New Release-Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864

Another new release from Rowman & Littlefield.


The Last Hurrah: Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864 (The American Crisis Series: Books on the Civil War Era)

“Cutting through 150 years of myths and misinformation surrounding Price’s Raid, Kyle Sinisi provides a compelling study of breadth and depth, demonstrating why the Trans-Mississippi was the most interesting theater of the Civil War. A judicious, balanced, and nuanced account of perhaps the least studied and most misunderstood major campaign of the war.”

—William Garrett Piston, co-author of Wilson’s Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who Fought It

 

The Last Hurrah is the story of Price’s invasion from its politically charged planning to its starving retreat. The Last Hurrah is also the story of what happened after the shooting stopped. Even as hundreds of Missourians followed Price out of the state and tried desperately to join his army, elements of the Union army visited retribution upon Confederate sympathizers while still others showed little regard for the lives of the prisoners they had captured. Many more would have to suffer and die long after Sterling Price had fled Missouri.

 

Features:

• Re-assesses long-standing interpretations of all major battles and many of the skirmishes, focusing on command decision making.
• Utilizes the latest scholarship regarding Civil War weaponry and marksmanship to assess the tactical effectiveness of both Union and Confederate forces.
• Uses 20 newly created maps to demonstrate, in many cases, 150 years of poor cartography and its influence upon how historians have viewed the campaign and its battles.

 

Kyle S. Sinisi is professor of history at The Citadel. He is author of Sacred Debts: State Civil War Claims and American Federalism, 1861-1880 and co-editor of Warm Ashes: Essays in Southern History at the Dawn of the 21^st Century.

New Release--A History of Heists: Bank Robbery in America

This came through my email recently and it grabbed my attention. As I start expanding my reading interests further this looks like one I will have to consider.




A History of Heists: Bank Robbery in America

No crime is as synonymous with America as bank robbery. Though the number of bank robberies nationwide has declined, bank robbery continues to captivate the public and jeopardize the safety of banks and their employees.

 

Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Willie Sutton, and Patty Hearst are among the most famous figures in the history of crime in the United States. Jesse James used his training as a Confederate guerrilla to make bank robbery a political act. John Dillinger capitalized on the public’s scorn of banks during the Great Depression and became America’s first Public Enemy Number One. When she held up a bank with the leftist Symbionese Liberation Army, Patty Hearst fueled the country’s social unrest. Jerry Clark and Ed Palattella delve into the backgrounds and motivations of the robbers, and explore how they are as complex as the nation whose banks they have plundered.

 

But as much as the story of bank robbery in America focuses on the thieves, it is also a story of those who investigate the heists. As bank robbers became more sophisticated, so did the police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other law enforcement agencies.

 

Features:

 

Ø  Provides a social history of the United States, with bank robbery as the subject. It is much more than the encyclopedia of crime

Ø  Discusses bank robbery’s cultural impact, including its portrayal in the movies

Ø  Examines why bank robbery is declining

Jerry Clark retired as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2011 after twenty-seven years in law enforcement, including careers as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. He is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he is also director of risk analysis and mitigation at McManis & Monsalve Associates.

 

Ed Palattella joined the Erie Times-News, in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1990. He has won a number of awards, including for his investigative work and his coverage of crime.

New Releases from Southern Illinois University Press

Thanks going out to Southern Illinois University Press for sending along copies of two new releases. The Grant book looks particularly interesting especially since I have failed to read his Memoirs yet.

Marszalek, John F. editor. The Best Writings of Ulysses S. Grant (The World of Ulysses Grant) .

Famous for his military acumen and for his part in saving the Union during the American Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant also remains known for his two-volume memoirs, considered among the greatest military Memoirs ever written. Grant’s other writings, however, have not received the same acclaim, even though they show the same literary skill. Originally published in the thirty-two volumes of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, the letters and speeches are the major source of information about Grant’s life and era and have played a key role in elevating his reputation to that of the leading general of the Civil War and the first of the modern presidents. In this collection, editor John F. Marszalek presents excerpts from Grant’s  most insightful and skillfully composed writings and provides perspective through introductory comments tying each piece to the next. The result is a fascinating overview of Grant’s life and career.


