Led by the enthralling and controversial colonel Charles H. T. Collis, the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry was in many ways unique among the regiments serving in the Union Army. In Collis' Zouaves, Edward J. Hagerty reconstructs the Civil War experiences of this unusual group of soldiers who embraced the flamboyant uniform style made famous by the French army's Zouaves. Recruited in the summer of 1862 from Philadelphia and surrounding counties, the regiment battled Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley campaign and went on to participate in many of the major battles of the war, including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Petersburg.

Mrs. Collis was the companion of her husband during his American Civil War service. He raised a company of Zouaves at the outbreak of the war, which was later augmented to a regiment, the 114th Pennsylvania. Book also includes her account of a private interview with Abraham Lincoln (pages 19-22).

 The elite French Zouaves, with their distinctive, colorful uniforms, set an influential example for volunteer soldiers during the Civil War and continued to inspire American military units for a century. Hundreds of militia companies adopted the flamboyant uniform to emulate the gallantry and martial tradition of the Zouaves. Drawing on fifty years of research, this volume provides a comprehensive state-by-state catalog of American Zouave units, richly illustrated with rare and previously unpublished photographs and drawings. The author dispels many misconceptions and errors that have persisted over the last 150 years.

Though little known today by the public-at-large and historians alike, the armies clashing at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863, were not just wearing blue and gray. This work, by Shaun Grenan, looks at the formation, uniforms, and actions on the field of battle of the famed Zouave regiments at the Battle of Gettysburg and beyond. Learn about the formation of the original French units in North Africa, the epitome of American Zouaves - Elmer Ellsworth, and detailed accounts of the actions of the Zouave regiments at the Battle of Gettysburg, in places such as the Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, the Bloody Angle, and more. Brilliantly illustrated by artist Mark Maritato, this book is the end-result of 20 years of research on the part played by regiments in Zouave-name and/or uniforms at the bloody and epic Battle of Gettysburg.

Archival images and biographical sketches of Union soldiers tell the stories of their lives during and after the Civil War. Before leaving to fight in the Civil War, many Union and Confederate soldiers posed for a carte de visite, or visiting card, to give to their families, friends, or sweethearts. Invented in 1854 by a French photographer, the carte de visite was a small photographic print roughly the size of a modern trading card. The format arrived in America on the eve of the Civil War, fueling intense demand for the keepsakes. Many cards of Civil War soldiers survive today, but the experiences?and often the names?of the individuals portrayed have been lost to time. A passionate collector of Civil War–era photography, Ron Coddington researched the history behind these anonymous faces in military records, pension files, and other public and personal documents. In Faces of the Civil War, Coddington presents 77 cartes de visite of Union soldiers from his collection and tells the stories of their lives during and after the war. These soldiers came from all walks of life. All were volunteers. Their personal stories reveal a tremendous diversity in their experience of war: many served with distinction, some were captured, some never saw combat while others saw little else. The lives of survivors were even more disparate. While some made successful transitions back to civilian life, others suffered permanent physical and mental disabilities, which too often wrecked their families and careers. In compelling words and haunting pictures, Faces of the Civil War offers a unique perspective on the most dramatic and wrenching period in American history.

Full-color paperback features specific branch of service and type of soldier.

A historian's investigation of the life and times of Gen. George Gordon Meade to discover why the hero of Gettysburg has failed to achieve the status accorded to other generals of the conflict.

This timely addition to Civil War history shares the stories of 25 unique military organizations, showing how past and future collided in the first modern war. The Civil War, of course, pitted North against South. It also pitted ancient ways of war against new, technology-inspired weaponry and tactics. In surveying the war's elite fighting units, this work covers both. The book showcases novel weapons and unorthodox strategies, including machine gunners, rocket battalions, chemical corps, the Union balloon corps, and the Confederate submarine service, all of which harnessed new technologies and were forerunners of the modern military. Chapters also cover archaic special forces, such as lancers and pikers, that had their last hurrah during this transformational conflict. Readers will also meet the fighting youth of the North Carolina Junior Reserves, the "Graybeards" of North Carolina, and the female combatants of the Nancy Harts Militia of Georgia. Going where few other studies have gone, the book fills a gap in existing Civil War literature and brings to life the stories of many of the most extraordinary units that ever served in an American army. The tales it tells will prove fascinating to Civil War and weapons buffs and to general readers alike.

There is “never a dull moment” in this “excellent account” of an overlooked Confederate triumph during the Civil War’s Battle of Gettysburg (San Francisco Book Review). While many Civil War buffs celebrate Picket’s Charge as the climactic moment of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate Army’s true high point had come the afternoon before. When Longstreet’s corps triumphantly entered the battle, the Federals just barely held on. The foremost Rebel spearhead on that second day of the battle was Brig. Gen. William Barksdale’s Mississippi brigade, which launched what one Union observer called the “grandest charge that was ever seen by mortal man.” On the second day of Gettysburg, 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. When Longstreet finally gave Barksdale the go-ahead, the Mississippians utterly crushed the peach orchard salient and continued marauding up to Cemetery Ridge. Hancock, Meade, and other Union generals 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 day’s fight as the shaken, depleted Federal units took stock. They had barely held on against the full ferocity of the Rebels on a day that would decide the fate of the nation.