The final days of the Confederacy saw a kaleidoscope of action in the Eastern Theater, with most Civil War historians focusing on the imminent demise of the Army of Northern Virginia. However, to both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, it was the inexorable advance of the Union armies up through the Carolinas in the spring of 1865 that dictated their final moves.William Tecumseh Sherman’s Carolinas campaign has long been overshadowed by the events in Virginia, even as the Confederates recognized it as the crucial, war-winning blow, and pitted a luminous array of their best generals—Johnston, Hardee, Hampton, A. P. Stewart, D. H. Hill, and others—against it. In this work, career military officers Mark A. Smith and Wade Sokolosky rectify the oversight with “No Such Army Since the Days of Julius Caesar,” a careful and impartial examination of Sherman’s advance up the seaboard now in paperback.After his largely unopposed “March to the Sea,” in March 1865 Sherman struck off again north, aiming to unite with Grant and crush Lee between them. The Confederacy in the Carolinas, however, was not yet finished. While Sherman rampaged through South Carolina, Confederate authorities gathered forces to resist him in its northern neighboring state.In North Carolina, the Rebels conceded their vast arsenal at Fayetteville, which the Federals destroyed, but under General Hardee prepared to receive Sherman’s host in the narrow corridor between the Black and Cape Fear rivers at Averasboro. With a number of untried units (former coastal battalions) plus a scattering of veterans in Lafayette McLaws’ division and Joe Wheeler’s cavalry, Hardee created a defense-in-depth reminiscent of four-score years earlier at the battle of Cowpens.At Averasboro, described here in intimate detail, Hardee arrayed his disparate forces into three lines that nearly fought Sherman’s veterans to a standstill until a flank attack won the day for the Union.Strategically, along with Braxton Bragg’s command fighting off a Union thrust from the coast, the battle of Averasboro provided time for Joe Johnston to assemble his forces and contest Sherman’s advance at Bentonville. Without Averasboro, there would have been no Bentonville.Meticulously researched and gracefully written, “No Such Army” explores a long-overlooked clash that had consequences beyond the gallant sacrifices of the men, who by then on both sides knew that the war was approaching its culmination.

When Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland in early September 1862, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan moved his reorganized and revitalized Army of the Potomac to meet him. The campaign that followed included some of the most dramatic marching and influential combat of the entire Civil War. Combined with Southern failures in the Western Theater, the fighting dashed the Confederacy's best hope for independence, convinced President Abraham Lincoln to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, and left America with what is still its bloodiest day in history.One of the campaign's participants was Ezra A. Carman, the colonel of the 13th New Jersey Infantry. Wounded earlier in the war, Carman would achieve brigade command and fight in more than twenty battles before being mustered out as a brevet brigadier general. After the horrific fighting of September 17, 1862, he recorded in his diary that he was preparing "a good map of the Antietam battle and a full account of the action." Unbeknownst to the young officer, the project would become the most significant work of his life.Appointed as the "Historical Expert" to the Antietam Battlefield Board in 1894, Carman and the other members solicited accounts from hundreds of veterans, scoured through thousands of letters and maps, and assimilated the material into the hundreds of cast iron tablets that still mark the field today. Carman also wrote an 1,800-page manuscript on the campaign, from its start in northern Virginia through McClellan's removal from command in November 1862. Although it remained unpublished for more than a century, many historians and students of the war consider it to be the best overall treatment of the campaign ever written.Dr. Thomas G. Clemens (editor), recognized internationally as one of the foremost historians of the Maryland Campaign, has spent more than two decades studying Antietam and editing and richly annotating Carman's exhaustively written manuscript. The result is The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, Carman's magisterial account published for the first time in paperback in three volumes. Jammed with sweeping prose, firsthand accounts, personal anecdotes, and old-fashioned footnotes, together with stunning original maps and photos, this long-awaited study will be read and appreciated as battle history at its finest.

