Darryl Carpenter will lead the Little Round Table discussion of “Southern Railroads and the Confederate War Effort”
The Civil War is the first war in which railroads were a major factor. In the 1850s there was rapid growth in the railroad industry throughout the United States and 1861, 22,000 miles of track had been laid in the Northern states and 9,500 miles in the South. The great rail centers in the South were Chattanooga, Atlanta, and most important, Richmond. Very little track had yet been laid west of the Mississippi.
Few of the 100 railroads that existed in the South prior to 1861 were more than 100 miles in length. The South had always been less enthusiastic about the railroad industry than the North; its most successful businessmen focused on large market agriculture, and left industrial investment to men from the Northern states. The railroads existed, they believed, solely to get cotton or other crops to the ports. By September 1863, the Southern railroads were in bad shape; for a number of reasons the railroads began to deteriorate very soon after the outbreak of the war with the North. Difficulty of rail movement was often cited as a reason the Confederate armies were so often short of food, fodder, and even ammunition.
Still, the Confederates made imaginative use of the railroads to move entire armies more rapidly to the field of battle, much earlier than the Federals.
Darryl will lead the discussion, but all members are invited to contribute as the LRT concludes our three-month long review of Confederate wartime logistics, which began in November with Emil Posey’s discussion of Confederate Arsenals and Depots.
By Christopher Lyle McIlwain, a distinguished lawyer, Civil War historian, author, and lecturer.
Thursday, January 12, 6:30 p.m.
Elks Lodge, 725 Franklin St., Huntsville
No charge for the program; optional chicken buffet at 5:30 p.m. for $8.95
Visitors welcome. 256-539-5287 for info.
Christopher Lyle McIlwain
Christopher Lyle McIlwain will be speaking about Alabama’s role in the Civil War. Chris’s “Civil War Alabama” is a landmark book that sheds invigorating new light on the causes, the course, and the outcomes in Alabama of the nation’s greatest drama and trauma. Based on twenty years of exhaustive research that draws on a vast trove of primary sources such as letters, newspapers, and personal journals, he explains how Alabama’s citizens came to take up arms against the federal government.
A fledgling state at only 40 years old, Alabama approached the 1860s with expanding populations of both whites and black slaves. They were locked together in a powerful yet fragile economic engine that produced and concentrated titanic wealth in the hands of a white elite. Perceiving themselves trapped between a mass of disenfranchised black slaves and the industrializing and increasingly abolitionist North, white Alabamians were led into secession and war by a charismatic cohort who claimed the imprimatur of biblical scripture, romanticized traditions of chivalry, and the military mantle of the American Revolution. And yet, Alabama’s citizens were not a monolith of one mind. Chris dispels the received wisdom of a white citizenry united behind a cadre of patriarchs and patriots. Providing a fresh and insightful synthesis of military events, economic factors such as inflation and shortages, politics and elections, the pivotal role of the legal profession, and the influence of the press, Chris illuminates the state of white, antebellum Alabamians divided by class, geography, financial interests, and political loyalties.
Chris McIlwain is an attorney in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He is an avid scholar of Alabama history, including its role in the Civil War. He has spent the last 25 years researching nineteenth-century Alabama, focusing particularly on law, politics, and the Civil War. His article “United States District Judge Richard Busteed and the Alabama Klan Trials of 1872” appeared in the Alabama Review.
In the last year of the Civil War, Confederate Alabama was running short of just about everything, and every aspect of life was disintegrating. Before the conflict finally ended, some 25-percent of Alabama’s white population was receiving some form of relief. The Southern Cause was dying, as it was said, “by the graduals.” Nine reasons for the disintegration have been identified and will be presented.
Meanwhile, with disorders occurring everywhere, and Federal armies marching thru the state, the Alabama legislature refused to give the governor control of the militia. So, Alabama limped toward defeat with thousands of militiamen under the control of neither the governor nor the Confederacy.
Finally, this paper will explore how the much romanticized Southern Cause was, in fact, not supported by great numbers of its citizens in Alabama.
Our speaker is John Allen (Bio)
He was a multiple-award-winning radio and TV reporter when he came to Huntsville 40 years ago to work at WAAY. Since that time, he has also worked at UAH, Intergraph, and Amana in Fayetteville.
While on the Beautification Board here, he was instrumental in getting ordinances passed that provided a tree ordinance, a tree commission, a city arborist, and landscaping of commercial parking lots and street medians.
John was once president of this Roundtable for five years, during which time, he inaugurated the “Little Roundtable Discussion Group,” now in its sixth year. He is currently president of the Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society where he recently hosted 100 historians from five surrounding counties for a Bicentennial update.
