse.Based upon exhaustive new research that puts flesh and blood on the man and the general, Darrell Collins’ biography, now available in paperback, breathes life into this largely overlooked man of the South. Although Rodes’ widow consigned his personal papers to the flames after the war, Collins uncovered a substantial amount of firsthand information to complete his compelling portrait of the life, mind, and combat career of one of Robert E. Lee’s most dependable field generals.

Robert E. Lee is well known as a Confederate general and as an educator later in life, but most people are exposed to the same handful of images of one of America’s most famous sons. It has been almost seven decades since anyone has attempted a serious study of Lee in photographs, and with Don Hopkins’s painstakingly researched and lavishly illustrated

“The present seems to be the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate Army to enter Maryland,” wrote Robert E. Lee following his army’s stunning success at Second Manassas.Confederate armies advanced across a thousand mile front in the summer of 1862. The world watched anxiously—could the Confederacy achieve its independence?Reacting to the Army of Northern Virginia’s trek across the Potomac River, George B. McClellan gathered the broken and scattered remnants of several Federal armies within Washington, D. C. to repel the invasion and expel the Confederates from Maryland. “Everything seems to indicate that they intend to hazard all upon the issue of the coming battle,” he said of the invading force.Historians Robert Orrison and Kevin Pawlak trace the routes both armies traveled during the Maryland Campaign, ultimately coming to a climactic blow on the banks of Antietam Creek. That clash on September 17, 1862, to this day remains the bloodiest single day in American history.To Hazard All: A Guide to the Maryland Campaign, 1862 offers several day trip tours and visits many out-of-the-way sites related to the Maryland Campaign. Chapters include:Confederates Enter MarylandThe Federals RespondThe Investment of Harpers FerryThe Battle of South MountainThe Battle of AntietamReturn to Virginia

George Washington Gayle is not a name known to history. But it soon will be.Forget what you thought you knew about why Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. No, it was not mere sectional hatred, Booth’s desire to become famous, Lincoln’s advocacy of black suffrage, or a plot masterminded by Jefferson Davis to win the war by crippling the Federal government. Christopher Lyle McIlwain, Sr.’s Untried and Unpunished: George Washington Gayle and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln exposes the fallacies regarding each of those theories and reveals both the mastermind behind the plot, and its true motivation.The deadly scheme to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward was Gayle’s brainchild. The assassins were motivated by money Gayle raised. Lots of money. $20,000,000 in today’s value.Gayle, a prominent South Carolina-born Alabama lawyer, had been a Unionist and Jacksonian Democrat before walking the road of radicalization following the admission of California as a free state in 1850. Thereafter, he became Alabama’s most earnest secessionist, though he would never hold any position within the Confederate government or serve in its military. After the slaying of the president Gayle was arrested and taken to Washington, DC in chains to be tried by a military tribunal for conspiracy in connection with the horrendous crimes.The Northern press was satisfied Gayle was behind the deed—especially when it was discovered he had placed an advertisement in a newspaper the previous December soliciting donations to pay the assassins. There is little doubt that if Gayle had been tried, he would have been convicted and executed. However, he not only avoided trial, but ultimately escaped punishment of any kind for reasons that will surprise readers.Rather than rehashing what scores of books have already alleged, Untried and Unpunished offers a completely fresh premise, meticulous analysis, and stunning conclusions based upon years of firsthand research by an experienced attorney. This original, thought-provoking study will forever change the way you think of Lincoln’s assassination.

The vital role of the military all-source intelligence in the eastern theater of operations during the U.S. Civil War is told through the biography of its creator, George H. Sharpe. Renowned historian Peter Tsouras contends that this creation under Sharpe’s leadership was the combat multiplier that ultimately allowed the Union to be victorious.Sharpe is celebrated as one of the most remarkable Americans of the 19th century. He built an intelligence organization (The Bureau of Military Information – BMI) from a standing start beginning in February 1863. He was the first man in military history to create a professional all-source intelligence operation, defined by the U.

