<div>An exhaustive look at the final hours of the Confederacy&rsquo;s most audacious general. May 1863. The Civil War was in its third spring, and Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas Jonathan Jackson stood at the peak of his fame. He had risen from obscurity to become &ldquo;Old Stonewall,&rdquo; adored across the South and feared and respected throughout the North. On the night of May 2, however, just hours after Jackson executed the most audacious maneuver of his career and delivered a crushing blow against an unsuspecting Union army at Chancellorsville, disaster struck. The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson recounts the events of that fateful night&mdash;considered one of the most pivotal moments of the war&mdash;and the tense vigil that ensued as Jackson struggled with a foe even he could not defeat. From Guinea Station, where Jackson crosses the river to rest under the shade of the trees, the story follows Jackson&rsquo;s funeral and burial, the strange story of his amputated arm, and the creation and restoration of the building where he died (now known as the Stonewall Jackson Shrine). This newly revised and expanded second edition features more than 50 pages of fresh material, including almost 200 illustrations, maps, and eye-catching photos. New appendices allow readers to walk in Jackson&rsquo;s prewar footsteps through his adopted hometown of Lexington, Virginia; consider the ways Jackson&rsquo;s memory has been preserved through monuments, memorials, and myths; and explore the misconceptions behind the Civil War&rsquo;s great What-If: &ldquo;What if Stonewall had survived his wounds?&rdquo; With the engaging prose of master storytellers, Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White make The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson a must-read for Civil War novices and buffs alike. </div>

The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson

<div>The first book-length study of two overlooked engagements that helped turned the tide of a pivotal Civil War battle. By May of 1863, the stone wall at the base of Marye&rsquo;s Heights above Fredericksburg, Virginia, loomed large over the Army of the Potomac, haunting its men with memories of slaughter from their crushing defeat there the previous December. They would assault it again with a very different result the following spring. This time the Union troops wrested the wall and high ground from the Confederates and drove west into the enemy&rsquo;s rear. The inland drive stalled in heavy fighting at Salem Church. Chancellorsville&rsquo;s Forgotten Front is the first book to examine Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church and the central roles they played in the final Southern victory. Authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White have long appreciated the pivotal roles these engagements played in the Chancellorsville campaign, and just how close the Southern army came to grief&mdash;and the Union army to stunning success. Together they seamlessly weave their extensive newspaper, archival, and firsthand research into a compelling narrative to better understand these combats, which usually garner little more than a footnote to the larger story of Stonewall Jackson&rsquo;s march and fatal wounding. Chancellorsville&rsquo;s Forgotten Front offers a thorough examination of the decision-making, movements, and fighting that led to the bloody stalemate at Salem Church, as Union soldiers faced the horror of an indomitable wall of stone&mdash;and an undersized Confederate division stood up to a Union juggernaut. </div>

Chancellorsville's Forgotten Front

<div>The remarkable story of how one of America&rsquo;s greatest military heroes became a literary legend. The former general in chief of the Union armies during the Civil War . . . the two-term president of the United States . . . the beloved ambassador of American goodwill around the globe . . . the respected New York financier&mdash;Ulysses S. Grant&mdash;was dying. The hardscrabble man who regularly smoked twenty cigars a day had developed terminal throat cancer. Thus began Grant&rsquo;s final battle&mdash;a race against his own failing health to complete his personal memoirs in an attempt to secure his family&rsquo;s financial security. But the project evolved into something far more: an effort to secure the very meaning of the Civil War itself and how it would be remembered. In this maelstrom of woe, Grant refused to surrender. Putting pen to paper, the hero of Appomattox embarked on his final campaign: an effort to write his memoirs before he died. The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant would cement his place as not only one of America&rsquo;s greatest heroes but also as one of its most sublime literary voices. Authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White have recounted Grant&rsquo;s battlefield exploits as historians at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, and Mackowski, as an academic, has studied Grant&rsquo;s literary career. Their familiarity with the former president as a general and as a writer bring Grant&rsquo;s Last Battle to life with new insight, told with the engaging prose that has become the hallmark of the Emerging Civil War Series. </div>