He is married to Joan, a school teacher, has two grown children and one grandchild. Here now, speaking on…
The Unraveling of a Confederate State:
The Last Year of Civil War Alabama…
Please welcome John Allen
John H Allen at Shiloh National Battlefield – 2013
Auburn University Alumni Professor and Draughon Professor of Southern History
The Yellowhammer War: The Civil War and Reconstruction
Professor Noe is well known to the Tennessee Valley Civil War Round Table having presented various topics regarding the war as one of our most notable speakers.
Professor Noe assembled this series of essays by equally notable authors addressing various aspects of the war and Reconstruction in Alabama. The essays cover often neglected fields such as race, religion, women, the home front, and Reconstruction. And, of particular interest this month is the essays written by Sara Woolfolk Wiggins, Terry L. Seip, Michael W. Fitzgerald, Jason J. Battles, and Bertis English, all focused on various aspects of Reconstruction and the civil rights movement.
Free People of Color in Madison County, AL by Nancy Rohr
Was it purgatory on earth, neither slave nor equal in the community? Nancy Rohr has documented, through the available records of Alabama and the county, and presented snippets of the life and the time Free African Americans coped in Southern society before and during the Civil War. It is not a novel but for those interested in the social environment of the Old South there are ample storylines to tingle the imagination and reflect on the impact of a deliberately segregated society on a single segment of its population. She outlines the patriotic justification that secured freedom for some slaves, freedom as the reward for loyalty to the master, and other legal methods for slaves to join a free society. The short descriptions of individuals who’s legal documents illustrate a struggle the freed slaves endured to support themselves and their families in a community that, at best, was ambivalent and, at worst, accusatory and violent. And, the primary focus is the Madison County Community. She illustrates the civil changes that affected the lives of all citizens and presents findings in records where returning to bondage was a better alternative to freedom. It is a documentary illustrating the struggle for equality in a society where the African American is seen but seldom noticed until the fear of insurrection surfaces. Ms. Rohr’s essay is supported by the census of 1830 – 1860; The Black Huntsville census of 1865; and material found in the Alabama State Assembly (legislature) and Madison County court records. A must for the library of anyone interested in the Old South society.
The Newsletter Editor’s interview with TVCWRT member and author Nancy Rohr.
Editor: Free People of Color is an interesting topic. Why did you choose to research and write about that particular subject?
Ms. Rohr: Curiosity leads a lot of folks astray. There were a couple of emancipation cases in the Probate Deed books, and I couldn’t understand why. One thing leads to noticing another and then more cases just seemed to appear.
Editor: Recognizing that the topic is not one that most Civil War buffs would necessarily pick up to read, did you find any particular individual that merits additional research and could add more depth to the attitude and disposition of other residents of Madison County?
Ms. Rohr: Originally my work was to be an essay to tie up what I had learned about the real cases that followed at the end of the book. For me the first section was to understand the issues and their importance to real people. The last part, is the “good” stuff – who they were and how the individuals must have gotten through life as I had learned it to be in that very first part.
Of course it will not be of interest for Civil War buffs, and alas, I’m afraid few other folks will care. But how could one ignore, once connections were made to the life of Rachael A. Pauper? (Somewhere today her family must have a real surname.) There were five generations going back to Native Americans in Virginia. That family could account for ancestors’ from1770 and in the legal system of the times for us to read today.
Editor: What would you most like the readers of Free People of Color in Madison County- Alabama to take away from your book?
Ms. Rohr: My goals have always been the same for everything I’ve written – just for a reader to pause and think for one moment on one page, “Gee, I didn’t know that!”
Editor: Many writers find information that is interesting but just doesn’t fit in the outline or storyline of their book. Did something stand out that you just couldn’t include in the text?
Ms. Rohr: No, I was more concerned about all the free people of color I might not have found – yet.
Editor: What is the topic for your next effort?
Ms. Rohr: Next topic? Next topic? One doesn’t know what that is until it’s found!
April 2007; 440 pages, 13 photographs, 1 map, 6-1⁄8 x 9-1⁄4; Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1520-9, $34.95 (t)
WINNER OF THE HENRY ADAMS PRIZE, SPONSORED BY THE SOCIETY FOR HISTORY IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Lincoln’s Rise to the Presidency By William C. Harris
Adopting a new approach to an American icon, an award-winning scholar reexamines the life of Abraham Lincoln to demonstrate how his remarkable political acumen and leadership skills evolved during the intense partisan conflict in pre-Civil War Illinois. By describing Lincoln’s rise from obscurity to the presidency, William Harris shows that Lincoln’s road to political success was far from easy—and that his reaction to events wasn’t always wise or his racial attitudes free of prejudice.
