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Victor Hicken tells the richly detailed story of the common soldiers who marched from Illinois to fight and die on Civil War battlefields. The second edition of the 1966 classic includes a new preface, twenty-four illustrations, and a twenty-five-page addendum to the bibliography that provides many new sources of information on Illinois regiments.

John A. Logan, called "Black Jack" by the men he led in Civil War battles from the Henry-Donelson campaign to Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and on to Atlanta, was one of the Union Army’s most colorful generals. James Pickett Jones places Logan in his southern Illinois surroundings as he examines the role of the political soldier in the Civil War. When Logan altered his stance on national issues, so did the southern part of the state. Although secession, civil strife, Copperheadism, and the new attitudes created by the war contributed to this change of position in southern Illinois, Logan’s role as political and military leader was important in the region’s swing to strong support of the war against the Confederacy, to the policies of Lincoln, and eventually, to the Republican party.

The bloody two-week siege of Spanish Fort, Alabama (March 26–April 8, 1865) was one of the final battles of the Civil War. Despite its importance and fascinating history, surprisingly little has been written about it. Many considered the fort as the key to holding the important seaport of Mobile, which surrendered to Maj. Gen. Edward R. S. Canby on April 12, 1865. Paul Brueske’s “Digging All Night and Fighting All Day”: The Civil War Siege of Spanish Fort and the Mobile Campaign, 1865 is the first full-length study of this subject. General U. S. Grant had long set his eyes on capturing Mobile. Its fall would eliminate the vital logistical center and put one of the final nails in the coffin of the Confederacy. On January 18, 1865, Grant ordered General Canby to move against Mobile, Montgomery, and Selma and destroy anything useful to the enemy’s war effort. The reduction of Spanish Fort, along with Fort Blakeley—the primary obstacles to taking Mobile—was a prerequisite to capturing the city. After the devastating Tennessee battles of Franklin and Nashville in late 1864, many Federals believed Mobile’s garrison—which included a few battered brigades and most of the artillery units from the Army of Tennessee—did not have much fight left and would evacuate the city rather than fight. They did not. Despite being outnumbered about 10 to 1, 33-year-old Brig. Gen. Randall Lee Gibson mounted a skillful and spirited defense that “considerably astonished” his Union opponents. The siege and battle that unfolded on the rough and uneven bluffs of Mobile Bay’s eastern shore, fought mainly by veterans of the principal battles of the Western Theater, witnessed every offensive and defensive art known to war. Paul Brueske, a graduate student of history at the University of South Alabama, marshaled scores of primary source materials, including letters, diaries, reports, and newspaper accounts to produce an outstanding study of a little known but astonishingly important event rife with acts of heroism that rivaled any battle of the war. It will proudly occupy a space on the bookshelf of any serious student of the war.

Examines the development of weapons satellites which are not yet in use but which, when deployed, can use laser beams to attack large targets, disrupt the weather, or eliminate nuclear missiles in flight.