In sixteen chronological chapters, selections from Grant’s letters and other writings reveal his personal thoughts on the major events of his momentous life, including the start of the Civil War, the capture of Vicksburg, Lincoln’s reelection, Lee’s surrender, his terms as president, the Panic of 1873, and his bouts of mouth and throat cancer. Throughout, Grant’s prose reveals clearly the power of his words and his ability to present them well. Although some historians have maligned his presidency as one of the most corrupt periods in American history, these writings reinforce Grant’s greatness as a general, demonstrate the importance of his presidency, and show him to be one of the driving forces of the nineteenth century.


With this compendium, Marszalek not only celebrates the literary talent of one of America’s greatest military figures but also vindicates an individual who, for so long, has been unfairly denigrated. A concise reference for students of American history and Civil War enthusiasts as well as a valuable introduction for those who are new to Grant’s writings, this volume provides intriguing insight into one of the nineteenth century’s most important Americans.

Medford Edna Greene. Lincoln and Emancipation (Concise Lincoln Library).

In this succinct study, Edna Greene Medford examines the ideas and events that shaped President Lincoln’s responses to slavery, following the arc of his ideological development from the beginning of the Civil War, when he aimed to pursue a course of noninterference, to his championing of slavery’s destruction before the conflict ended. Throughout, Medford juxtaposes the president’s motivations for advocating freedom with the aspirations of African Americans themselves, restoring African Americans to the center of the story about the struggle for their own liberation.

Lincoln and African Americans, Medford argues, approached emancipation differently, with the president moving slowly and cautiously in order to save the Union while the enslaved and their supporters pressed more urgently for an end to slavery. Despite the differences, an undeclared partnership existed between the president and slaves that led to both preservation of the Union and freedom for those in bondage. Medford chronicles Lincoln’s transition from advocating gradual abolition to campaigning for immediate emancipation for the majority of the enslaved, a change effected by the military and by the efforts of African Americans. The author argues that many players—including the abolitionists and Radical Republicans, War Democrats, and black men and women—participated in the drama through agitation, military support of the Union, and destruction of the institution from within. Medford also addresses differences in the interpretation of freedom: Lincoln and most Americans defined it as the destruction of slavery, but African Americans understood the term to involve equality and full inclusion into American society. An epilogue considers Lincoln’s death, African American efforts to honor him, and the president’s legacy at home and abroad.

Both enslaved and free black people, Medford demonstrates, were fervent participants in the emancipation effort, showing an eagerness to get on with the business of freedom long before the president or the North did. By including African American voices in the emancipation narrative, this insightful volume offers a fresh and welcome perspective on Lincoln’s America.

History Press New Release: Unionists in Virginia

The History Press is pleased to announce the publication of Unionists in Virginia: Politics, Secession and Their Plan to Prevent Civil War by Larry Denton.

Whether the Civil War was preventable is a debate that began shortly after Appomattox and continues today. But even earlier, in 1861, a group of Union-loyal Virginians—led by George Summers, John Brown Baldwin, John Janney and Jubal Early—felt war was avoidable. In the statewide election for delegates to the Secession Convention that same spring, the Unionists defeated the Southern Rights Democrats with a huge majority of the votes across the state. These heroic men unsuccessfully negotiated with Secretary of State William Henry Seward to prevent the national tragedy that would ensue. Author and historian Lawrence M. Denton traces this remarkable story of Virginians working against all odds in a failed attempt to save a nation from war.

Larry Denton, an authority on the secession crisis, is the author of "A Southern Star for Maryland: Maryland and the Secession Crisis," and "William Henry Seward and the Secession Crisis: The Effort to Prevent Civil War." He held several academic administrative posts at the university level from 1968 to 1978. In 1978 he accepted an appointment to serve as special assistant to the associate administrator of NOAA, a presidential appointee. He ended his career representing the Weather Channel in Washington and resides in Easton, Maryland.

New Releases-Savas Beatie & Penguin Press

The mailman has been pretty busy for the last couple of weeks with some new releases.


Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief written by James M. McPherson and published by Penguin. McPherson is the author of arguably the most widely read Civil War book of all time, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States). This assessment of Jefferson Davis contains just over 300 pages including notes and index. There are b/w photos and fifteen maps. A quick look at the typeset and format leads me to believe this is a book aimed at a wide reading audience and probably not one that is intended to break new ground.


Richmond Redeemed: The Siege at Petersburg, The Battles of Chaffin's Bluff and Poplar Spring Church, September 29 - October 2, 1864 written by Richard J. Sommers and published by Savas Beatie. This is a revised and expanded edition of the 1981 edition. This has all the attributes readers have come to expect from a Savas Beatie title. This book has considerable heft. No expense has been spared: index, notes, bibliography, order of battle, 22 maps, 91 b/w photos and need I say anything about the quality of the paper and binding. The book totals out at 661 pages. Not cheap but quality like this never is.  