Although most scholars have labeled Lincoln a moderate, Harris reveals that he was by his own admission a conservative who revered the Founders and advocated “adherence to the old and tried.” By emphasizing the conservative bent that guided Lincoln’s political evolution—his background as a Henry Clay Whig, his rural ties, his cautious nature, and the racial and political realities of central Illinois—Harris provides fresh insight into Lincoln’s political ideas and activities and portrays him as morally opposed to slavery but fundamentally conservative in his political strategy against it.
Interweaving aspects of Lincoln’s life and character that were an integral part of his rise to prominence, Harris provides in-depth coverage of Lincoln’s controversial term in Congress, his re-emergence as the leader of the antislavery coalition in Illinois, and his Senate campaign against Stephen A. Douglas. He particularly describes how Lincoln organized the antislavery coalition into the Republican Party while retaining the support of its diverse elements, and sheds new light on Lincoln’s ongoing efforts to bring Know Nothing nativists into the coalition without alienating ethnic groups. He also provides new information and analysis regarding Lincoln’s nomination and election to the presidency, the selection of his cabinet, and his important role as president-elect during the secession crisis of 1860–1861.
Challenging prevailing views, Harris portrays Lincoln as increasingly driven not so much by his own ambitions as by his antislavery sentiments and his fear for the republic in the hands of Douglas Democrats, and he shows how the unique political skills Lincoln developed in Illinois shaped his wartime leadership abilities. By doing so, he opens a window on his political ideas and influences and offers a fresh understanding of this complex figure.
“Illuminates Lincoln’s remarkable rise from obscurity to the presidency and shows in fresh detail how he acquired, and exercised, the political skills and the wisdom that made him a great leader when he got there.”—William Lee Miller, author of Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography
“An insightful account that convincingly portrays Lincoln as a tactically shrewd, strategically principled, and eloquently forceful leader and reconciler of the heterogeneous antislavery elements in both Illinois and the North at large. . . . A worthy companion to Harris’s prize-winning studies of Lincoln’s presidency.”—Michael Burlingame, author of The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln
“A fine, well-written study that provides sophisticated and balanced insights.”—Phillip Shaw Paludan, author of The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
WILLIAM C. HARRIS professor emeritus of history at North Carolina State University and recipient of the Lincoln Diploma of Honor, is author of nine other books, including Day of the Carpetbagger: Republican Reconstruction in Mississippi, With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union, and most recently Lincoln’s Last Months.
Kansas University Ordering Information: Our online ordering feature is currently under construction. You can order books from the University Press of Kansas by calling 785-864-4155. Orders can also be emailed to upkorders@ku.edu. Our shipping charges: $5.00 for first book, $1.00 for each additional book
November 2005; 240 pages, 1 photograph, 6 x 9; Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1411-0, $35.00
Secret History of Confederate Diplomacy Abroad By Edwin De Leon
One of the South’s most urgent priorities in the Civil War was obtaining the recognition of foreign governments. Edwin De Leon, a Confederate propagandist charged with wooing Britain and France, opens up this vital dimension of the war in the earliest known account by a Confederate foreign agent.
First published in the New York Citizen in 1867–68, De Leon’s memoir subsequently sank out of sight until its recent rediscovery by William C. Davis, one of the Civil War field’s true luminaries. Both reflective and engaging, it brims with insights and immediacy lacking in other works, covering everything from the diplomatic impact of the Battle of Bull Run to the candid opinions of Lord Palmerston to the progress of secret negotiations at Vichy.
De Leon discusses, among other things, the strong stand against slavery by the French and a frustrating policy of inaction by the British, as well as the troubling perceptions of some Europeans that the Confederacy was located in South America and that most Americans were a cross between Davy Crockett and Sam Slick. With France’s recognition a priority, De Leon published pamphlets and used French journals in a futile attempt to sway popular opinion and pressure the government of Napoleon III. His interpretation of the latter’s meeting with Confederate diplomat John Slidell and the eventual mediation proposal sheds new light on that signal event.
De Leon was a keen observer and a bit of a gossip, and his opinionated details and character portraits help shed light on the dark crevices of the South’s doomed diplomatic efforts and provide our only inside look at the workings of Napoleon’s court and Parliament regarding the Confederate cause. Davis adds an illuminating introduction that places De Leon’s career in historical context, reveals much about his propagandist strategies, and traces the history of the Secret History itself. Together they open up a provocative new window on the Civil War.