The George Spangler farm in Gettysburg is a place of reverence. Nurses held the hands of dying soldiers and prayed and spoke last words with them amid the blood, stench, and agony of two hospitals. Heroic surgeons resolutely worked around the clock to save lives. Author Ronald D. Kirkwood’s best-selling “Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg established the military and medical importance of the Spangler farm and hospitals. Now in paperback, “Tell Mother Not to Worry”: Soldier Stories from Gettysburg’s George Spangler Farm is Ron’s eagerly awaited sequel.Kirkwood researched thousands of pension and military records, hospital files, letters, newspapers, and diaries of those present at the hospitals on Spangler land during and after the battle. The result is a deeper and richer understanding of what these men and women endured—suffering that often lingered for the rest of their lives. Their injuries and deaths, North and South, brought not only tragic sadness to parents, spouses, and children, but often financial devastation as well.“Tell Mother Not to Worry” profiles scores of additional soldiers and offers new information on events and experiences at the farm, including the mortally wounded Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead. This sequel also includes another chapter on the often-overlooked First Division II Corps hospital at Granite Schoolhouse, a wounded list for that division, and a chapter on Col. Edward E. Cross, who died at Granite Schoolhouse in the middle of Spangler land. Kirkwood concludes by continuing the story of George and Elizabeth Spangler and their four children after the war and ends with an uplifting chapter on their modern-day descendants and how they were found after the release of “Too Much for Human Endurance.”With this sequel, Kirkwood brings further understanding of the lives of the soldiers and their families and completes the story of George and Elizabeth Spangler’s historic farm.

The wide-ranging and largely misunderstood series of operations around Petersburg, Virginia, were the longest and most extensive of the entire Civil War. The fighting that began in early June 1864 when advance elements from the Union Army of the Potomac crossed the James River and botched a series of attacks against a thinly defended city would not end for nine long months. This important - many would say decisive - fighting is presented by legendary Civil War author Edwin C. Bearss in The Petersburg Campaign: The Eastern Front Battles, June–August 1864, the first in a ground-breaking two-volume compendium now available in paperback.Although commonly referred to as the “Siege of Petersburg,” that city (as well as the Confederate capital at Richmond) was never fully isolated and the combat involved much more than static trench warfare. In fact, much of the wide-ranging fighting involved large-scale Union offensives designed to cut important roads and the five rail lines feeding Petersburg and Richmond. This volume of Bearss’ study of these major battles includes:* The Attack on Petersburg (June 9, 1864)* The Second Assault on Petersburg (June 15 - 18, 1864)* The Battle of the Jerusalem Plank Road (June 21 - 24, 1864)* The Crater (July 30, 1864)* The Battle of the Weldon Railroad (August 18 - 21, 1864)* The Second Battle of Ream’s Station (August 25, 1864)Accompanying these salient chapters are original maps by Civil War cartographer George Skoch, together with photos and illustrations. The result is a richer and deeper understanding of the major military episodes comprising the Petersburg Campaign.

As a repository for old soldiers’ writings, The National Tribune is unequaled yet remains mostly unused. Indeed, it is so good one might call it the Confederate Veteran for Billy Yank.From 1877 to 1943, The National Tribune served as a compendium for Union veteran reminiscences, war yarns, and postbellum reflections. The firsthand treasure-trove began as an eight-page monthly newspaper in 1881 and within a few years it became a weekly. The Washington-based paper was founded by George E. Lemon, a veteran of the 125th New York. Initially an advocate for Union veteran pensions, The National Tribune hit its stride when it began publishing articles about the war penned by the Northern soldiers themselves.Within three years John McElroy, a Union veteran with editing experience and the author of a dramatic memoir about his confinement at Andersonville (1879), assumed the reins as managing editor. His keen eye for detail and deep connections elevated the quality and quantity of the content and resulted in the publication of thousands of exclusive firsthand accounts. The National Tribune’s final issue was on December 30, 1943. By that late date, the Union veterans who had fought the war were nearly all gone.More than 1,000 items were published on the Atlanta Campaign alone—articles, memoirs, and letters on every topic imaginable sent in by Union soldiers who had followed General Sherman into Georgia in 1864. The first appeared in June 1879 on the battle of Kennesaw Mountain. The National Tribune Remembers the Atlanta Campaign, edited by Stephen Davis, offers 70 selections pertaining to the Atlanta Campaign. Our hope is that these entries advance the cause of Civil War scholarship by bringing back into print an array of some of the most important writing about the conflict penned by the men who fought in it.

