On March 15, 1781, the armies of Nathanael Greene and Lord Charles Cornwallis fought one of the bloodiest and most intense engagements of the American Revolution at Guilford Courthouse in piedmont North Carolina. In Long, Obstinate, and Bloody, the first book-length examination of the Guilford Courthouse engagement, Lawrence E. Babits and Joshua B. Howard piece together what really happened on the wooded plateau in what is today Greensboro, North Carolina, and identify where indiv...

When a historic battlefield site is discovered and studied, the focus is often on the “hardware”: remnants of weaponry, ammunition, supplies, and equipment that archaeologists carefully unearth, analyze, conserve, and frequently place on display in museums.But what about the “software”? What can archaeology teach us about the humans involved in the conflict: their social mores and cultural assumptions; their use and understanding of power?In The Archaeology of Engagemen...

The battle of Cowpens was a crucial turning point in the Revolutionary War in the South and stands as perhaps the finest American tactical demonstration of the entire war. On 17 January 1781, Daniel Morgan’s force of Continental troops and militia routed British regulars and Loyalists under the command of Banastre Tarleton. The victory at Cowpens helped put the British army on the road to the Yorktown surrender and, ultimately, cleared the way for American independence.Here, Lawrenc...

The recent work of anthropologists, historians, and historical archaeologists has changed the very essence of military history. While once preoccupied with great battles and the generals who commanded the armies and employed the tactics, military history has begun to emphasize the importance of the “common man” for interpreting events. As a result, military historians have begun to see military forces and the people serving in them from different perspectives.The Historical Arc...

A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian looks at the complex, controversial Union commander who ensured the Confederacy's downfall in the Civil War.In this New York Times bestseller, preeminent Civil War historian Bruce Catton narrows his focus on commander Ulysses S. Grant, whose bold tactics and relentless dedication to the Union ultimately ensured a Northern victory in the nation's bloodiest conflict.While a succession of Union generals—from McClella...

The image is indelible: densely packed lines of slow-moving Redcoats picked off by American sharpshooters. Now Matthew H. Spring reveals how British infantry in the American Revolutionary War really fought.This groundbreaking book offers a new analysis of the British Army during the “American rebellion” at both operational and tactical levels. Presenting fresh insights into the speed of British tactical movements, Spring discloses how the system for training the army prior to 1775 ...

All for the Union is the eloquent and moving diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, featured throughout Ken Burns' PBS documentary The Civil War. Rhodes enlisted into the Union Army as a private in 1861 and left it four years later as a twenty-three-year-old colonel after fighting hard and honorably in battles from Bull Run to Appomattox. Anyone who heard these diaries excerpted in The Civil War will recognize his accounts of those campaigns, which remain outstanding for t...

A comprehensive history of the brutal wilderness war that secured America's independence in 1777—by an author with "a flair for vivid detail" ( Library Journal).With Musket and Tomahawk is a vivid account of the American and British struggles in the sprawling wilderness region of the American northeast during the Revolutionary War. Combining strategic, tactical, and personal detail, historian Michael Logusz describes how the patriots of the newly ...

"A well-organized and concise introduction to the war's major battles" ( The Journal of America's Military Past).Winner of the Gold Star Book Award for History from the Military Writers Society of AmericaThis is the first comprehensive account of every engagement of the Revolution, a war that began with a brief skirmish at Lexington Green on April 19, 1775, and concluded on the battlefield at the Siege of Yorktown in Octo...

Fought amid rocks and trees, in thick blinding smoke, and under exceedingly stressful conditions, the battle for the southern slope of Little Round Top on July 2, 1863 stands among the most famous and crucial military actions in American history, one of the key engagements that led to the North's victory at Gettysburg. In this powerfully narrated history, Maine historian Tom Desjardin tells the story of the 20th Maine Regiment, the soldiers who fought and won the battle of Little Round Top...

This account of McClellan's 1862 campaign is "a wonderful book" (Ken Burns) and "military history at its best" ( The New York Times Book Review).From "the finest and most provocative Civil War historian writing today," To the Gates of Richmond is the story of the one of the conflict's bloodiest campaigns ( Chicago Tribune). Of the 250,000 men who fought in it, only a fraction had ever been in battle before—and one in four was killed, woun...

By the award-winning author of Dog Company: a historic account of a Revolutionary War unit's "tactical acumen and human drama . . . combat writing at its best" ( The Wall Street Journal).In August 1776, little over a month after the Continental Congress had formally declared independence from Britain, the revolution was on the verge of a disastrous end. General George Washington found his troops outmanned and outmaneuvered at the Battle of Brookly...