General John Pegram Csa

Richard Stoddert Ewell is best known as the Confederate General selected by Robert E. Lee to replace "Stonewall" Jackson as chief of the Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. Ewell is also remembered as the general who failed to drive Federal troops from the high ground of Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. Many historians believe that Ewell's inaction cost the Confederates a victory in this seminal battle and, ultimately, cost the Civil War. During his long military career, Ewell was never an aggressive warrior. He graduated from West Point and served in the Indian wars in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In 1861 he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and rushed to the Confederate standard. Ewell saw action at First Manassas and took up divisional command under Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign and in the Seven Days' Battles around Richmond. A crippling wound and a leg amputation soon compounded the persistent manic-depressive disorder that had hindered his ability to make difficult decisions on the battlefield. When Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia in May of 1863, Ewell was promoted to lieutenant general. At the same time he married a widowed first cousin who came to dominate his life—often to the disgust of his subordinate officers—and he became heavily influenced by the wave of religious fervor that was then sweeping through the Confederate Army. In Confederate General R.S. Ewell, Paul D. Casdorph offers a fresh portrait of a major—but deeply flawed—figure in the Confederate war effort, examining the pattern of hesitancy and indecisiveness that characterized Ewell's entire military career. This definitive biography probes the crucial question of why Lee selected such an obviously inconsistent and unreliable commander to lead one-third of his army on the eve of the Gettysburg Campaign. Casdorph describes Ewell's intriguing life and career with penetrating insights into his loyalty to the Confederate cause and the Virginia ties that kept him in Lee's favor for much of the war. Complete with riveting descriptions of key battles, Ewell's biography is essential reading for Civil War historians.

The author's proof of his book with a list of autograph corrections and a review of the book tipped in after the text.

In June of 1863, Col. William P. Sanders led a cavalry raid of 1,300 men from the Union Army of the Ohio through Confederate-held East Tennessee. The raid severed the Confederate rail supply line from Virginia to the Western Theater and made national headlines. Until now, this incredible feat has been relegated to a footnote in the voluminous history of the American Civil War. In Yankee Commandos, Stuart Brandes presents readers with the most complete account of the Sanders raid to date by using newly discovered and under-explored materials, such as Sanders’s official reports and East Tennessee diaries and memoirs in which Sanders is chronicled. The book presents important details of a cavalry raid through East Tennessee that further turned the tide of war for the Union in the Western Theater. It also sheds light on the raid’s effect on the divided civilian population of East Tennessee, where, unlike the largely pro-secession populations of Middle and West Tennessee, the fraction of enlisted men to the Union cause rose to nearly a quarter. Colonel Sanders remains an enigma of the American Civil War. (He was a cousin of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and his father and three brothers donned Confederate gray at the outbreak of the war.) By studying the legend of Sanders and his raid, Brandes fills an important gap in Civil War scholarship and in the story of Unionism in a mostly Confederate-sympathizing state.

Chickamauga, according to soldier rumor, is a Cherokee word meaning ñRiver of Death.î It certainly lived up to that grim sobriquet in September 1863 when the Union Army of the Cumberland and Confederate Army of Tennessee waged bloody combat along the banks of West Chickamauga Creek. Long considered a two-day affair, award-winning author David Powell embraces a fresh approach that explores Chickamauga as a three-day battle, with September 18 being key to understanding how the fighting developed the next morning. The second largest battle of the Civil War produced 35,000 casualties and one of the last, clear-cut Confederate tactical victories„a triumph that for a short time reversed a series of Rebel defeats and reinvigorated the hope for Southern independence. At issue was Chattanooga, the important ñgateway to the Southî and logistical springboard into Georgia. Despite its size, importance, and fascinating cast of characters, this epic Western Theater battle has received but scant attention. Powell masterfully rectifies this oversight with The Chickamauga Campaign„A Mad Irregular Battle: From the Crossing of the Tennessee River Through the Second Day, August 22 _ September 19, 1863. The first of three installments spanning the entire campaign, A Mad Irregular Battle includes the Tullahoma Campaign in June, which set the stage for Chickamauga, and continues through the second day of fighting on September 19. The second installment finishes the battle from dawn on September 20 and carries both armies through the retreat into Chattanooga and the beginning of the siege. The third and last book of the series includes appendices and essays exploring specific questions about the battle in substantially greater detail. PowellÍs magnificent study fully explores the battle from all perspectives and is based upon fifteen years of intensive study and research that has uncovered nearly 2,000 primary sources from generals to private, all stitched together to relate the remarkable story that was Chickamauga. Here, finally, readers will absorb the thoughts and deeds of hundreds of the battleÍs veterans, many of whom they have never heard of or read about. In addition to archival sources, newspapers, and other firsthand accounts, Powell grounds his conclusions in years of personal study of the terrain itself and regularly leads tours of the battlefield. His prose is as clear and elegant as it is authoritative and definitive. The Chickamauga Campaign„A Mad Irregular Battle is PowellÍs magnum opus, a tour-de-force rich in analysis brimming with heretofore untold stories. It will surely be a classic must-have battle study for every serious student of the Civil War.

From Western Virginia with Jackson to Spotsylvania with Lee presents the diaries and letters of St. Joseph Tucker Randolph, a young Confederate soldier from Richmond, Virginia. As might be expected of the son of a bookseller, Tucker's writings offer lucid and candid descriptions of the Civil War. Unlike most who served, Randolph fought in both the eastern and western theaters of the war. He began the war in the 21st Virginia Infantry, a part of the famed Stonewall Brigade, before moving on to staff roles with Henry M. Ashby in Tennessee and John Pegram in Virginia. Throughout it all, he kept diaries and wrote letters home, correspondence his family preserved after Tucker's death in action at Bethesda Church in 1864. Tucker's lengthy accounts of campaigning in western Virginia in 1861 and early 1862 give many rich characterizations of the area and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. His writings from Kentucky and Tennessee in 1862 offers trenchant commentary on the failures of the western armies. Tucker's return to Virginia in late 1863 as a staff officer gave him the perfect vantage point to write about Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, including a particularly vivid account of the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864. Ample illustrations and maps help bring Tucker's writings to life, making this book an excellent account of a young Confederate soldier's Civil War. Peter C. Luebke, editor of other Civil War narratives such as Albion Tourgée's The Story of a Thousand and The Autobiography of John A. Dahlgren, contextualizes the writings and provides thorough annotation on the people, places, and events mentioned. Noted scholar Gary W. Gallagher, the John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War (emeritus) at the University of Virginia, contributes a foreword that amplifies the importance of Tucker's writings.

The men of the 5th Kentucky Mounted Infantry called him "Captain" and later, his subordinates in the 10th Kentucky Mounted Infantry called him "Colonel". Some of his enemies called him a "dangerous guerilla chieftain". Very late in the war, his regiment was re-designated as the 13th Kentucky Cavalry. When his Confederacy no longer existed, and there was no longer a need for his sword, he picked up his Bible and returned to his former life as a country preacher and community leader. This book contains specific details regarding Confederate Colonel Ben E. Caudill's 13th Kentucky Cavalry. It includes a complete roster of the men who rode with Caudill, historical accounts of their engagements with their enemy, and a collection of period and post-war photographs.