Grant's Last Battle

<div>How fighting Joe Hooker turned things around during a low point in the Civil War: &ldquo;Exceptionally well-written . . . the result of painstaking research.&rdquo; &mdash;Brig. Gen. John W. Mountcastle, USA (ret.), former chief of military history, US Army Depression. Desertion. Disease. The Army of the Potomac faced a trio of unrelenting enemies during the winter of 1863. Following the catastrophic defeat at the battle of Fredericksburg, the army settled into winter quarters&mdash;and despair settled into the army. Morale sank to its lowest level while desertions reached an all-time high. Illness packed the hospitals. Political intrigues, careerist schemes, and harsh winter weather demoralized everyone. Even the army&rsquo;s livestock suffered, with more than 1,000 horses and mules dying every week. Then Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, a pugnacious tactician aptly nicknamed &ldquo;Fighting Joe,&rdquo; took command of the army. And a remarkable thing happened: A man known for his hardscrabble battlefield tenacity showed an amazing brilliance for organization and leadership. With Chief of Staff Dan Butterfield working alongside him, Hooker rebuilt the army from the bottom up. In addition to instituting logistical, ordnance, and administrative reforms, he insisted on proper troop care, rigorous inspections, and battle drills. Hooker doled out promotions and furloughs by merit, conducted large-scale raids, streamlined the army&rsquo;s command and control, and fielded a new cavalry corps and military intelligence organization. Hooker&rsquo;s war on poor discipline and harsh conditions revitalized a dying army. During this ninety-three-day resurgence, the Army of the Potomac reversed its fortunes and set itself on the path to ultimate victory. Hooker&rsquo;s achievement represents nothing less than the greatest non-battle turning point since Valley Forge in the American Revolution&mdash;through it has long gone unnoticed or underappreciated by modern historians. Based on soldiers&rsquo; records, diaries, and letters, from the lowest private to the highest general, this is the full story of how these citizen-soldiers overcame adversity, seized their destiny, and saved the nation.</div>

Seizing Destiny

<div>A gripping narrative of one of the Civil War&rsquo;s most consequential engagements. In the spring of 1864, the newly installed Union commander Ulysses S. Grant did something none of his predecessors had done before: He threw his army against the wily, audacious Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia over and over again. At Spotsylvania Court House, the two armies shifted from stalemate in the Wilderness to slugfest in the mud. Most commonly known for the horrific twenty-two-hour hand-to-hand combat in the pouring rain at the Bloody Angle, the battle of Spotsylvania Court House actually stretched from May 8 to 21, 1864&mdash;fourteen long days of battle and maneuver. Grant, the irresistible force, hammering with his overwhelming numbers and unprecedented power, versus Lee, the immovable object, hunkered down behind the most formidable defensive works yet seen on the continent. Spotsylvania Court House represents a chess match of immeasurable stakes between two master opponents. This clash is detailed in A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May &ndash;21, 1864. A Season of Slaughter is part of the new Emerging Civil War Series offering compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War&rsquo;s most important stories. The masterful storytelling is richly enhanced with hundreds of photos, illustrations, and maps. &ldquo;[A] wonderful book for anyone interested in learning about the fighting around Spotsylvania Court House or who would like to tour the area. It is well written, easy to read, and well worth the price.&rdquo; &mdash;Civil War News </div>

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A Season of Slaughter

<div>An in-depth history of the inhumane Union Civil War prison camp that became known as “the Andersonville of the North.” Long called by some the “Andersonville of the North,” the prisoner of war camp in Elmira, New York, is remembered as the most notorious of all Union-run POW camps. It existed only from the summer of 1864 to July 1865, but in that time, and for long after, it became darkly emblematic of man’s inhumanity to man. Confederate prisoners called it “Hellmira.” Hastily constructed, poorly planned, and overcrowded, prisoner of war camps North and South were dumping grounds for the refuse of war. An unfortunate necessity, both sides regarded the camps as temporary inconveniences—and distractions from the important task of winning the war. There was no need, they believed, to construct expensive shelters or provide better rations. They needed only to sustain life long enough for the war to be won. Victory would deliver prisoners from their conditions. As a result, conditions in the prisoner of war camps amounted to a great humanitarian crisis, the extent of which could hardly be understood even after the blood stopped flowing on the battlefields. In the years after the war, as Reconstruction became increasingly bitter, the North pointed to Camp Sumter—better known as the Andersonville POW camp in Americus, Georgia—as evidence of the cruelty and barbarity of the Confederacy. The South, in turn, cited the camp in Elmira as a place where Union authorities withheld adequate food and shelter and purposefully caused thousands to suffer in the bitter cold. This finger-pointing by both sides would go on for over a century. And as it did, the legend of Hellmira grew. In this book, Derek Maxfield contextualizes the rise of prison camps during the Civil War, explores the failed exchange of prisoners, and tells the tale of the creation and evolution of the prison camp in Elmira. In the end, Maxfield suggests that it is time to move on from the blame game and see prisoner of war camps—North and South—as a great humanitarian failure. Praise for Hellmira “A unique and informative contribution to the growing library of Civil War histories…Important and unreservedly recommended.” —Midwest Book Review “A good book, and the author should be congratulated.” —Civil War News</div>