Shepherdstown Ford and the End of the Campaign is the third and final volume of Ezra Carman's magisterial The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, superbly edited and annotated by Dr. Tom Clemens.The battle of Antietam was bloody and horrific, but as Carman makes clear, he did not believe it was the decisive battle of the sprawling 1862 campaign. Generals Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan intended to continue fighting after Sharpsburg, but the battle of Shepherdstown Ford (September 19-20) forced them to abandon their goals and end the campaign. Carman was one of the few who gave this smaller engagement its due importance by detailing the disaster that befell the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry, Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill's success in repulsing the Union advance, and the often overlooked foray of Jeb Stuart's cavalry to seize the Potomac River ford at Williamsport.Carman includes an invaluable statistical study of the casualties in the various battles of the entire Maryland Campaign, and covers President Lincoln's decision to relieve General McClellan of command on November 7. He also explores the relations between the president and McClellan before and after the Maryland Campaign, which he appended to his original manuscript. His thorough examination of the controversy about McClellan's role in the aftermath of Second Manassas campaign will surprise some and discomfort others, as might his insightful narrative about McClellan's reluctance to commit General Franklin's corps to aid Maj. Gen. John Pope's army at Manassas. Carman concludes his account with an executive summary of the entire campaign.This magisterial study concludes with Dr. Clemens' invaluable bibliographical dictionary, a genealogical goldmine of personal information about the soldiers, politicians, and diplomats who had an impact on shaping Carman's manuscript. While many names will be familiar to readers, others upon whom Carman relied for creating his campaign narrative are as obscure to us today as they were during the war.Now in paperback, The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, Vol. III: Shepherdstown Ford and the End of the Campaign, concludes the most comprehensive and detailed account of the campaign ever produced. Jammed with firsthand accounts, personal anecdotes, detailed footnotes, maps, and photos, this long-awaited study will be appreciated as Civil War history at its finest.

Antietam is the eagerly awaited second volume of Ezra Carman's magisterial The Maryland Campaign of September 1862.Many authors have written about the climactic September 17 battle of the 1862 invasion of Maryland, but it is impossible to do so without referencing Carman's sweeping and definitive maps and 1,800-page manuscript. His work guides every Civil War historian and comprises the basis of the National Park Service's interpretive programs at Antietam. Indeed, even the basic layout of the National Park battlefield was based upon Carman's groundbreaking work. Carman had the advantage of not only participating in the battle as a colonel in the Union army, but knowing, corresponding, and conversing with hundreds of Northern and Southern soldiers from corps commanders all the way down to privates. Over the decades he amassed a vast collection of letters, maps, and personal memoirs from many key participants. He used this treasure trove of firsthand accounts to create his compelling narrative. No one has devoted more time and effort to understanding what happened at Antietam than did Ezra Carman - the campaign's first true historian.Unfortunately, Carman did not always note from where he obtained his information, making the authenticity and reliability of his work problematic. Editor Thomas G. Clemens, recognized internationally as one of the foremost historians of the Maryland Campaign, has spent more than two decades studying Antietam and editing and richly annotating Carman's exhaustively written manuscript. As Clemens discovered, Carman used his sources judiciously, and the stories he relates withstand scrutiny for accuracy and reliability.Carman's invaluable prose is augmented by his detailed maps of the dawn to nearly dusk fighting on September 17, which have never appeared in their original form in any book on the battle. Even more exciting are the newly discovered 19th century photographs authorized by Carman to document his work laying out the battlefield, a haunting visual record of how the battlefield appeared to Carman as he tried to unravel its mysteries.The result is The Maryland Campaign of September 1862: Antietam, the most comprehensive and detailed account of the battle ever produced, now in paperback. Jammed with firsthand accounts, personal anecdotes, detailed footnotes, maps, and photos, this long-awaited study will be read and appreciated as battle history at its finest. Indeed, we will never see such a study again.