Read an interview with Dr. Sommers on the SB website here.

New Release-Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson

Thanks going out to Scribner for sending along a copy of Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson. The book should be available by the end of the month.


This is a quite large book, nearly 700 pages including index, notes and bibliography. There is also a section of b/w photos. Unfortunately, at first glance, many of these are the standard photos readers of Civil War books have seen many times. Twelve maps are included throughout the text.


Author S. C. Gwynne is not known for his writing on the Civil War but does have a strong history in having written Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and also the National Book Critics Circle Award. Dust jacket quotes come from Peter Cozzens, John Hennessy and others.

New Release: The Homefront in Civil War Missouri

Today's mail brought a copy of The Homefront in Civil War Missouri written by James W. Erwin. James W. Erwin is a Missouri native. He graduated from Missouri State University with a BA in mathematics. After service in the United States Army, he obtained an MA in history from the University of Missouri and a JD from the University of Missouri Law School. He practiced law in St. Louis for more than thirty-seven years.


From the publisher:  Over one thousand Civil War engagements were fought in Missouri, and the conflict could not be quarantined from civilian life. In the countryside, the wives and mothers of absent soldiers had to cope with marauders from both sides. Children saw their fathers and brothers beaten, hanged or shot. In the cities, a cheer for Jeff Davis could land a young boy in jail, and a letter to a sweetheart in the Confederate army could get a girl banished from the state. Women volunteered to care for the flood of wounded and sick soldiers. Slavery crumbled and created new opportunities for black men to serve in the Union army but left their families vulnerable to retaliation at home. The turbulence and bitterness of guerrilla war was everywhere.


The book is 124 pages with bibliography and index. There are no notes and during a quick look through I did not notice any maps. As with all History Press titles there are plenty of illustrations. This looks like it will be an interesting look at what it was like to live in a state with divided loyalties.

Upcoming Post-Robert E. Lee in War and Peace

I recently received a copy of Robert E. Lee in War and Peace: The Photographic History of a Confederate and American Icon, written by Donald A. Hopkins, courtesy of the good folks at Savas Beatie, LLC.

I can't wait to dig into this one. Dr. Hopkins, a medical doctor not a Ph.D., has uncovered 61 images of The Marble Man, some being reproduced in print for the first time.

Differing from Ostendorff's work on Lincoln, Dr. Hopkins doesn't set up a numbering system for photos. Here, the photos are discussed and analyzed, the photographers given their due, and new discoveries shared with the Civil War community.

This book more than lives up the normal Savas Beatie standard in terms of the physical appearance. Printed on high quality paper there is a real heft to the book. While I haven't read it yet this one looks like any student of the Civil War should own a copy. Those interested in early photography would also be wise to take a look

New Arrivals From LSU Press and Southern Illinois University Press

A couple of new books have arrived in the mailbox recently. Both look interesting.

From Southern Illinois University Press comes The Vicksburg Campaign, March 29-May 18, 1863 (Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland) edited by Steven E. Woodworth and Charles D. Grear.

From the publisher:

Ulysses S. Grant’s ingenious campaign to capture the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River was one of the most decisive events of the Civil War and one of the most storied military expeditions in American history. The ultimate victory at Vicksburg effectively cut the Confederacy in two, gave control of the river to Union forces, and delivered a devastating blow from which the South never fully recovered. Editors Steven E. Woodworth and Charles D. Grear have assembled essays by prominent and emerging scholars, who contribute astute analysis of this famous campaign’s most crucial elements and colorful personalities.

Encompassed in this first of five planned volumes on the Vicksburg campaign are examinations of the pivotal events that comprised the campaign’s maneuver stage, from March to May of 1863. The collection sheds new light on Grant’s formidable intelligence network of former slaves, Mississippi loyalists, and Union spies; his now legendary operations to deceive and confuse his Confederate counterparts; and his maneuvers from the perspective of classic warfare. Also presented are insightful accounts of Grant’s contentious relationship with John A. McClernand during the campaign; interactions between hostile Confederate civilians and Union army troops; and the planning behind such battles as Grierson’s Raid, Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill, and Big Black River Bridge.

From LSU Press and author Brian Steel Wills comes Confederate General William Dorsey Pender: The Hope of Glory (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War).

