Gary W Gallagher
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 44
Language
English
Description
While events unfolded at Atlanta, Grant and Lee confronted each other along an elaborately entrenched front from Richmond to Petersburg. In mid-June, Lee detached a corps under Jubal Early to operate in the Shenandoah Valley and Maryland. Between September 19 and October 19, Philip H. Sheridan won three victories over Early and laid waste to much of the lower Valley.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 31
Language
English
Description
The war in the West gave a key role to the US Navy, which built special crafts for river duty. Meanwhile, Southern commerce raiders like the C.S.S. Alabama became legendary. How much did they aid the CSA's war effort?
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 21
Language
English
Description
In Virginia, the Union army suffered two setbacks along the Rappahannock. Lee threw back Burnside's costly frontal assaults at Fredericksburg on December 13. The talented, ambitious Joseph Hooker soon took command. He planned a brilliant offensive that began well at the end of April 1863, but Lee and Jackson had other plans.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 13
Language
English
Description
As Stonewall Jackson marched and fought in the Shenandoah Valley, Joseph E. Johnston attacked McClellan at Seven Pines or Fair Oaks. When Johnston was wounded, Robert E. Lee took command. In the Seven Days' Battles, he seized the initiative and pressed the Federals south to the James. Lee had saved Richmond and offset Union success in the West.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 24
Language
English
Description
Although the Union seemed poised for knockout blows both east and west, Meade would not force a full-blown battle, and Grant found himself without a major goal after Vicksburg. Rosecrans ably maneuvered Bragg out of Chattanooga and into north Georgia in early September. Reinforced, Bragg struck back at Chickamauga (September 19-20), the CSA's only major tactical victory in the West.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 45
Language
English
Description
After Atlanta fell, Hood tried to draw Sherman northward. Sherman followed briefly before deciding to cut loose from his supply lines on his famous March to the Sea, implementing the "strategy of exhaustion" in the Confederate interior.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 47
Language
English
Description
Lincoln's assassination has given rise to much speculation. What does the best evidence suggest? Lincoln was among the last casualties in a war whose staggering human and material toll can never be known. Taking everything into account, why did the South lose and the North win?
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 16
Language
English
Description
Despite slavery's role in causing the conflict, for at least the first year it remained in the background. As long as restoring the Union remained the sole war aim, there was remarkable unity among Northerners. But what type of Union were they fighting for?
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 33
Language
English
Description
The war changed women's lives in ways dramatic and subtle, lasting and temporary. Although anxiety, grief, and hardship were felt on both sides, women in the CSA suffered most directly from the war. To black women, the war brought emancipation and the opportunity to solidify marriage and family ties. The front drew more women than might seem likely.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 38
Language
English
Description
The war caused the CSA enormous strain. Eschewing formal party politics, the CSA's founders hoped to return to a Revolutionary-era ideal. But bitter divisions arose, and the political scene often seemed chaotic and a drag on the war effort. Although most Confederates remained committed to beating the Yankees, economic woes made many doubt their ability to continue the war.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 43
Language
English
Description
In the summer of 1864, Lincoln needed victories. The first break came in August, at Mobile Bay, Alabama, when Admiral David G. Farragut closed the CSA's last major port on the Gulf. Far more important news soon followed from Atlanta: Sherman had at last taken the city.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 22
Language
English
Description
Gettysburg is often described as the turning point of the war. It took place against a background of uncertainty and unrest in the North and was the result of a major strategic debate in the South. Why did Lee go north? Was his strategic thinking sound? What swung the three-day battle's outcome? How did people on either side view Gettysburg?
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 9
Language
English
Description
The loyalty of slaveholding states Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was an object of intense competition in the summer and autumn of 1861. What, in the end, kept those states in the Union?
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 17
Language
English
Description
Lincoln came to see emancipation as necessary to victory. But he understood that he lacked the authority to end slavery in loyal areas, and his famous proclamation deliberately casts emancipation as a war measure. What did most Northerners think of it?
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 36
Language
English
Description
In many ways the war's pre-eminent confrontation, the Overland Campaign brought together each side's greatest captain in a novel and relentless combat. The prominence of Grant and Lee ensured that their contest would deeply affect civilian morale. The armies would battle fiercely and almost continuously from early May to mid-June.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 26
Language
English
Description
Both Lincoln and Davis cast anxious eyes toward Europe, thinking of the decisive French aid to the colonies during the American Revolution. Why, despite several flare-ups with England and France, did the Lincoln administration finally prevail in the diplomatic arena?
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 3
Language
English
Description
Beginning with South Carolina in December 1860, all of the Lower South states seceded by the first week of February 1861. They sent delegates to a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, that established the Confederate States of America.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 14
Language
English
Description
The Confederacy faced a difficult strategic situation in July 1862. Jefferson Davis and his generals responded by sending armies into Kentucky and Maryland in the most impressive Confederate strategic offensive of the war. Operations in Kentucky between August and October 1862 culminated in a confused battle at Perryville.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 27
Language
English
Description
During the conflict, thousands of slaves made their way to Union lines. Their plight was often hard and uncertain. Nearly 180,000 black men, most of them former slaves, wore Union blue. The "US Colored Troops" faced obstacles and injustices, yet their solid service made a strong case for full citizenship.
Author
Series
American Civil War volume 48
Language
English
Description
How did participants remember and interpret the conflict in the decades after Appomattox? How do modern Americans view the people and events of 1861 to 1865? What are the types of understanding at which one can arrive?