The wide-ranging and largely ignored operations around Petersburg, Virginia, were the longest and most extensive of the entire Civil War. The fighting began in June of 1864, when advance elements from the Union Army of the Potomac crossed the James River and botched a series of attacks against a thinly defended city. The fighting ended nine long months later in the first days of April of 1865. In Volume I of The Petersburg Campaign, legendary historian Edwin C. Bearss detailed the first six major engagements on the “Eastern Front,” from the initial attack on the city on June 9 through the Second Battle of Ream’s Station on August 25, 1864. In Volume II, Bearss turns his attention and pen to the final half-dozen large-scale combats in The Petersburg Campaign: The Western Front Battles, September 1864 – April 1865, now available in paperback.Although commonly referred to as the “Siege of Petersburg,” the city (as well as the Confederate capital at Richmond) was never fully isolated and the combat involved much more than static trench warfare. In fact, much of the wide-ranging fighting involved massive multi-corps Union offensives designed to cut important roads and rail lines feeding Petersburg and Richmond. This second installment includes these major battles:- Peebles’ Farm (September 29 – October 1, 1864)- Burgess Mill (October 27, 1864)- Hatcher’s Run (February 5 – 7, 1865)- Fort Stedman (March 25, 1865)- Five Forks Campaign (March 29 – April 1, 1865)- The Sixth Corps Breaks Lee’s Petersburg Lines (April 2, 1865)Accompanying these salient chapters are two dozen original maps by Civil War cartographer George Skoch, coupled with photos and illustrations. Taken together, these two volumes present the most comprehensive and thorough understanding of the major military episodes comprising the fascinating Petersburg Campaign.

The fighting on the first day at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, was unexpected, heavy, confusing, and in many ways, decisive. Much of it consisted of short and often separate simultaneous engagements or “firefights,” a term soldiers often use to describe close, vicious, and bloody combat. Several books have studied this important inaugural day of Gettysburg, but none have done so from the perspective of the rank and file of both armies. Now in paperback, John Michael Priest’s “Strong Men of the Regiment Sobbed Like Children”: John Reynolds’ I Corps at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863 rectifies this oversight in splendid style.When dawn broke on July 1, no one on either side could have conceived what was about to take place. Anticipating a fight and with a keen appreciation for terrain, Brig. Gen. John Buford deployed his Union cavalry in a giant arc north and west of Gettysburg to slow down any Confederate advance until Maj. Gen. John Reynolds could bring up his infantry. By the time the foot soldiers of the I Corps arrived, A. P. Hill’s heavy Confederate formations had pushed back the troopers from the west. Richard Ewell’s troops would soon arrive from the north, threatening the town and its key road network. Reynolds, who would die early in the fighting, poured his troops in as they arrived. The road system and undulating ground broke up command control, and the various ridges, tall ground cover, and powder smoke made target recognition difficult. Brigades and regiments often engaged on their own initiatives without the direction of a division or corps commander. The men of both armies fought with determination born of desperation, valor, and fear. By the time the fighting ended, the I Corps was in shambles and in pell-mell retreat for Cemetery Hill. Its bold stand, together with the XI Corps north of town, bought precious hours for the rest of the Army of the Potomac to arrive and occupy good defensive ground.Priest, who Edwin Bearss hailed as “the Ernie Pyle of the Civil War,” spent a decade researching this study and walking the ground to immerse readers into the uncertain world of the rank-and-file experience. He consulted more than 300 primary sources, including letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper accounts, recollections, casualty lists, and drill manuals to present the battle from the ground up. Nineteen detailed regimental-level maps illustrate the ebb and flow of the battle. The result is a fast-paced narrative sure to please the most demanding students of the Civil War. The footnotes alone are worth the price of admission.Readers will close the book with a full understanding of why a veteran New Yorker spoke for the survivors of both armies when he wrote, “Strong men of the regiment sobbed like children.”

