"In 1860, Orlando S. Palmer left his home in north Alabama to study law in Tennessee and the following year went into practice in Des Arc, Arkansas. With Arkansas's secession, Palmer joined what would become Company H of the First (later Fifteenth) Arkansas Infantry and soon became his company's captain and brigade's adjutant. As such, he was closely associated with William J. Hardee, Thomas C. Hindman, and Patrick R. Cleburne, the latter of whom he served from the day that the First Arkansas was organized until Palmer and Cleburne both sustained fatal wounds at the battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864. The letters, almost all of which are addressed to his sister, "Missie," are divided equally between military and social concerns. Cutrer argues these letters offer a clear and entertaining window into the life and times of a junior officer serving in the Army of Tennessee"

An innovative global history of the American Civil War, Reckoning with Rebellion compares and contrasts the American experience with other civil and national conflicts that happened at nearly the same time—the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Polish Insurrection of 1863, and China’s Taiping Rebellion. Aaron Sheehan-Dean identifies surprising new connections between these historical moments across three continents. Sheehan-Dean shows that insurgents around the globe often relied on irregular warfare and were labeled as criminals, mutineers, or rebels by the dominant powers. He traces commonalities between the United States, British, Russian, and Chinese empires, all large and ambitious states willing to use violence to maintain their authority. These powers were also able to control how these conflicts were described, affecting the way foreigners perceived them and whether they decided to intercede. While the stories of these conflicts are now told separately, Sheehan-Dean argues, the participants understood them in relation to each other. When Union officials condemned secession, they pointed to the violence unleashed by the Indian Rebellion. When Confederates denounced Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant, they did so by comparing him to Tsar Alexander II. Sheehan-Dean demonstrates that the causes and issues of the Civil War were also global problems, revealing the important paradigms at work in the age of nineteenth-century nation-building. A volume in the series Frontiers of the American South, edited by William A. Link

During the Civil War, control of the Mississippi River was hotly contested by both the Union and Confederate armies. By late 1862, the South held only a 110-mile stretch of this vital waterway. Determined to defend this critical span, the Confederacy built two fortresses to defend it--Vicksburg on the north end, Port Hudson on the south. Drawing on the letters and memoirs of soldiers and officers on both sides, this book chronicles the brutal struggle for Port Hudson, Louisiana, beginning with Admiral Farragut's costly naval attack by the Union fleet, through the furious infantry assaults ordered by General Nathaniel Banks--including the first charge made by black troops in the Civil War--and finally to the 48-day siege itself. Among the most tragic campaigns of the war, it is recognized by historians as the longest siege in American military history.

The critical northern antebellum debate matched the rhetorical skills of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in an historic argument over the future of slavery in a westward-expanding America. Two years later, an equally historic oratorical showdown between secessionists and Unionists in Georgia generated as much popular interest south of the Mason-Dixon line, and perhaps had an even more profound immediate effect on the future of the United States. With Abraham Lincoln's "Black Republican" triumph in the presidential election of 1860 came ardent secessionist sentiment in the South. But Unionists were equally zealous and while South Carolina--a bastion of Disunionism since 1832--seemed certain to secede; the other fourteen slave states were far from decided. In the deep South, the road to disunion depended much on the actions of Georgia, a veritable microcosm of the divided South and geographically in the middle of the Cotton South. If Georgia went for the Union, secessionist South Carolina could be isolated. So in November of 1860 all the eyes of Dixie turned to tiny Milledgeville, pre-war capital of Georgia, for a legislative confrontation that would help chart the course toward civil war. In Secession Debated, William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson have for the first time collected the seven surviving speeches and public letters of this greatest of southern debates over disunion, providing today's reader with a unique window into a moment of American crisis. Introducing the debate and debaters in compelling fashion, the editors help bring to life a sleepy Southern town suddenly alive with importance as a divided legislature met to decide the fate of Georgia, and by extension, that of the nation. We hear myriad voices, among them the energetic and self-righteous governor Joseph E. Brown who, while a slaveholder and secessionist, was somewhat suspect as a native North Georgian; Alexander H. Stephens, the eloquent Unionist whose "calm dispassionate approach" ultimately backfired; and fiery secessionist Robert Toombs who, impatient with Brown's indecisiveness and the caution of the Unionists, shouted to legislators: "Give me the sword! but if you do not place it in my hands, before God! I will take it." The secessionists' Henry Benning and Thomas R.R. Cobb as well as the Unionists Benjamin Hill and Herschel Johnson also speak to us across the years, most with eloquence, all with the patriotic, passionate conviction that defined an era. In the end, the legislature adopted a convention bill which decreed a popular vote on the issue in early January, 1861. The election results were close, mirroring the intense debate of two months before: 51% of Georgians favored immediate secession, a slim margin which the propaganda-conscious Brown later inflated to 58%. On January 19th the Georgia Convention sanctioned secession in a 166-130 vote, and the imminent Confederacy had its Southern hinge. Secession Debated is a colorful and gripping tale told in the words of the actual participants, one which sheds new light on one of the great and hitherto neglected verbal showdowns in American history. It is essential to a full understanding of the origins of the war between the states.

A unique collection of facts, trivia, and lore about the US Civil War. Whether novice or buff, readers across the spectrum will find unique and entertaining bits of trivia, facts, and lore about key American Civil War battles and leaders in A Pocket History of the Civil War, a collection of the unusual from author Martin F.Graham. From the identification of key troop locations during seminal battles of the Civil War, to details about monuments, facts about Union and Confederate officers, readers will find myriad bits of fun and fascinating information in this unique collection. Quizzes peppered throughout the book allow readers to test their knowledge.