Civil War Memoirs

As fresh and poignant today as when they were written, these touching letters capture the heart of everyday life during the Civil War. Set both at home in Florida and on the front, the letters were written by two generations of families whose members included radical secessionists, moderates, and even a few Unionists.

Clara Barton: The Life and Legacy of the Civil War Nurse Who Founded the American Red Cross chronicles her remarkable life, and the manner in which she changed nursing in America forever. You will learn about Clara Barton like never before.

En Historia de la Guerra Civil sin mitos ni tópicos, Manuel P. Villatoro e Israel Viana repasan los años treinta del siglo XX para entender el enfrentamiento capital de nuestra historia reciente, la cruenta guerra civil que antecedió a uno de los períodos más convulsos del siglo XX en España y Europa.

No American president has enjoyed as intimate a relationship with the soldiers in his army as did the man they called “Father Abraham.” In Lincoln’s Men, historian William C. Davis draws on thousands of unpublished letters and diaries—the voices of the volunteers—to tell the hidden story of how a new and untested president became “Father” throughout both the army and the North as a whole. Lincoln’s Men casts a new light on our most famous president and on America’s revolution—on our country’s father and its rebirth.

Nineteenth-century African Americans felt deep affection for their "liberator" as a "homely" man who did not hold himself apart; Southerners felt a nostalgia for Abraham Lincoln as a humble "conciliator". Later, educators glorified Lincoln as a symbol of nationhood to help assimilate poor immigrants. Monument makers focused not only on a gigantic body but also on a nationalist "union", downplaying "emancipation". Among both Black and White liberals in the 1960s and 1970s, Lincoln was derided or fell out of fashion.

Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general, a complex soul, and a Southerner to the core. Tapped by Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army in the Civil War, his Virginian roots led him to command the Confederates instead. A charismatic though reluctant leader, his military audacity and tactical genius were combined with a genuine and sorrowful solicitude for his men, as ragged and outnumbered as they were by the end of the war.

One of the most unique and effective generals of the Civil War also happens to be one of the most overlooked. While there is a never ending stream of acclaim going to generals like Grant, Lee, and Sherman, General George H. Thomas has managed to fly under the radar, despite having an unusual background as a Southerner fighting for the Union and scoring almost inconceivable successes at Missionary Ridge, Franklin, and Nashville.

In 1862, Andrew “Andy” Jackson Smith, son of a white landowner and enslaved woman, es­caped to Union troops operating in Kentucky, made his way to the North, and volunteered for the 55th Massachusetts, one of the newly formed African American regiments. The regiment was deployed to South Carolina, and during a desperate assault on a Confederate battery, the color bearer was killed. Before the flag was lost, Smith quickly retrieved it and under heavy fire, held the colors steady while the decimated regiment withdrew.

The list of American war heroes who went on to become presidents includes men as little remembered as Zachary Taylor and as famous as Dwight D. Eisenhower. While these men are venerable with a significant their place in American history, they cannot equal the status of Ulysses S. Grant, the Civil War general who rose through the ranks from virtual obscurity to command.

William Clarke Quantrill and his band of Partisan Rangers were some of the most brutal outlaws in American history. These Raiders would go on to influence generations of future outlaws, making way for the Wild West and later the gangsters of the Great Depression era. This Civil War documentary covers all aspects of the Raiders' lives, along with in-depth coverage of breakaway bands of outlaws. Quantrill and his Raiders lived an incredible, almost unbelievable life.

Nearly a century after the first unified resistance against the British, strife over slavery widened to the point of civil war, and the condition of slaves in America was in several aspects worse than at any time during the 18th century. As the nation tried to sort out its most intractable political issue, politicians and advocates on each side of the divide became increasingly more passionate, and vocal.

Abraham Lincoln's determination to hold the North and South together would ultimately lead to the bloodiest war in American history, the abolition of slavery, and his own untimely death from an assassin’s bullet. But to see Lincoln solely as a tragic figure consumed with the strife of mid-19th century America is to miss meeting him as a man who never allowed himself to be defeated by adversity, grief, or turmoil.

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.

The battlefield reputation of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, long recognized as a formidable warrior, has been shaped by one infamous wartime incident. At Fort Pillow in 1864, the attack by Confederate forces under Forrest's command left many of the Tennessee Unionists and Black soldiers garrisoned there dead in a confrontation widely labeled as a "massacre".

In Assad: The Triumph of Tyranny, Con Coughlin, veteran commentator on war in the Middle East and author of Saddam: The Secret Life, examines how a mild-mannered ophthalmic surgeon has transformed himself into the tyrannical ruler of a once flourishing country.

In this newest addition to the Great Generals Series, John Mosier brings to life the brilliant military strategist Ulysses S. Grant. A modest and unassuming man, Grant never lost a battle, leading the Union to victory over the Confederacy during the Civil War, ultimately becoming president of the reunited states. Grant revolutionized military warfare by creating new leadership strategies and by integrating new technologies in classical military strategy.

General Ulysses S. Grant is best remembered today as a war-winning general, and he certainly deserves credit for his efforts on behalf of the Union. But has he received too much credit? Have others who fought the war with him suffered unfairly? General Grant and the Verdict of History explores these issues. Professor Frank P. Varney examines Grant's relationship with three noted Civil War generals: the brash and uncompromising "Fighting Joe" Hooker; George H. Thomas, the commander who earned the sobriquet "Rock of Chickamauga"; and Gouverneur Kemble Warren.

During the Civil War his movements from battlefield to battlefield were followed in the North and in the South nearly as closely as those of generals, though he was not in the military. After the war, his swift response to Ku Klux Klan violence sparked passage of a landmark civil rights law, though he was not a politician. When he died newspapers reported his death from coast to coast, yet he's unknown today. He was the man who delivered the most valuable ingredient in United States soldiers' fighting spirit during those terrible war years—letters between the front lines and the home front.

Gettysburg Rebels is the gripping true story of five young men who grew up in Gettysburg, moved south to Virginia in the 1850s, joined the Confederate army - and returned "home" as foreign invaders for the great battle in July 1863. Drawing on rarely seen documents and family histories, as well as military service records and contemporary accounts, Tom McMillan delves into the backgrounds of Wesley Culp, Henry Wentz, and the three Hoffman brothers in a riveting tale of Civil War drama and intrigue.

An extraordinary day-to-day documentary of the Civil War's most infamous Confederate prison, Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville. Where 13,000 wretched Union prisoners died within barely 14 months, under conditions which bear witness to man's inhumanity to man. And, one man's undaunted spirit to survive, to tell the dreadful tale! The diary mirrors Ransom's changing attitudes from the moody early staccato sentences when he is first captured to the resigned and eventually cheerful prose when the war draws to a close.