From the publisher:
During the Civil War, North Carolinian William Dorsey Pender established himself as one of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's best young generals. He served in most of the significant engagements of the war in the eastern theater while under the command of Joseph E. Johnston at Seven Pines and Robert E. Lee from the Seven Days to Gettysburg. His most crucial contributions to Confederate success came at the battles of Second Manassas, Shepherdstown, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. After an effective first day at Gettysburg, Pender was struck by a shell and disabled, necessitating his return to Virginia for what he hoped would be only an extended convalescence. Although Pender initially survived the wound, he died soon thereafter due to complications from his injury.

In this thorough biography of Pender, noted Civil War historian Brian Steel Wills examines both the young general's military career and his domestic life. While Pender devoted himself to military service, he also embraced the Episcopal Church and was baptized before his command in the field. According to Wills, Pender had an insatiable quest for "glory" in both earthly and heavenly realms, and he delighted in his role as a husband and father. In Pender's voluminous correspondence with his wife, Fanny, he shared his beliefs and offered views and opinions on a vast array of subjects. In the end, Wills suggests that Pender's story captures both the idealistic promise and the despair of a war that cost the lives of many Americans and changed the nation forever.

 

History Press New Releases

Thanks to my good friends at The History Press for sending along copies of a couple of their new releases.

First up from prolific author Michael C. Hardy is Watauga County, North Carolina in the Civil War.

From the publisher: Some say that Watauga County's name comes from a word meaning "beautiful waters," yet during the Civil War, events in this rugged western North Carolina region were far from beautiful. Hundreds of the county's sons left to fight gloriously for the Confederacy. This left the area open to hordes of plundering rogues from East Tennessee, including George W. Kirk's notorious band of thieves. While no large-scale battles took place there, Boone was the scene of the beginning of Stoneman's 1865 raid. The infamous Keith and Malinda Blalock called Watauga County home, leading escaped POWs and dissidents from Blowing Rock to Banner Elk. The four brutal years of conflict, followed by the more brutal Reconstruction, changed the county forever. Join Civil War historian Michael C. Hardy as he reveals Watauga County's Civil War sacrifices and heroism, both on and off the battlefield.

 

Mike Bunn is the executive director of the Historic Chattahoochee Commission and the author of Civil War Eufaula  

From the publisher: Told here for the first time is the compelling story of the Bluff City during the Civil War. Historian and preservationist Mike Bunn takes you from the pivotal role Eufaula played in Alabama's secession and early enthusiasm for the Confederate cause to its aborted attempt to become the state's capital and its ultimate capture by Union forces, chronicling the effects of the conflict on Eufaulans along the way. Civil War Eufaula draws on a wide range of firsthand individual perspectives, including those of husbands and wives, political leaders, businessmen, journalists, soldiers, students and slaves, to produce a mosaic of observations on shared experiences. Together, they communicate what it was like to live in this riverside trading town during a prolonged and cataclysmic war. It is the story of ordinary people in extraordinary times

 

New Arrivals--Lincoln & Reconstruction; Reconstructing the Campus

Thanks going out to the good people at Southern Illinois University Press and University of Virginia Press for sending copies of a couple of new release books. Both look interesting and will move high in my "to be read" pile.

Reconstructing the Campus: Higher Education and the American Civil War (A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era) written by Michael David Cohen.
 

The Civil War transformed American life. Not only did thousands of men die on battlefields and millions of slaves become free; cultural institutions reshaped themselves in the context of the war and its aftermath. The first book to examine the Civil War’s immediate and long-term impact on higher education, Reconstructing the Campus begins by tracing college communities’ responses to the secession crisis and the outbreak of war. Students made supplies for the armies or left campus to fight. Professors joined the war effort or struggled to keep colleges open. The Union and Confederacy even took over some campuses for military use.

Then moving beyond 1865, the book explores the war’s long-term effects on colleges. Michael David Cohen argues that the Civil War and the political and social conditions the war created prompted major reforms, including the establishment of a new federal role in education. Reminded by the war of the importance of a well-trained military, Congress began providing resources to colleges that offered military courses and other practical curricula. Congress also, as part of a general expansion of the federal bureaucracy that accompanied the war, created the Department of Education to collect and publish data on education. For the first time, the U.S. government both influenced curricula and monitored institutions.