“Davis contributes a finely crafted and highly informative introduction to an insightful memoir by De Leon, whose rediscovered story provides a behind-the-scenes account of an overlooked ‘lost cause’—the South’s failure to secure foreign recognition as a nation—that might have changed the verdict of the war. . . . A valuable addition to the study of Civil War diplomacy.”—Howard Jones, author of Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War
“A rare first-hand account of Confederate diplomacy. Expertly introduced by Davis and filled with invaluable personal sketches and opinionated assessments of diplomatic questions, De Leon’s account adds important detail to our knowledge of the Civil War’s international dimensions.”—George C. Rable, author of The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics
EDWIN De LEON (1818–1891) was the author of several travel books and novels and a two-volume memoir, Thirty Years of My Life on Three Continents. WILLIAM C. DAVIS is professor of history at Virginia Tech and a three-time winner of the Jefferson Davis Award for Confederate History. His other books include The Union That Shaped the Confederacy: Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens, and, most recently, Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America.
Kansas University Ordering Information: Our online ordering feature is currently under construction. You can order books from the University Press of Kansas by calling 785-864-4155. Orders can also be emailed to upkorders@ku.edu. Our shipping charges: $5.00 for first book, $1.00 for each additional book
The War within the Union High Command; Politics and Generalship during the Civil War
By Thomas J. Goss
October 2003; 320 pages, 1 figure, 6 x 9
Modern War Studies; Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1263-5, $34.95
SELECTION OF THE HISTORY BOOK CLUB
SELECTION OF THE MILITARY BOOK CLUB
The War within the Union High Command; Politics and Generalship during the Civil War By Thomas J. Goss
With Union armies poised to launch the final campaigns against the Confederacy in 1864, three of its five commanders were “political generals”—appointed officers with little or no military training. Army chief of staff Henry Halleck thought such generals jeopardized the lives of men under their command and he and his peers held them in utter contempt. Historians have largely followed suit.
Thomas Goss, however, offers a new and more positive assessment of the leadership qualities of these Northern commanders. In the process, he cuts through the stereotypes of political generals as superfluous and largely inept tacticians, ambitious schemers, and military failures. Goss examines the reasons why the selection process yielded so many generals who lacked military backgrounds and explores the tense and often bitter relationships among political and professional officers to illuminate the dynamics of Union generalship during the war. As this book reveals, professional generals viewed the war as a military problem requiring battlefield solutions, while appointees (and President Lincoln) focused more emphatically on the broader political contours of the struggle. The resulting friction often eroded Northern morale and damaged the North’s war effort.
Goss challenges the traditional idea that success was measured only on the battlefield by demonstrating significant links between military success and the achievement of the Union’s political objectives. Examining commanders like Benjamin Butler, Nathaniel Banks, John McClernand, John Fremont, and Franz Sigel, Goss shows how many filled vital functions by raising troops, boosting homefront morale, securing national support for the war—and sometimes even achieving significant success on the battlefield. Comparing these generals with their professional counterparts reveals that all had vital roles to play in helping Lincoln prosecute the war and that West Pointers, despite their military training, were not necessarily better prepared for waging war.
Whether professional or appointed, Goss reminds us, all generals could be considered political inasmuch as war is a continuation of politics by other means. He shows us that far more was asked of Union commanders than to simply win battles and in so doing urges a new appreciation of those appointed leaders who were thrust into the maelstrom of the Civil War.
“Union ‘political generals’ were so inept, the story goes, that they should never have led armies. Not so, says Goss, whose argument is sure to create as much debate among modern readers as it did among wartime participants. . . . An important book.”–John F. Marszalek, author of Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order
“A significant contribution that clarifies and sharpens our understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, and accomplishments of these generals, while at the same time providing a more complex vision of Union command overall.”–Herman Hattaway, author of Shades of Blue and Gray
“A must read for all serious students of the Civil War and the institutional development of the United States Army.”–Albert E. Castel, author of Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864
THOMAS J. GOSS, a major in the U.S. Army with a Ph.D. in history from Ohio State University, taught military history at West Point and is currently a strategic planner for Homeland Defense at U.S. Northern Command in Colorado Springs.
Kansas University Ordering Information: Our online ordering feature is currently under construction. You can order books from the University Press of Kansas by calling 785-864-4155. Orders can also be emailed to upkorders@ku.edu. Our shipping charges: $5.00 for first book, $1.00 for each additional book
Upton’s Regulars; The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War
By Salvatore G. Cilella Jr.
June 2009; 592 pages, 40 illustrations, 6-1⁄8 x 9-1⁄4
Modern War Studies; Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1645-9, $39.95
Upton’s Regulars; The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War By Salvatore G. Cilella Jr.
From Cooperstown and its surrounding region, upstate New Yorkers responded to President Lincoln’s call to service by volunteering in droves to defend an imperiled Union. Drawn from the farms and towns of Otsego and Herkimer counties, the 121st New York State Volunteer Infantry Regiment served with the Sixth Corps in the Army of the Potomac throughout the Civil War. In the first comprehensive history of the regiment in nearly ninety years, Salvatore Cilella chronicles the epic story of this heroic “band of brothers.”