Hellmira

<div>The Civil War historian and author of A Season of Slaughter continues his engaging account of the Overland Campaign in this vivid chronicle. By May of 1864, Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant had resolved to destroy his Confederate adversaries through attrition if by no other means. Meanwhile, his Confederate counterpart, Robert E. Lee, looked for an opportunity to regain the offensive initiative. “We must strike them a blow,” he told his lieutenants. But Grant’s war of attrition began to take its toll in a more insidious way. Both army commanders—exhausted and fighting off illness—began to feel the continuous, merciless grind of combat in very personal ways. Punch-drunk tired, they began to second-guess themselves, missing opportunities and making mistakes. As a result, along the banks of the North Anna River, commanders on both sides brought their armies to the brink of destruction without even knowing it.</div>

Strike Them a Blow

<div>“Gives the reader an excellent readable narrative of the first day of battle . . . [and] an incredible driving tour which closes each chapter.” —Matthew Bartlett, Gettysburg Chronicle Do not bring on a general engagement, Confederate General Robert E. Lee warned his commanders. The Army of Northern Virginia, slicing its way through south-central Pennsylvania, was too spread out, too vulnerable, for a full-scale engagement with its old nemesis, the Army of the Potomac. Too much was riding on this latest Confederate invasion of the North. Too much was at stake. As Confederate forces groped their way through the mountain passes, a chance encounter with Federal cavalry on the outskirts of a small Pennsylvania crossroads town triggered a series of events that quickly escalated beyond Lee’s—or anyone’s—control. Waves of soldiers materialized on both sides in a constantly shifting jigsaw of combat. “You will have to fight like the devil . . .” one Union cavalryman predicted. The costliest battle in the history of the North American continent had begun. July 1, 1863 remains the most overlooked phase of the battle of Gettysburg, yet it set the stage for all the fateful events that followed. Bringing decades of familiarity to the discussion, historians Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White, and Daniel T. Davis, in their always-engaging style, recount the action of that first day of battle and explore the profound implications in Fight Like the Devil. “The book, written in the series’ accessible style, includes more than 100 illustrations, new maps and analysis.” —Longwood Magazine</div>

Fight Like the Devil

<div>This vividly detailed Civil War history reveals many of the incredible true stories behind the legendary sites of the Gettysburg battlefield. Having unexpectedly been thrust into command of the Army of the Potomac only three days earlier, General George Gordon Meade was caught by a much harsher surprise when the Confederate Army of North Virginia launched a bold invasion northward. Outside the small college town of Gettysburg, the lead elements of Meade’s army were suddenly under attack. By nightfall, they were forced to take a lodgment on high ground south of town. There, they fortified—and waited. “Don’t give an inch, boys!” one Federal commander told his men. The next day, July 2, 1863, would be one of the Civil War’s bloodiest. With names that have become legendary—Little Round Top, Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, Culp’s Hill—the second day at Gettysburg encompasses some of the best-known engagements of the Civil War. Yet those same stories have also become shrouded in mythology and misunderstanding. In Don’t Give an Inch, Emerging Civil War historians Chris Mackowski and Daniel T. Davis peel back the layers to share the real and often-overlooked stories of that fateful summer day.</div>