The war posed special challenges to Southern colleges. Often bereft of students and sometimes physically damaged, they needed to rebuild. Some took the opportunity to redesign themselves into the first Southern universities. They also admitted new types of students, including the poor, women, and, sometimes, formerly enslaved blacks. Thus, while the Civil War did great harm, it also stimulated growth, helping, especially in the South, to create our modern system of higher education.

Lincoln and Reconstruction written by John C. Rodrigue and is part of the Concise Lincoln Library.

Although Abraham Lincoln dominates the literature on the American Civil War, he remains less commonly associated with reconstruction. Previous scholarly works touch on Lincoln and reconstruction, but they tend either to speculate on what Lincoln might have done after the war had he not been assassinated or to approach his reconstruction plans merely as a means of winning the war. In this thought-provoking study, John C. Rodrigue offers a succinct but significant survey of Lincoln’s wartime reconstruction initiatives while providing a fresh interpretation of the president’s plans for postwar America.

Revealing that Lincoln concerned himself with reconstruction from the earliest days of his presidency, Rodrigue details how Lincoln’s initiatives unfolded, especially in the southern states where they were attempted. He explores Lincoln’s approach to various issues relevant to reconstruction, including slavery, race, citizenship, and democracy; his dealings with Congressional Republicans, especially the Radicals; his support for and eventual abandonment of colonization; his dealings with the border states; his handling of the calls for negotiations with the Confederacy as a way of reconstructing the Union; and his move toward emancipation and its implications for his approach to reconstruction.

As the Civil War progressed, Rodrigue shows, Lincoln’s definition of reconstruction transformed from the mere restoration of the seceded states to a more fundamental social, economic, and political reordering of southern society and of the Union itself. Based on Lincoln’s own words and writings as well as an extensive array of secondary literature, Rodrigue traces the evolution of Lincoln’s thinking on reconstruction, providing new insight into a downplayed aspect of his presidency.

New Books From The History Press

Thanks going out to my good friends at The History Press for sending along a selection of their newest releases. These look like a great grouping of books!

First up is Arkansas Late in the Civil War: The 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, April 1864-July 1865 (Civil War Sesquicentennial) written by David E. Castro.

From the publisher: At the request of Union general Ulysses S. Grant, in 1864 Major General Frederick Steele stripped the Department of Arkansas of twelve thousand men--half its strength--to support an expedition in Louisiana. And while the depleted infantry remained largely in garrison, the 8th Missouri Cavalry and its counterparts were ordered to patrol central Arkansas under horrid conditions and protect the state from guerrilla Rebels. The regiment spent nine long months battling against Confederate general Jo Shelby's efforts to raid the White River Valley behind Union lines while simultaneously battling to secure Arkansas' borders. Join author David Castro as he explores the 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry's perilous excursion into enemy territory.

Up second is The Battle of West Point: Confederate Triumph at Ellis Bridge (Civil War Sesquicentennial) (MS) written by John McBryde.

From the publisher: On February 21, 1864, Confederate and Union forces faced off over the banks of the Chuquatonchee Creek on Ellis Bridge in West Point, Mississippi. This three-hour battle pitted Nathan Bedford Forrest with his small but mighty cavalry against William Sooy Smith and his dogged Federal troops as they attempted to push through the prairie and destroy the railroad junction in Meridian. Smith's men did not succeed in their mission and suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Forrest in a precursor to the Battle of Okolona. Author John McBryde details the nuances of the battle that initiated Rebel opposition to the Meridian Campaign, including accounts from West Point locals of the time.

And up third comes Civil War Pittsburgh: Forge of the Union (PA) written by Len Barcousky. Barcousky is an editor and reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He is the author of Remembering Pittsburgh also published by The History Press.

From the publisher: On Christmas Day 1860, the Daily Pittsburgh Gazette announced that more than one hundred cannons from the nearby U.S. Arsenal were to be shipped south. Fiercely loyal to the Union, Pittsburghers halted the movement of the artillery, which would have been seized by secessionist sympathizers. Over the course of the Civil War, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County provided both troops and equipment--including heavy artillery--in disproportionately large numbers. While no major battles were fought nearby, local soldiers and civilians sacrificed and suffered--the Allegheny Arsenal explosion in September 1862 left seventy-eight dead and was the worst civilian disaster of the war. Thousands dug trenches and joined militia companies to defend their city as others worked to support the wounded soldiers. Reporter Len Barcousky draws on the next-day reporting of the predecessors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to craft a gripping and insightful view of the Steel City during the Civil War.