Civil War Memoirs

On a spring afternoon in 1985 in Gary, Indiana, a fifteen-year-old girl kills an elderly woman in a violent home invasion. In a city with a history of racial tensions and white flight, the girl, Paula Cooper, is Black, and her victim, Ruth Pelke, is white and a beloved Bible teacher. The press swoops in.

During the Civil War, the eyes of the nation usually stayed fixed to the Eastern theater, but one of the bright spots in the West for the Confederacy was Irish immigrant Patrick Cleburne, whose successes earned him the nickname "Stonewall of the West". Where so many Confederates were failing, Cleburne's strategic tactics and bold defensive fighting earned him fame and recognition throughout the South, even leading Lee to call him "a meteor shining from a clouded sky."

William Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched earth policies he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States.

In 2005, Dana Canedy’s fiancé, First Sergeant Charles Monroe King, began to write what would become a 200-page journal for his son in case he did not make it home from the war in Iraq. He was killed by a roadside bomb on October 14, 2006. His son, Jordan, was seven months old. Inspired by his example, Dana was determined to preserve his memory for their son. A Journal for Jordan is a mother’s fiercely honest letter to her child about the parent he lost before he could even speak. It is also a father’s advice and prayers for the son he will never know.

Benjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Remembered most often for his uncompromising administration of the federal occupation of New Orleans during the war, Butler reemerges in this lively narrative as a man whose journey took him from childhood destitution to wealth and profound influence in state and national halls of power. Leonard's nuanced portrait peels away generations of previous assumptions and characterizations to provide a definitive life of a consequential man.

Born to wealth that the Civil War ravaged, held captive by renegade Comanche, and rejected by family and friends, Mary Elizabeth (“Libby”) Haley ran away from home at the age of 14. Libby learned to navigate the dangerous and volatile Old West and made a name for herself as Squirrel Tooth Alice. Given her moniker because of a gap in her front teeth and her passion for raising ground squirrels as pets, Libby made the best of a difficult situation.

In Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King, Thomas J. Balcerski explores the lives of these two politicians and discovers one of the most significant collaborations in American political history. He traces the parallels in the men's personal and professional lives before elected office, including their failed romantic courtships and the stories they told about them. Unlikely companions from the start, they lived together as congressional messmates in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse and became close confidantes.

In July 1862, Confederate Captain Raphael Semmes took command of a secret new warship. At the helm of the Alabama, he became the most hated and feared man along the Union coast, as well as a Confederate legend. Now, with unparalleled authority, depth, and a vivid sense of the excitement and danger of the time, Stephen Fox describes Captain Semmes's remarkable wartime exploits.

In his own captivating words, General Ulysses S. Grant describes the Wilderness Campaign, the almost anti-climactic surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. His depiction of the most crucial and hardest-fought battles of the Civil War, the near-disasters, and the bloody triumphs reveals a highly intelligent, profound, thinking man. Grant wrote his memoirs as he lay dying of cancer and completed the manuscript only a week before his death.

In this reexamination of Confederate war aims, Joseph L. Harsh analyzes the military policy and grand strategy adopted by Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis in the first two years of the Civil War. Recent critics of Lee have depicted him as a general of tactical brilliance, but one who lacked strategic vision.

Through oral histories and original interviews with surviving family members, Dan Goldberg brings 13 forgotten heroes away from the margins of history and into the spotlight. He reveals the opposition these men faced: the racist pseudoscience, the regular condescension, the repeated epithets, the verbal abuse, and even violence. Despite these immense challenges, the Golden Thirteen persisted—understanding the power of integration, the opportunities for black Americans if they succeeded, and the consequences if they failed.

For much of the 20th century, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's life and career remained mostly obscure outside of dedicated scholars of the Battle of Gettysburg and alumni and students of Bowdoin College. Colonel Chamberlain had led the 20th Maine regiment at Gettysburg, holding the extreme left of the Union line on Little Round Top, and he continued to rise up the ranks toward the end of the war until he was commanding a brigade and present at the surrender ceremony of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox.

From respected historian John S. D. Eisenhower comes a surprising portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War general whose path of destruction cut the Confederacy in two, broke the will of the Southern population, and earned him a place in history as "the first modern general". Yet behind his reputation as a fierce warrior was a sympathetic man of complex character. A century and a half after the Civil War, Sherman remains one of its most controversial figures...

Connor Towne O’Neill’s journey onto the battlefield of white supremacy began with a visit to Selma, Alabama, in 2015. There he had a chance encounter with a group of people preparing to erect a statue to celebrate the memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the most notorious Confederate generals, a man whom Union general William Tecumseh Sherman referred to as “that devil.” After that day in Selma, O’Neill, a white Northerner transplanted to the South, decided to dig deeply into the history of Forrest and other monuments to him throughout the South.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of George VI: The Dutiful King by Philip Ziegler, read by Charlie Anson. If Ethelred was notoriously 'Unready' and Alfred 'Great', King George VI should bear the designation of 'George the Dutiful'. Throughout his life he dedicated himself to the pursuit of what he thought he ought to be doing rather than what he wanted to do. Inarticulate and loathing any sort of public appearances, he accepted that it was his destiny to figure regularly and conspicuously in the public eye, gritted his teeth, largely conquered his crippling stammer and got on with it.

Slave narratives are extremely rare. Of the 100 or so of these testimonies that survive, a mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group.

In The Scourge of War, preeminent military historian Brian Holden Reid offers a deeply researched life-and-times account of William Tecumseh Sherman. By examining his childhood and education, his business ventures in California, his antebellum leadership of a military college in Louisiana, and numerous career false starts, Holden Reid shows how unlikely his exceptional Civil War career would seem.

Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of a man whose towering impact on American history has often been overshadowed and, in many cases, ignored. This collection of essays by some of today's leading Grant scholars offers fresh perspectives on Grant's military career and presidency, as well as underexplored personal topics such as his faith and family life.

Abraham Lincoln called "Billy" Herndon, “My man always above all other men on the globe". They were business partners for 16 years. After Lincoln's assassination Herndon did interviews with Lincoln's family and friends for this biography. Co-author Jesse Weik also conducted many original interviews. The result - although not without flaws - has been recognized as one of the most important biographies of the Great Emancipator ever published.

Robert E. Lee was many things - accomplished soldier, military engineer, college president, family man, agent of reconciliation, polarizing figure. He was also a person of deep Christian conviction. In this biography of the famous Civil War general, R. David Cox shows how Lee's Christian faith shaped his crucial role in some of the most pivotal events in American history.