Don't Give an Inch

<div>This Civil War history and guide offers a vivid chronicle of this dramatic yet misunderstood battle, plus invaluable information for battlefield visitors. The battle of Fredericksburg is usually remembered as the most lopsided Union defeat of the Civil War. It is sometimes called “Burnside’s folly,” after Union commander Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside who led the Army of the Potomac to ruin along the banks of the Rappahannock River. Confederates, fortified behind a stone wall along a sunken road, poured a hail of lead into them as they charged. One eyewitness summed it up saying, “it is only murder now.” But the battle remains one of the most misunderstood and misremembered engagements of the war. Burnside started with a well-conceived plan and had every reason to expect victory. How did it go so terribly wrong? Authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White have worked for years along Fredericksburg’s Sunken Road and Stone Wall, and they’ve escorted thousands of visitors across the battlefield. Simply Murder not only recounts Fredericksburg’s tragic story of slaughter, but includes vital information about the battlefield itself and the insights they’ve learned from years of walking the ground.</div>

Simply Murder

<div>A Civil War historian recounts the first battle between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—a bloody and horrifying conflict in the Wilderness of Virginia. Known simply as the Wilderness, soldiers called the seventy square miles of dense Virginian forest one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom.” Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror. Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the Overland Campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Thick underbrush made for difficult movement and low visibility. And these challenges were terrifyingly compounded by the outbreak of fires that burned casualties and left both sided blinded in a sea of smoke. Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said. Another called it “Hell itself.”</div>

Hell Itself

<div>&ldquo;An important contribution to Civil War scholarship, offering an engrossing portrait of these important campaigns . . . this reviewer recommends it highly.&rdquo; &mdash;NYMAS Review The fall of Vicksburg in July 1863 fundamentally changed the strategic picture of the American Civil War, though its outcome had been anything but certain. Union general Ulysses S. Grant tried for months to capture the Confederate Mississippi River bastion, to no avail. A bold running of the river batteries, followed by a daring river crossing and audacious overland campaign, finally allowed Grant to pen the Southern army inside the entrenched city. The long and gritty siege that followed led to the fall of the city, the opening of the Mississippi to Union traffic, and a severance of the Confederacy in two. In Tennessee, meanwhile, the Union Army of the Cumberland brilliantly recaptured thousands of square miles while sustaining fewer than six hundred casualties. Commander William Rosecrans worried the North would &ldquo;overlook so great an event because it is not written in letters of blood&rdquo;&mdash;and history proved him right. The Tullahoma campaign has stood nearly forgotten compared to events along the Mississippi and in south-central Pennsylvania, yet all three major Union armies scored significant victories that helped bring the war closer to an end. The public historians writing for the popular Emerging Civil War blog, speaking on its podcast, or delivering talks at its annual Emerging Civil War Symposium in Virginia always present their work in ways that engage and animate audiences. Their efforts entertain, challenge, and sometimes provoke with fresh perspectives and insights born from years of working at battlefields, guiding tours, and writing for the wider Civil War community. The Summer of &rsquo;63: Vicksburg and Tullahoma is a compilation of some of their favorites, anthologized, revised, and updated, together with several original pieces. Each entry includes helpful illustrations. This important study, when read with its companion volume The Summer of &rsquo;63: Gettysburg, contextualizes the major 1863 campaigns in what arguably was the Civil War&rsquo;s turning-point summer.&lt;/ </div>

The Summer of '63: Vicksburg & Tullahoma

<div>&ldquo;An outstanding read for anyone interested in the Civil War and Gettysburg in particular . . . innovative and thoughtful ideas on seemingly well-covered events.&rdquo; &mdash;The NYMAS Review The largest land battle on the North American continent has maintained an unshakable grip on the American imagination. Building on momentum from a string of victories that stretched back into the summer of 1862, Robert E. Lee launched his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on an invasion of the North meant to shake Union resolve and fundamentally shift the dynamic of the war. His counterpart with the Federal Army of the Potomac, George Meade, elevated to command just days before the fighting, found himself defending his home state in a high-stakes battle that could have put Confederates at the very gates of the nation&rsquo;s capital. The public historians writing for the popular Emerging Civil War blog, speaking on its podcast, or delivering talks at the annual Emerging Civil War Symposium at Stevenson Ridge in Virginia always present their work in ways that engage and animate audiences. Their efforts entertain, challenge, and sometimes provoke readers with fresh perspectives and insights born from years of working on battlefields, guiding tours, presenting talks, and writing for the wider Civil War community. The Summer of &rsquo;63: Gettysburg is a compilation of some of their favorites, anthologized, revised, and updated, together with several original pieces. Each entry includes original and helpful illustrations. Along with its companion volume The Summer of &rsquo;63: Vicksburg and Tullahoma, this important study contextualizes the major 1863 campaigns in what was arguably the Civil War&rsquo;s turning-point summer. </div>