During the late summer and fall of 1863, the Civil War in the Eastern Theater was anything but inconsequential. Generals Meade and Lee continued where they had left off, executing daring marches while boldly maneuvering the chess pieces of war in an effort to gain decisive strategic and tactical advantage. Cavalry actions crisscrossed the rolling landscape, and bloody battle revealed to both sides the command deficiencies left in the wake of Gettysburg. It was the first and only time in the war Meade exercised control of the Army of the Potomac on his own terms. Jeffrey Wm Hunt brilliantly dissects this period of the war in Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station: The Problems of Command and Strategy After Gettysburg, from Brandy Station to the Buckland Races, August 1 to October 31, 1863. The carnage of Gettysburg left both armies in varying states of command chaos as the focus of the war shifted to the Western Theater. Lee further depleted his ranks by dispatching his best corps commander, James Longstreet, and most of his First Corps via rail to reinforce Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. The Union defeat at Chickamauga forced Meade to follow suit with the XI Corps and XII Corps. Despite these reductions, the aggressive Lee assumed the strategic offensive against his more careful Northern opponent, who was also busy waging a rearguard action against politicians in Washington. Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station is a fast-paced and dynamic account of how the Army of Northern Virginia carried the war above the Rappahannock River once more in an effort to regain the initiative and retrieve the laurels lost in Pennsylvania. When the opportunity beckoned Lee took it, knocking Meade back on his heels with a threat to his army as serious as the one John Pope faced one year earlier. As Lee learned once more, A. P. Hill was no Stonewall Jackson, and with Longstreet away Lee’s cudgel was no longer as mighty as he wished. The Confederate tide of the campaign broke on the shoals of Bristoe Station in a signal defeat. The next move was up to George Meade. Hunt’s follow-up volume to his award-winning Meade and Lee After Gettysburg is grounded upon official reports, regimental histories, letters, newspapers, and other archival sources. Together, they provide a day-by-day account of the fascinating high-stakes affair during this three-month period. Coupled with original maps and outstanding photographs, this new study offers a significant contribution to Civil War literature.

The nine-month siege of Petersburg was the longest continuous operation of the Civil War. Contrary to popular belief, it was anything but static trench warfare, as John Horn ably demonstrates in Lee Besieged: Grant’s Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864. Large-scale Union “offensives”—grand maneuvers that triggered some of the large-scale battles—broke the monotony of siege warfare. Once his First Offensive (the assaults of June 15-18) failed to capture the city, the Union commander planned and launched his next major effort within hours. This Second Offensive was one of the most dramatic operations of the entire war.To pave the way for success, Grant brought the city’s bridges under the fire of his siege guns to slow the transfer of enemy troops in and out of Petersburg. He also seized a bridgehead at Deep Bottom on James River’s north bank to draw Confederate forces out of Petersburg by menacing Richmond. Next, he took more ambitious measures by sending infantry to hem in Petersburg from the Appomattox River above and below the city. The move was designed to cut the critical Weldon and South Side railroads and force the Rebels to abandon Petersburg and Richmond. As his infantry went to work, his cavalry set out to cut the Confederate railroads below Petersburg to slow reinforcements coming up from the south and west.Grant’s opponent, however, was General Robert E. Lee with his veteran infantry, not the inept John Floyd of Fort Donelson or the distracted John C. Pemberton of Vicksburg. Lee and his infantry subordinate William Mahone marched to meet the enemy and in a stunning turn of events routed Grant’s foot soldiers at Jerusalem Plank Road. Together, Confederate cavalry leader Wade Hampton and Mahone smashed Grant’s troopers at the battles of Sappony Church and First Reams Station. Thousands of Federal prisoners of war flooded into Confederate camps. Not until April 1865, after seven more offensives, would Grant reach the Appomattox above Petersburg and force Lee to relinquish that city and the capital of Richmond.This is tactical battle action at is finest. Horn’s explanation for the context and consequences of every decision is grounded in hundreds of primary sources and supported by 40 original maps. Lee Besieged: Grant’s Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864 is the first full-length book to put Grant’s second effort into its proper perspective—not only in the context of Petersburg’s siege and the Civil War, but in the context of warfare’s history.