Led for much of the war by the legendary Emory Upton, the 121st deployed nearly 1,900 men into battle, from over 1,000 at call-up to the 330 who were finally mustered out of its war-depleted unit. Its soldiers participated in 25 major engagements, from Antietam to Sailor’s Creek, won six Medals of Honor, took several battle flags, led the charge at Spotsylvania, and captured Custis Lee at Sailor’s Creek. Cilella now tells their story, viewing the war through upstate New Yorkers’ eyes not only to depict three grueling years of fighting but also to reveal their distinctive attitudes regarding slavery, war goals, politics, and the families they left behind.
Cilella mines the letters, diaries, memoirs, and speeches of more than 120 soldiers and officers to weave a compelling narrative that traces the 121st from enlistment through the horrors of battle and back to civilian life. Their words vividly recount the experience of combat, but also rail against Washington bureaucrats and commanding generals. Many were upset with those who suggested that Emancipation was the war’s primary cause, declaring their fight to be for the Union rather than freed slaves, but they also scorned any Northerners who sympathized with the South.
Cilella also features compelling portraits of the regiment’s three commanders: original recruiter Richard Franchot; West Pointer Upton, by whose name the 121st came to be known; and Otsego County native Egbert Olcott. Readers will especially gain new insights into the charismatic Upton, who took command at the age of 23, was a fearless leader on the field of battle, and became one of the army’s most admired regimental leaders, clearly marking him out for future accomplishments.
As dire as the war became, especially in the summer of 1864, Upton’s Regulars repeatedly told their families they would do it all again and would sooner die in battle than shirk their responsibility to the Union. This regimental history stands as a testament to that dedication—and as an unvarnished look at the harsh realities of war.
“A rich portrait that deserves the attention of any serious student of the American Civil War.”—Journal of Military History
“This is an evocative, engaging, and often exciting portrait of a regiment that has been probed by historians before—but never with such a fine brew of deep scholarship and skillful writing, and never with such perception about not only military life, but also the political and social forces behind the lines. Salvatore Cilella has made a unique and highly readable contribution to Civil War literature.”—Harold Holzer, Co-chairman, U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
“In a powerful and moving narrative, Cilella examines the men who served in the 121st New York infantry, from their rural backgrounds through vigorous warfare. This well documented study also explores how the survivors, only one-fourth of those who joined up, lived after the war. This book not only takes its place among the best of regimental histories, it serves as a model for the kinds of studies needed to understand the transformation of a war to preserve the union to one committed to a new birth of freedom.”—Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln
“Cilella provides a remarkably full account of the 121st’s soldiers and their circumstances as they enlist, train, march off, and experience three years of the Civil War. His research on their experiences and attitudes is impressive, even amazing. Well written, informative, and analytical, it’s everything an excellent regimental history should be. I strongly recommend it.”—Steven Woodworth, author of Nothing But Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861–1865
“Cilella wonderfully captures the experience of the common man in the Civil War as represented by those who were part of the campaigns of New York’s 121st Infantry.”—D. Stephen Elliott, President and CEO, New York State Historical Association and The Farmers’ Museum
SALVATORE G. CILELLA JR. is president and CEO of the Atlanta Historical Society.
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May 2006 ; 384 pages, 23 illustrations, 6 x 9; Modern War Studies; Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1437-0, $34.95
Women on the Civil War Battlefront By Richard H. Hall
During the Civil War women did a lot more than keep the home fires burning. Expanding on his pioneering Patriots in Disguise, Richard Hall has now produced the most accurate and up-to-date survey available of women who were determined to serve their nation in that time of crisis.
Drawing on a wealth of regimental histories, newspaper archives, and a host of previously unreported accounts, Hall shows that women served in more capacities and in greater number—perhaps several thousand—than has previously been known. They served in the infantry, cavalry, and artillery and as spies, scouts, saboteurs, smugglers, and frontline nurses. From all walks of life, they followed husbands and lovers into battle, often in male disguise that remained undiscovered until they were wounded (or gave birth), and endured the same hardships and dangers as did their male counterparts.
Hall presents the most complete portrait yet available of these courageous women—including Sarah Bradbury, Lizzie Compton, Frances Hook, and Confederate spy Loreta Janeta Velazquez—many of whom earned the praise of the male soldiers they served with and rose through the ranks to become sergeants, even officers. Through his investigation of specific case histories, he has authenticated many previously undocumented reports while debunking myths and exposing previously published errors about the subject. The book also includes a biographical directory of nearly 400 women participants and dozens of Civil War documents attesting to women’s role in the war.
As a new synthesis and critical appraisal, Women on the Civil War Battlefront is a richly anecdotal work that unearths a hidden history and opens a new window on women’s lives in the nineteenth century. These women were determined to serve, and Hall’s research confirms that they did so in significant numbers—and with distinction.
