A historian's collection of stories about unknown contributors to the successes and failures of the Union and Confederate sides during the Civil War.You don't have to know much about the Civil War to be familiar with Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, or William Tecumseh Sherman. Bull's-Eyes and Misfires, however, tells the fascinating stories of fifty largely unknown people who dramatically changed the course of the Civil War by their hero...

There was little funny about a war in which 620,000 humans died. But it was finding humor amid devastation that kept Civil War soldiers marching toward the enemy. Union or Confederate, those in command proved adept at making mistakes. Many leaders were drunkards, couldn't speak English, didn't know a cannon's breech from its muzzle. Among the galleries of heroes were: Colonel Edward Baker, who told his Federals to follow the plume of his hat if they wanted to find war—and sent them over a ...

"A Spellbinding Tale Of The Last Days Of The Confederacy." --David J. Eicher, author of The Longest NightIn the only book to tell the definitive story of Confederate President Jefferson Davis's chase, capture, imprisonment, and release, journalist and Civil War writer Clint Johnson paints a riveting portrait of one of American history's most complex and enduring figures."Riveting And Revealing." --Marc Leepson, author of Desperate EngagementIn the ...

New York City, November 25, 1864. Confederate officers attempt to destroy the city with a series of lethal fires that will forever diminish it to a mere speck of an island.What fueled these Southern patriots' rage? And what if they had succeeded?This terrifying scenario almost became a reality following what the New York Herald declared "a vast and fiendish plot." Infuriated by the Union's killing of their beloved General John Hunt Morgan and the burning of the Shen...

The relationship between religion and conflict has generated considerable academic and political debate. Although the majority of religions and spiritual traditions are replete with wisdom that propagates a broader unity among human beings, these same examples have been used to legitimize hatred and fear. While some studies claim that religion facilitates peacebuilding, reconciliation, and healing, others argue that religion exacerbates hostility, instigates vengeance-seeking behaviors, an...

The latest installment in the New York Times bestselling Politically Incorrect Guide series expands on the hugely successful Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.Far from being the backwater of prejudice and ignorance that the liberal media would have you believe, the South has always been the center of American culture. From the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and many others—to the frontiersmen who tamed the West, to the count...

This action-packed narrative history of destroyer-class ships begins with destroyers' first incarnation as torpedo boats in 1898 through the last true combat service of the ships in the Vietnam War. Nicknamed "tin cans" or "greyhounds," destroyers were quick naval ships used to defend larger battleships—and they proved indispensable in America's military victories. In Tin Cans and Greyhounds, author Clint Johnson brings listeners inside the quarter-inch hulls of destroyers to meet...

**Winner of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military HistoryAn Economist Best Book of the YearA Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year**The Battle of Gettysburg has been written about at length and thoroughly dissected in terms of strategic importance, but never before has a book taken readers so close to the experience of the individual soldier.Two-time Lincoln Prize winner Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights and the sou...

THE NEW YORK TIMES**#1** BESTSELLERThe must-have companion to Bill O'Reilly's historical docudrama, Legends and Lies: The Patriots is an exciting and eye-opening look at the Revolutionary War through the lives of its leaders.The American Revolution was neither inevitable nor a unanimous cause. It pitted neighbors against each other, as loyalists and colonial rebels faced off for their lives and futures. Th...

With hundreds of entries, as well as photographs, drawings, and a handy time line of events, Civil War, A to Z encompasses everything about this historic conflict . . . from Appomattox to Zouaves.This encyclopedic illustrated reference features facts both familiar and engagingly new, organized in an easy-to-follow alphabetical format. Ranging from the basic to the bizarre, from secession to spies to all kinds of swords, Civil War, A to Z creates a complete picture...

In this major new history of the Civil War, Bruce Levine tells the riveting story of how that conflict upended the economic, political, and social life of the old South, utterly destroying the Confederacy and the society it represented and defended. Told through the words of the people who lived it, The Fall of the House of Dixie illuminates the way a war undertaken to preserve the status quo became a second American Revolution whose impact on the country was as strong and lasting...

Few historians have ever captured the drama, excitement, and tragedy of the Civil War with the headlong elan of Edwin Bearss, who has won a huge, devoted following with his extraordinary battlefield tours and eloquent soliloquies about the heroes, scoundrels, and little-known moments of a conflict that still fascinates America. Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg: these hallowed battles and more than a dozen more come alive as never before, rich with human interest and colorful detail culled from...