On the eve of the Civil War, the London Times informed its readers that Castle Pinckney has “been kept garrisoned, not to protect Charleston from naval attack from the ocean, but to serve as a bridle upon the city.” Located on a marshy island in the center of Charleston’s magnificent harbor, the large cannons on the ramparts of this horseshoe-shaped masonry fort had the ability to command downtown Charleston and the busy wharves along East Bay Street. This inescapable fact made Castle Pinckney an important chess piece in the secession turmoil of 1832 and 1850, and in the months leading up to the 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter. Now in paperback, Holding Charleston by the Bridle: The History of Castle Pinckney from 1811 Through the Civil War to the Present Day by Cliff Roberts and Matthew Locke is the first book on the subject, from the fort’s innovative design as part of America’s “Second System” of coastal fortifications to the modern challenges of preserving its weathered brick walls against rising sea levels. The impressive bastion was constructed as a state-of-the-art seacoast fortress on the eve of the War of 1812. President James Monroe and Gens. Winfield Scott, Robert E. Lee, and P. G. T. Beauregard inspected its casemates and barracks. The history of Pinckney is as impressive as its list of visiting VIPs.Defending the fort was one of Winfield Scott’s major concerns during the Nullification Crisis of 1832. Seminole Indians and Africans from the illegal slave ship Echo were held there. In 1860, Maj. Robert Anderson knew the fort was the key to protecting his small Federal garrison at Fort Moultrie, but his requests to Washington for troops to hold the Castle went unheeded. That December, three companies of Charleston militia scaled and seized the fort in a daring act that pushed the nation to the edge of civil war. After First Manassas (Bull Run), 156 captured Yankee officers and enlisted men were sent to the island, and in 1863, members of the famed 54th Massachusetts were held there as POWs. The fort’s guns helped defend the city during the war’s longest siege. By 1865, the old fortress had been transformed into an earthen barbette battery with a rifled Brooke gun and three giant 10” Columbiads. During Reconstruction, the Castle became an “American Bastille” for Southerners accused of crimes against the government.Roberts and Locke rely on extensive primary research and archaeological evidence to tell the full story of the Castle for the first time. Given its importance to America’s history, it is a history long overdue.

“It is glorious to see such courage in one so young!”So exclaimed Confederate General Robert E. Lee on December 13, 1862, during the battle of Fredericksburg as he watched Major John Pelham fight at least five Union batteries with just one lone gun. The dashing and handsome 24-year-old Alabama officer earned the compliments and admiration of his men, the war-gods of Virginia (Lee, Jackson, and Stuart), and Southern society—all while helping transform the concept of horse artillery on Civil War battlefields across Virginia and Maryland.After Pelham’s sudden death in 1863, his place in Lost Cause memory soared and admirers firmly elevated him into the upper ranks of the Confederate pantheon. His status as a Lost Cause hero exacted a price—admirers transformed Pelham’s memory into “the beau ideal of Confederate arms,” sometimes altering and clouding the realities of his life. His memory has been trapped there ever since—until now.In Glorious Courage, historian Sarah Kay Bierle reconsiders Pelham’s extraordinary, if short, life by drawing on primary and other sources and her extensive knowledge of the battlefields. Pelham’s zest for living carried him from Alabama to the military academy at West Point, while his zeal in command of the Stuart Horse Artillery earned him well-deserved plaudits. But like every other man who served the Confederate cause, the remarkable young officer was a human being with flaws. He deserves his place in history as he lived it, not varnished with the perspectives shoved upon him by later generations.

William “Extra Billy” Smith, the oldest and one of the most controversial Confederate generals on the field at Gettysburg, was also one of the most colorful and charismatic characters of the Civil War and the antebellum Old South. Despite a life full of drama, politics, and adventure, very few books have been written on Smith since a biased loosely written compilation in the late 19th century by his brother-in-law. Scott L. Mingus Sr. has ably filled this historical void with Confederate General William “Extra Billy” Smith: From Virginia’s Statehouse to Gettysburg Scapegoat, now in paperback.Known nationally as “Extra Billy” because of his prewar penchant for finding loopholes in government postal contracts to gain extra money for his stagecoach lines, Smith served as Virginia’s governor during both the War with Mexico and the Civil War, served five terms in the U.S. Congress, and was one of Virginia’s leading spokesmen for slavery and States’ Rights. Extra Billy’s extra-long speeches and wry sense of humor were legendary among his peers. A lawyer during the heady Gold Rush days, Smith made a fortune in California and, like his income earned from stagecoaches, quickly lost it.Despite his advanced age Smith took the field and fought well at First Manassas, was wounded at Seven Pines and again at Sharpsburg, and marched with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania. There, on the first day at Gettysburg, Smith’s frantic messages about a possible Union flanking attack remain a matter of controversy to this day. Did his aging eyes see distant fence-lines that he interpreted as approaching enemy soldiers—mere phantoms of his imagination?—or did his prompt action stave off a looming Confederate disaster? What we do know is that his calls for support diverted limited Confederate manpower away from attacks against Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill that might have turned the tide of Southern fortunes in Pennsylvania.Mingus’s biography draws upon a wide array of newspapers, diaries, letters, and other firsthand accounts to paint a broad, deep, and colorful portrait of one of the South’s most interesting leaders and devoted sons. Complete with original maps and photos, Extra Billy Smith will satisfy anyone who loves politics, war, and a great story well told.

