On the third day of Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee launched a magnificent attack. For pure pageantry it was unsurpassed, and it also marked the centerpiece of the war, both time-wise and in terms of how the conflict had turned a cornerÑfrom persistent Confederate hopes to impending Rebel despair. But PickettÕs Charge was crushed by the Union defenders that day, having never had a chance in the first place. The ConfederacyÕs real Òhigh tideÓ at Gettysburg had come the afternoon before, during the swirling conflagration when LongstreetÕs corps first entered the battle, when the Federals just barely held on. The foremost Rebel spearhead on that second day of the battle was BarksdaleÕs Mississippi brigade, which launched what one (Union) observer called the "grandest charge that was ever seen by mortal man.Ó BarksdaleÕs brigade was already renowned in the Army of Northern Virginia for its stand-alone fights at Fredericksburg. On the second day of Gettysburg it was just champing at the bit to go in. The Federal left was not as vulnerable as Lee had envisioned, but had cooperated with Rebel wishes by extending its Third Corps into a salient. HoodÕs crack division was launched first, seizing DevilÕs Den, climbing Little Round Top, and hammering in the wheatfield. Then Longstreet began to launch McLawsÕ division, and finally gave Barksdale the go-ahead. The Mississippians, with their white-haired commander on horseback at their head, utterly crushed the peach orchard salient and continued marauding up to Cemetery Ridge. Hancock, Meade, and other Union generals desperately struggled to find units to stem the Rebel tide. One of BarksdaleÕs regiments, the 21st Mississippi, veered off from the brigade in the chaos, rampaging across the field, overrunning Union battery after battery. The collapsing Federals had to gather men from four different corps to try to stem the onslaught. Barksdale himself was killed at the apex of his advance. Darkness, as well as Confederate exhaustion, finally ended the dayÕs fight as the shaken, depleted Federal units on their heights took stock. They had barely held on against the full ferocity of the Rebels, on a day that decided the fate of the nation. BarksdaleÕs Charge describes the exact moment when the Confederacy reached its zenith, and the soldiers of the Northern states just barely succeeded in retaining their perfect Union. Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D. Has authored or edited over 20 books on various aspects of the American experience, especially in the fields of Civil War, Irish, African-American, Revolutionary, and Southern history. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, he has earned three degrees in American history, including a Ph.D. From St. Louis University in 1990. For over two decades, Dr. Tucker served as a military historian for the U.S. Air Force. He currently lives in the vicinity of Washington, DC.

An aggressive and colorful personality, William Barksdale was no stranger to controversy. Orphaned at 13, he succeeded as lawyer, newspaper editor, Mexican War veteran, politician and Confederate commander. During eight years in the U.S. Congress, he was among the South's most ardent defenders of slavery and advocates for states' rights. His emotional speeches and altercations--including a brawl on the House floor--made headlines in the years preceding secession. His fiery temper prompted three near-duels, gaining him a reputation as a brawler and knife-fighter. Arrested for intoxication, Colonel Barksdale survived a military Court of Inquiry to become one of the most beloved commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia. His reputation soared with his defense against the Union river crossing and street-fighting at Fredericksburg, and his legendary charge at Gettysburg. This first full-length biography places his life and career in historical context.

Winner of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History An Economist Best Book of the Year A 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 sounds of nineteenth-century combat: the stone walls and gunpowder clouds of Pickett’s Charge; the reason that the Army of Northern Virginia could be smelled before it could be seen; the march of thousands of men from the banks of the Rappahannock in Virginia to the Pennsylvania hills. What emerges is a previously untold story of army life in the Civil War: from the personal politics roiling the Union and Confederate officer ranks, to the peculiar character of artillery units. Through such scrutiny, one of history’s epic battles is given extraordinarily vivid new life.

Vol. 4 contains cumulative table of cases reported and citator.

Includes extra sessions.

At the Rainbow's End is about the lives of Jefferson and Mary Bright, plantation owners, about their struggles and the struggles of recently freed slaves to survive in a newly ordered society. Lurking in the background is the Ku Klux Klan, who kill and threaten all who would oppose them in a desperate effort to restore the old order, an insurgency that fosters, among other things, jealousy and murder, and events that threaten Jefferson and Mary with more than the loss of a way of life.