“Hall’s main argument is that far more women were active in military affairs than previously thought, that women were in military places unknown to most historians of the war (such as prisoner-of-war camps), and that much of what we think we know about women’s activities is not necessarily accurate. . . . A substantial and significant contribution to the history of women during the Civil War.”–Janet L. Coryell, coeditor of Negotiating the Boundaries of Southern Womanhood
Civil War scholar RICHARD H. HALL is a free-lance writer and editor based in Brentwood, Maryland. He is the author of Patriots in Disguise: Women Warriors of the Civil War.
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The Cause Lost; Myths and Realities of the Confederacy
By William C. Davis
New in paperback: March 2003; xii, 224 pages, 23 photographs, 6 x 9; Modern War Studies; Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-1254-3, $15.95 (t)
WINNER OF THE LANEY PRIZE, SPONSORED BY THE AUSTIN CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE
MAIN SELECTION OF THE HISTORY BOOK CLUB
The Cause Lost; Myths and Realities of the Confederacy By William C. Davis
For nearly a quarter of a century, Pulitzer Prize nominee William C. Davis has been one of our best writers on the Civil War. His books–including Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol; Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour; and “A Government of Our Own”: The Making of the Confederacy–have garnered numerous awards and enlightened and entertained an avid readership. The Cause Lost extends that tradition of excellence with provocative new insights into the myths and realities of an endlessly fascinating subject.
In these pages, Davis brings into sharp focus the facts and fictions of the South’s victories and defeats, its tenacious struggle to legitimize its cause and defeat an overpowering enemy, and its ultimate loss of will. He debunks long-standing legends, offers irrefutable evidence explaining Confederate actions, and contemplates the idealism, naivete, folly, and courage of the military leadership and would-be founding fathers.
Among the most misunderstood, Davis contends, was Jefferson Davis. Often branded as enigmatic and incompetent, the Confederate president was simply a decent and committed leader whose mistakes were magnified by the war’s extraordinary demands. Davis scrutinizes Jefferson Davis’ relationship with his generals–most of whom were unproved talents or cronies with proven deficiencies–and reveals why only Robert E. Lee succeeded in winning Davis’ confidence through flattery, persuasion, and a sense of responsibility. He also examines the myths and memories of the nearly deified Stonewall Jackson and of John C. Breckinridge, the only effective Confederate secretary of war.
Davis also illustrates why the cause of the war–a subject of long-standing controversy–boils down to the single issue of slavery; why Southerners, 90 percent of whom didn’t own slaves, were willing to join in the battle to defend their homeland; how the personalities, tactics, and styles of the armies in the turbulent West differed greatly from those in the East; what real or perceived turning points influenced Southern decision making; and how mythology and misinterpretations have been perpetuated through biography, history, literature, and film.
Revealing the Confederacy’s myths for what they really are, Davis nevertheless illustrates how much those myths inform our understanding of the Civil War and its place in Southern and American culture.
“Celebrated author William C. Davis here offers us stimulating essays full of provocative opinions. Will provoke plenty of healthy debate.”–Blue & Gray Magazine
“A wonderful book, written by a man with full command of, and great love for, his subject. Davis grasps the war in its totality, decently and respectfully. He does not so much demolish myths as clarify and nuance them.”–Washington Times
“This splendid collection, characterized by the same insight, humor, and delightful irreverence found in all Davis’s writing, has something for everyone.”–Journal of Southern History
“Davis advances strong opinions without qualification and often in a bold, memorable way.”–Georgia Historical Quarterly
“This provocative book challenges readers to look at old questions in new ways. It ‘s a splendid read, entertaining and enlightening in equal measure and leavened with more than a dash of humor.”–Gary W. Gallagher, editor of The Third Day at Gettysburg and Beyond
“The Cause Lost provides interesting and informative reading, in the process presenting some new ideas and fresh facts while exposing some old fallacies.”–Albert Castel, author of Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864
“William C. Davis is one of the best and most prolific historians of the American Civil War. His many books on battles, commanders, and Civil War photography have added immeasurably to our knowledge and understanding.”–James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom
WILLIAM C. DAVIS is the recipient of three Jefferson Davis Awards as well as the T. Harry Williams Memorial Award, Bell I. Wiley Prize, Fletcher Pratt Award, Phi Alpha Theta Award, and Harry S. Truman Award. He lives in Pennsylvania, barely fifty miles from the battlefields of Gettysburg.