The Summer of ’63 Gettysburg

<div>&ldquo;Thought-provoking and entertaining . . . What if Lincoln had dodged the assassin&rsquo;s bullet? What if Lee had waged guerrilla warfare in April 1865?&rdquo; &mdash;Gordon C. Rhea, author of the Overland Campaign series &ldquo;What if. . . ?&rdquo; Every Civil War armchair general asks the question. Possibilities unfold. Disappointments vanish. Imaginations soar. More questions arise. &ldquo;What if . . .&rdquo; can be more than an exercise in wistful fantasy. A serious inquiry sparks rigorous exploration, demands critical thinking, and unlocks important insights. The Great &ldquo;What Ifs&rdquo; of the American Civil War: Historians Tackle the Conflict&rsquo;s Most Intriguing Possibilities is a collection of fourteen essays by the historians at Emerging Civil War, and includes a Foreword by acclaimed alternate history writer Peter G. Tsouras. Each entry focuses on one of the most important events of the war and unpacks the options of the moment. To understand what happened, we must look with a clear and objective eye at what could have happened, with the full multitude of choices before us. &ldquo;What if&rdquo; is a tool for illumination. These essays also explode the assumptions people make when they ask &ldquo;what if&rdquo; and then jump to wishful conclusions. This collection offers not alternate histories or counterfactual scenarios, but an invitation to ask, to learn, and to wonder . . . &ldquo;A lively and engaging examination of those perennial &lsquo;second guesses&rsquo; no student of the war fails to appreciate. No &lsquo;pie in the sky&rsquo; here&mdash;each exploration is firmly rooted in fact, with a keen appreciation of context, providing provocative insight without sacrificing history.&rdquo; &mdash;David A. Powell, author of the award&ndash;winning series The Chickamauga Campaign</div>

The Great "What Ifs" of the American Civil War

<div>&ldquo;Engaging, entertaining, educational, and eclectic, this collection of brief essays . . . provides hope for the future of accessible Civil War history.&rdquo; &mdash;A. Wilson Greene, author of A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg With the election looming in the fall, President Abraham Lincoln needed to break the deadlock. To do so, he promoted Ulysses S. Grant&mdash;the man who&rsquo;d strung together victory after victory in the Western Theater, including the capture of two entire Confederate armies. The unassuming &ldquo;dust-covered man&rdquo; was now in command of all the Union armies, and he came east to lead them. The unlucky soldiers of George G. Meade&rsquo;s Army of the Potomac had developed a grudging respect for their Southern adversary and assumed a wait-and-see attitude: &ldquo;Grant,&rdquo; they reasoned, &ldquo;has never met Bobby Lee yet.&rdquo; By the spring of 1864, Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, had come to embody the Confederate cause. Grant knew as much and decided to take the field with the Potomac army. He ordered his subordinates to forgo efforts to capture Richmond in favor of annihilating Lee&rsquo;s command. Grant&rsquo;s directive to Meade was straightforward: &ldquo;Where Lee goes, there you will go also.&rdquo; Lee and Grant would come to symbolize the armies they led when the spring 1864 campaign began in northern Virginia in the Wilderness on May 5. What followed was a desperate. bloody death match that ran through the long siege of Richmond and Petersburg before finally ending at Appomattox Court House eleven months later&mdash;but at what cost along the way? This book recounts some of the most famous episodes and compelling human dramas from the marquee matchup of the Civil War. These expanded and revised essays also commemorate a decade of Emerging Civil War, a &ldquo;best of&rdquo; collection on the Overland Campaign, the siege of Petersburg, and the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. </div>

