The 1862 battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas was one of the largest Civil War engagements fought on the western frontier, and it dramatically altered the balance of power in the Trans-Mississippi. This study of the battle is based on research in archives from Connecticut to California and includes a pioneering study of the terrain of the ......
Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. FrEmont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of. His adventures are fit for remaking into the tall tales Bridger himself liked to tell. Here, in a biography ......
The State of Emancipation after the Freedmen's Bureau
This book offers the definitive history of how formerly enslaved men and women pursued federal benefits from the Civil War to the New Deal and, in the process, transformed themselves from a stateless people into documented citizens. As claimants, Black southerners engaged an array of federal agencies. Their encounters with the more familiar ......
Debating Drinking and Masculinity in the Civil War
Liquor was essential to military culture as well as healthcare regimens in both the Union and Confederate armies. But its widespread use and misuse caused severe disruptions as unruly drunken soldiers and officers stumbled down roads and through towns, colliding with civilians. The problems surrounding liquor prompted debates among military ......
Outstanding in appearance, discipline, and precision at drill, the Third Minnesota Volunteer Infantry was often mistaken for a regular army unit. Rebel Colonel Ponder described the regiment as "the hardest lot of men he'd ever run against." Betrayed by its higher commanders, the Third Minnesota was surrendered to Nathan Bedford Forrest on July 13, ......
Winner, Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Prize, 2018 Winner, ISHS Annual Award for a Scholarly Publication, 2018 Abraham Lincoln was the first president to make storytelling, jokes, and laughter tools of the office, and his natural sense of humor has become legendary. Lincoln's Sense of Humor registers the variety, complexity of purpose, and ......
Seeing the Conflict through the Eyes of Its Leading Historians
Much has been written about place and Civil War memory, but how do we personally remember and commemorate this part of our collective past? How do battlefields and other historic places help us understand our own history? What kinds of places are worth remembering and why? In this collection of essays, some of the most esteemed historians of the ......
Although Appomattox Court House is one of the most symbolically charged places in America, it was an ordinary tobacco-growing village both before and after an accident of fate brought the armies of Lee and Grant together there. It is that Appomattox-the typical small Confederate community-that William Marvel portrays in this deeply researched, ......
After the feverish mobilization of secession had faded, why did Southern men join the Confederate army? Kenneth Noe examines the motives and subsequent performance of ""later enlisters."" He offers a nuanced view of men who have often been cast as less patriotic and less committed to the cause, rekindling the debate over who these later enlistees ......