Kansas University Ordering Information: Our online ordering feature is currently under construction. You can order books from the University Press of Kansas by calling 785-864-4155. Orders can also be emailed to upkorders@ku.edu. Our shipping charges: $5.00 for first book, $1.00 for each additional book
Punitive War; Confederate Guerrillas and Union Reprisals
By Clay Mountcastle
September 2009 ; 212 pages, 20 photographs, 5 maps, 6 x 9
Modern War Studies; Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1668-8, $29.95 (t)
Punitive War; Confederate Guerrillas and Union Reprisals By Clay Mountcastle
Through widespread and relentless surprise attacks and ambushes, Confederate guerrillas drove Union soldiers and their leaders to desperation. Confederate cavalrymen engaged in hit-and-run tactics; autonomous partisan rangers preyed on Federal railroads, telegraph lines, and supply wagons; and civilian bushwhackers waylaid Union pickets. Together, all of these actions persuaded the Union to wage an increasingly punitive war.
Clay Mountcastle presents a new look at the complex nature of guerrilla warfare in the Civil War and the Union Army’s calculated response to it. He examines guerrilla attacks and Federal responses in a number of operational theaters to show how the problem grew throughout the South and ultimately convinced the Union to adopt retaliatory measures that challenged the sensibilities of even the most hardened soldiers.
In revealing the impact that Confederate guerrilla activity had on the Union’s prosecution of the war, Mountcastle reveals how the character of the war was shaped every bit as much by the troops on the ground as by their Union leaders. He draws on primary sources that vividly convey their reaction to the guerrilla problem and their justification for punitive action—with guerrillas described by one angry soldier as “thieves and murderers by occupation, rebels by pretense, soldiers only in name, and cowards by nature.” Showing how much of the impetus for retaliation originated from the bottom up, starting in the western theater in 1861, he describes how it became the most influential factor in convincing Union generals, especially Grant and Sherman, that the war needed to be extended to include civilians and their property. The result was a level of destructiveness that has been downplayed by other scholars—despite the evidence of executions and incidents of entire towns being burned to the ground.
By 1864, punitive action had evolved into such a powerful and decisive force that it produced what has been called “a warfare of frightfulness.” And although guerrilla activity deviled the Union until the end, the Union’s response ultimately proved a significant factor in persuading leaders like General Lee to call a halt to such actions and, ultimately, to surrender. Mountcastle’s book offers the most revealing look yet at this incompletely understood dimension of the Civil War and also raises provocative questions about the relationship between guerrilla and conventional warfare in any conflict.
“A scrupulously researched, deftly organized, and compellingly written history of Rebel guerrilla warfare and the Union’s escalating tactics of ever-harsher punitive reprisals.”—Washington Times
“Mountcastle demonstrates, with powerful insight, deep archival research, and crisp writing, the central role of guerilla warfare during the Civil War. . . . This is a close-up view of the real Civil War, unrelentingly savage and utterly inhumane.”—Michael Fellman, author of In the Name of God: Reconsidering Terrorism in American History
“This excellent combination of storytelling and analysis explains better than any previous work how the Confederacy’s guerrilla war influenced Union military policy.”—Daniel E. Sutherland, author of Seasons of War: The Ordeal of
a Confederate Community, 1861–1865
“Packs as much punch as the Union’s punitive war itself.”—Brian S. Wills, author of The War Hits Home
“Most historians merely lay out facts in chronological order, relying on good research. Clay Mountcastle goes several steps further. He repeatedly states his central premise—that Confederate guerrilla activity was the proximate cause of the development of Union ‘hard war’ policy. He supports that premise with solid archival research and then adds great historiographical research to point out that previous historians have not taken their analysis far enough to connect the two dots. This book is military analysis at its best.”—S. Waite Rawls III, President and CEO, Museum of the Confederacy
CLAY MOUNTCASTLE, a major in the U.S. Army, has taught military history at West Point and is currently Battalion Executive Officer with Air Defense Artillery, stationed in Korea.
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By Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens; William C. Davis
April 2001; 304 pages, 2 photographs, 6 x 9
Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1088-4, $29.95 (t)
SELECTION OF THE HISTORY BOOK CLUB
The Union That Shaped the Confederacy By Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens; William C. Davis
One was a robust charmer given to fits of passion, whose physical appeal could captivate women as easily as cajole colleagues. The other was a frail, melancholy man of quiet intellect, whose ailments drove him eventually to alcohol and drug addiction. Born into different social classes, they were as opposite as men could be. Yet these sons of Georgia, Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens, became fast friends and together changed the course of the South.
Writing with the style and authority that has made him one of our most popular historians of the Civil War, William C. Davis has written a biography of a friendship that captures the Confederacy in microcosm. He tells how Toombs and Stephens dominated the formation of the new nation and served as its vice president and secretary of state. After years of disillusionment, each abandoned participation in the government and left to its own fate a Confederacy that would not dance to their tune.