Grant vs. Lee

<div>The American Civil War left indelible marks on the country. In the century and a half since the war, Americans have remembered the war in different ways. Veterans placed monuments to commemorate their deeds on the battlefield. In doing so, they often set in stone and bronze specific images in specific places that may have conflicted with the factual historical record. Erecting monuments and memorials became a way to commemorate the past, but they also became important tools for remembering that past in particular ways. Monuments honor, but they also embody the very real tension between history and the way we remember that history—what we now today call “memory.” Civil War Monuments and Memory: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War explores some of the ways people monumented and memorialized the war—and how those markers have impacted our understanding of it. This collection of essays brings together the best scholarship from Emerging Civil War’s blog, symposia, and podcast—all of it revised and updated—coupled with original pieces, designed to shed new light and insight on the monuments and memorials that give us some of our most iconic and powerful connections to the battlefields and the men who fought there.</div>

Civil War Monuments and Memory

<div>“A comprehensive, eminently readable, lavishly illustrated, and historically accurate account” of this important yet overlooked Civil War battle (Civil War News). Jackson, Mississippi, was the third Confederate state capital to fall to Union forces. When Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant captured the important rail junction in May 1863, however, he did so almost as an afterthought. Drawing on dozens of primary sources, contextualized by the latest scholarship on Grant’s Vicksburg campaign, historian Chris Mackowski offers a comprehensive account of this important battle. General Grant had his eyes set not on Jackson but on Vicksburg, the “Gibraltar of the Confederacy”. As he drove through Mississippi, a chance encounter with Confederates at Raymond alerted him to a potential threat massing farther east in Jackson under the leadership of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, one of the Confederacy’s most respected field officers. Grant turned on a dime and made for Jackson to confront the growing danger. Yet Johnston, for reasons that have long puzzled historians, was already planning to abandon the vital state capital.</div>

The Battle of Jackson, Mississippi

<div>Proceeds from this volume will go to support the Ulysses S. Grant Association and the Grant Monument Association. Ulysses S. Grant stood at the center of the American Civil War maelstrom. The Ohio native answered his nation’s call to service and finished the war as a lieutenant general in command of the U.S. Army. Four years later, he ascended to the presidency to better secure the peace he had helped win on the battlefield. Despite his major achievements in war and peace, political and sectional enemies battered his reputation. For nearly a century, his military and political career remained deeply misunderstood. Since the Civil War centennial, however, Grant’s reputation has blossomed into a full renaissance. His military record garners new respect and, more recently, an appreciation for his political career—particularly his strong advocacy for equal rights—is quickly catching up. Throughout these decades, his personal memoirs marking him as a significant American “Man of Letters” have never gone out of print. Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of a man whose towering impact on American history has often been overshadowed and, in many cases, ignored. This collection of essays by some of today’s leading Grant scholars offers fresh perspectives on Grant’s military career and presidency, as well as underexplored personal topics such as his faith and family life.</div>

Grant at 200

<div>The Civil War was primarily a land conflict, but it was not only that. “Nor must Uncle Sam’s web-feet be forgotten,” wrote Abraham Lincoln. “At all the watery margins they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks.” From the Arctic Circle to the Caribbean, swift Rebel raiders decimated Union commerce pursued by the U. S. Navy. Offshore, storm-tossed blockaders in hundreds of vessels patrolled from Hatteras to Galveston while occasionally lobbing a few shots at a speeding Rebel runner. Around the continental periphery, it was ships vs. powerful fortifications as titanic clashes erupted: Port Royal, New Orleans, Charleston, Mobile. Massive army-navy amphibious operations presaged twentieth-century conflicts: The Peninsula, North Carolina Sounds, Fort Fisher. In the heartland, the two services invented riverine warfare: Forts Henry and Donelson, Island No. 10, Memphis, Vicksburg. And through it all, emerging technology of the machine age played a critical role: iron armor, torpedoes, steam propulsion, heavy naval artillery. However, nothing in the history and traditions of the United States Navy had prepared it for civil war. The sea service would expand tenfold from a third-rate force to (temporarily) one of the most powerful and advanced navies. Meanwhile, former shipmates in the Confederacy struggled to construct a fleet from nothing, applying innovative technologies and underdog strategies to achieve more than anyone thought possible. Both sides faced unprecedented strategic, tactical, and technological challenges that made their navies indispensable—even as the navies themselves faced those same sorts of challenges. The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War compiles favorite navy tales and obscure narratives by distinguished public historians of the Emerging Civil War in celebration of the organization’s tenth anniversary. This eclectic collection presents new stories and familiar battles from a unique perspective—from the water—sea, surf, and stream.</div>

Chris Mackowski
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Books By Chris Mackowski (15 Books)