Invalid teenager LeRoy Wiley Gresham left a seven-volume diary spanning the years of secession and the Civil War (1860-1865). He was just 12 when he began and he died at 17, just weeks after the war ended. His remarkable account, recently published as The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865, edited by Janet E. Croon (2018), spans the gamut of life events that were of interest to a precocious and well-educated Southern teenager—including military, political, religious, social, and literary matters of the day. This alone ranks it as an important contribution to our understanding of life and times in the Old South. But it is much more than that. Chronic disease and suffering stalk the young writer, who is never told he is dying until just before his death.Dr. Rasbach, a graduate of Johns Hopkins medical school and a practicing general surgeon with more than three decades of experience, was tasked with solving the mystery of LeRoy’s disease. Like a detective, Dr. Rasbach peels back the layers of mystery by carefully examining the medical-related entries. What were LeRoy’s symptoms? What medicines did doctors prescribe for him? What course did the disease take, month after month, year after year? The author ably explores these and other issues in I Am Perhaps Dying to conclude that the agent responsible for LeRoy’s suffering and demise turns out to be Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a tiny but lethal adversary of humanity since the beginning of recorded time.In the second half of the nineteenth century, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accounting for one-third of all deaths. Even today, a quarter of the world’s population is infected with TB, and the disease remains one of the top ten causes of death, claiming 1.7 million lives annually, mostly in poor and underdeveloped countries.While the young man was detailing the decline and fall of the Old South, he was also chronicling his own horrific demise from spinal TB. These five years of detailed entries make LeRoy’s diary an exceedingly rare (and perhaps unique) account from a nineteenth century TB patient. LeRoy’s diary offers an inside look at a fateful journey that robbed an energetic and likeable young man of his youth and life. I Am Perhaps Dying adds considerably to the medical literature by increasing our understanding of how tuberculosis attacked a young body over time, how it was treated in the middle nineteenth century, and the effectiveness of those treatments.

The Dunker Church is one of the most iconic structures of the American Civil War. Surprisingly, few people know much if anything about its fascinating story or the role it played within the community of Sharpsburg and its importance during and after the Battle of Antietam. September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam by Alann D. Schmidt and Terry W. Barkley rectifies this oversight in the first book-length study of its kind.On September 17, 1862, two mighty armies grappled across the rolling hills, fields, and woodlots surrounding Sharpsburg, Maryland. The combat left more than 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, or captured, repulsed Lee’s invading Virginia army, and paved the way for the Emancipation Proclamation. Ironically, in the epicenter of that bloodiest day in American history stood a small whitewashed building dedicated to peace, equality, and the brotherhood of man.The German Baptist Brethren, or Dunkers (Dunkards) as they were colloquially known, built the Mumma Church of the Manor congregation in 1853 just nine years before Antietam. In addition to being a house of worship with important ties to the local community, the history of the Dunker Church is interwoven with such notable figures as Stonewall Jackson, Clara Barton, Abraham Lincoln, and even Mark Twain. The structure was heavily damaged during the battle, housed torn bodies as a hospital in its aftermath, and suffered a complete collapse before undergoing the long and arduous process of being rebuilt.Schmidt’s and Barkley’s impressive September Mourn is based upon years of meticulous research from both a Church of the Brethren (Dunkers) and a National Park Service perspective. The authors establish the importance of the structure to Sharpsburg and its citizens, its role during the battle and its aftermath, and how it helped establish tourism and education for future generations of Americans.The Dunker Church can finally take its place alongside the Alamo and Shiloh churches as one of the most notable houses of worship in American military history. September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam is a must-read for anyone interested in the full story of the monumental battle and the community who lived through it.

The Dunker Church is one of the most iconic structures of the American Civil War. Surprisingly, few people know much if anything about its fascinating story or the role it played within the community of Sharpsburg and its importance during and after the Battle of Antietam. September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam by Alann D. Schmidt and Terry W. Barkley rectifies this oversight in the first book-length study of its kind.On September 17, 1862, two mighty armies grappled across the rolling hills, fields, and woodlots surrounding Sharpsburg, Maryland. The combat left more than 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, or captured, repulsed Lee’s invading Virginia army, and paved the way for the Emancipation Proclamation. Ironically, in the epicenter of that bloodiest day in American history stood a small whitewashed building dedicated to peace, equality, and the brotherhood of man.The German Baptist Brethren, or Dunkers (Dunkards) as they were colloquially known, built the Mumma Church of the Manor congregation in 1853 just nine years before Antietam. In addition to being a house of worship with important ties to the local community, the history of the Dunker Church is interwoven with such notable figures as Stonewall Jackson, Clara Barton, Abraham Lincoln, and even Mark Twain. The structure was heavily damaged during the battle, housed torn bodies as a hospital in its aftermath, and suffered a complete collapse before undergoing the long and arduous process of being rebuilt.Schmidt’s and Barkley’s impressive September Mourn is based upon years of meticulous research from both a Church of the Brethren (Dunkers) and a National Park Service perspective. The authors establish the importance of the structure to Sharpsburg and its citizens, its role during the battle and its aftermath, and how it helped establish tourism and education for future generations of Americans.The Dunker Church can finally take its place alongside the Alamo and Shiloh churches as one of the most notable houses of worship in American military history. September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam is a must-read for anyone interested in the full story of the monumental battle and the community who lived through it.