Tens of thousands of books have been published on the Civil War. In an effort to list some of the most important titles, in 1997 the University of Illinois Press published The Civil War in Books: An Analytical Bibliography, by David J. Eicher. This well-received reference work includes books published through mid-1995. As anyone who has studied this era knows, a vast number of significant books have been published since that time—hence the need for this updated bibliography.Walter Westcote’s Books on the American Civil War Era: A Critical Bibliography includes nearly 3,000 books, most of which have been published since the appearance of Eicher’s groundbreaking 1997 study. Topics are wide-ranging and organized into easy-to-use categories, so readers can find exactly what they are seeking. Organisational categories include battles and campaigns (all theatres, including naval actions), Confederate and Union memoirs and biographies, general works on a vast array of topics, state and local studies, and unit histories. Readers will also be pleased to find a list of classic studies published before 1995, as well as more than 200 books that represent a continuation of a series begun prior to that time, and the completion of the Supplement to the Records of the War of the Rebellion, which consisted of twenty volumes in 1995 but now exceeds 100. Each account lists the author or editor, title, date of original publication (and reprint, if any), publisher, page count, and a short summary of its contents.

So much has been written about Gettysburg, goes the well-worn cliché, that there is nothing new left to write. Now in paperback, The Second Day at Gettysburg: The Attack and Defense of Cemetery Ridge, July 2, 1863, by David L. Shultz and Scott L. Mingus Sr. aptly demonstrates that there is indeed still much to learn about the war’s largest and bloodiest battle.Based upon a faulty early-morning reconnaissance, General Robert E. Lee decided to attack up the Emmitsburg Road in an effort to collapse the left flank of General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac and decisively defeat it. The effort got underway when General James Longstreet’s First Corps troops crushed General Sickles’ Peach Orchard salient and turned north and east to drive deeply into the Union rear. A third Confederate division under Richard Anderson, part of A. P. Hill’s Third Corps, joined in the attack, slamming one brigade after another into the overstretched Union line stitched northward along the Emmitsburg Road. The bloody fighting stair-stepped its way up Cemetery Ridge, tearing open a large gap in the center of the Federal line that threatened to split the Union army in two. The fate of the Battle of Gettysburg hung in the balance.Despite the importance of the position, surprisingly few Union troops were available to defend the yawning gap on the ridge. Major General Winfield S. Hancock’s Second Corps had been reduced to less than one division when his other two were sucked southward to reinforce the collapsing Third Corps front. Reprising Horatio at the Bridge, the gallant commander cobbled together a wide variety of infantry and artillery commands and threw them into the action, refusing to yield even one acre of ground. The long and intense fighting included hand-to-hand combat and the personal heroics of which legends are made.Veteran Gettysburg authors Shultz and Mingus merge their subject matter expertise and keen understanding of the complex undulating terrain and physical features to produce the most detailed study of this action ever written. In addition to demonstrating how the fighting on the far Union left directly affected the combat to come in the center of General Meade’s line, the authors also address some of the most commonly overlooked aspects of the fighting: what routes did some of the key units take to reach the front? What could the commanders actually see, and when could they see it? How did the fences, roads, farms, trees, ravines, creeks, and others obstacles directly affect tactical decisions, and ultimately the battle itself?Based upon extensive research and graced with dozens of photographs and detailed original maps, The Second Day at Gettysburg offers a balanced, compelling, and ultimately satisfying account of one of the most overlooked and yet important aspects of the defining battle of the American Civil War.