Davis traces this unlikely relationship from its early days in the Georgia legislature through the trials of secession and war, revealing how both men persevered during the war and developed a deep animosity for Jefferson Davis. He then chronicles their postwar lives up to the emotional moment when Toombs stood eulogizing his long-time friend at his funeral, just four months after Stephens was elected governor of the Georgia they had loved as much as one another.
Drawing extensively on primary sources, including Stephens’s voluminous letters and Toombs’s widely scattered papers, Davis tells how two men of different temperaments remained friends, out of step with all but a few and occasionally even with each other. He concentrates on their Confederate years, when the fraternity they shared had its greatest impact, to show how they embodied both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Confederacy.
While there are biographies of each man, none convey the significance–or the depth–of their friendship. Davis shows us how they loved the South as it once was, the Union as they thought it ought to have been, and the Confederacy of their dreams that never came to be. They lost all three, but through five decades of crisis, they never failed each other.
“A sympathetic but also sharply critical treatment of how two deeply flawed southern politicians both helped create and destroy the Confederacy. . . . Brings back excitement to the political history of the Civil War.”–George Rable, author of The Confederate Republic
“In this engaging narrative, Davis offers compelling portraits of the two men, describes their critical roles in Confederate history, and illuminates the process by which their friendship thrived amid increasingly difficult political circumstances.”–Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War
“A marvelous book that reads like a novel.”–Emory M. Thomas, author of Robert E. Lee: A Biography
WILLIAM C. DAVIS is the author of more than forty books about the Civil War, including The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy, also published by Kansas and Jefferson Davis, The Man and His Hour. Recipient of three Jefferson Davis Awards and numerous other prizes, he is presently professor of history and director of programs at the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech.
Kansas University Ordering Information: Our online ordering feature is currently under construction. You can order books from the University Press of Kansas by calling 785-864-4155. Orders can also be emailed to upkorders@ku.edu. Our shipping charges: $5.00 for first book, $1.00 for each additional book
While God Is Marching On; The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers
By Steven E. Woodworth
New in paperback: October 2003; xii, 394 pages, 6 x 9
Modern War Studies; Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-1297-0, $19.95 (t)
While God Is Marching On; The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers By Steven E. Woodworth
They read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, but they faced each other in battle with rage in their hearts. The Civil War not only pitted brother against brother but also Christian against Christian, with soldiers from North and South alike devoutly believing that God was on their side.
Steven Woodworth, one of our most prominent and provocative Civil War historians, presents the first detailed study of soldiers’ religious beliefs and how they influenced the course of that tragic conflict. He shows how Christian teaching and practice shaped the worldview of soldiers on both sides: how it motivated them for the struggle, how it influenced the way they fought, and how it shaped national life after the war ended.
Through the diaries, letters, and reminiscences of common soldiers, Woodworth illuminates religious belief from the home front to the battlefield, where thoughts of death and the afterlife were always close at hand. Woodworth reveals what these men thought about God and what they believed God thought about the war.
Wrote one Unionist, “I believe our cause to be the cause of liberty and light . . . the cause of God, and holy and justifiable in His sight, and for this reason, I fear not to die in it if need be.” With a familiar echo, his Confederate counterpart declared that “our Cause is Just and God is Just and we shall finally be successful whether I live to see the time or not.”
Woodworth focuses on mainstream Protestant beliefs and practices shared by the majority of combatants in order to help us better understand soldiers’ motivations and to realize what a strong role religion played in American life throughout the conflict. In addition, he provides sharp insights into the relationship between Christianity and both the abolition movement in the North and the institution of slavery in the South.
Ultimately, Woodworth shows us how opposing armies could put their trust in the same God while engaging in four years of organized slaughter and destruction. His compelling work provides a rich new perspective on religion in American life and will forever change the way we look at the Civil War.
“It is exemplary in many ways—not least in its utterly respectful attitude toward popular religion.”–Journal of American History
“A pioneering and often insightful work on an important subject.”–Journal of Military History
“Entertaining and informative.”–Civil War Book Review
“A genuine contribution to the literature on the world of Civil War soldiers.”–James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom
“Fills a longstanding gap in our understanding of the Civil War. Tough-minded exposition, veins of wit, and arresting insights make this highly accessible, dazzling work a delight and inspiration to read.”–Bertram Wyatt-Brown, author of The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War
“A sweeping study that moves to the forefront of all books treating faith among Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks.”–James I. Robertson, Jr., author of Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend
“One of those rare works that displays impressive scholarship but grips the emotions as well.”–Marvin Olasky, editor of World Magazine
Kansas University Ordering Information: Our online ordering feature is currently under construction. You can order books from the University Press of Kansas by calling 785-864-4155. Orders can also be emailed to upkorders@ku.edu. Our shipping charges: $5.00 for first book, $1.00 for each additional book
