“Help[s] readers to examine this period in history with a more cultural perspective than other books have . . . clear, concise, and crisp . . . fascinating” (San Francisco Book Review). • During the final days of the war, some Richmond citizens would throw “Starvation Parties,” soirees at which elegantly attired guests gathered amid the finest silver and crystal tableware, though there were usually no refreshments except water. • Union Rear-Admiral Goldsborough was nicknamed “Old Guts,” not so much for his combativeness as for his heft—weighing about three hundred pounds, he was described as “a huge mass of inert matter.” • 30.6 percent of the 425 Confederate generals, but only 21.6 percent of the 583 Union generals, had been lawyers before the war. • In 1861, J.P. Morgan made a huge profit by buying five thousand condemned US Army carbines and selling them back to another arsenal—taking the army to court when they tried to refuse to pay for the faulty weapons. • Major General Loring was reputed to have so rich a vocabulary that one of the men remarked he could “curse a cannon up hill without horses.” • Many militia units had a favorite drink—the Charleston Light Dragoons’ punch took around a week to make, while the Chatham Artillery required a pound of green tea leaves be steeped overnight. • There were five living former presidents when the Civil War began, and seven veterans of the war, plus one draft dodger, went on to serve as president. These stories and many more can be found in this treasury of anecdotes, essays, trivia, and much more—including numerous illustrations—that bring this historical period to vivid life.

What makes the Civil War so fascinating is that it presents an endless number of "what if" scenarios—moments when the outcome of the war (and therefore world history) hinged on a single small mistake or omission. In this book, Civil War historian Edward Bonekemper highlights the ten biggest Civil War blunders, focusing in on intimate moments of military indecision and inaction involving great generals like Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and William T. Sherman as well as less effective generals such as George B. McClellan, Benjamin Butler, and Henry W. Halleck. Bonekemper shows how these ten blunders significantly affected the outcome of the war, and explores how history might easily have been very different if these blunders were avoided.

The life and times of the extraordinary Octavius Catto, and the first civil rights movement in America.

Nelson Lankford draws upon Civil War-era diaries, letters, memoirs, and newspaper reports to vividly recapture the experiences of the men and women, both black and white, who witnessed the tumultuous fall of Richmond. In April 1865 General Robert E. Lee realized that his army must retreat from the Confederate capital and that Jefferson Davis's government must flee. As the Southern soldiers moved out they set the city on fire, leaving a blazing ruin to greet the entering Union troops. The city's fall ushered in the birth of the modern United States. Lankford's exploration of this pivotal event is at once an authoritative work of history and a stunning piece of dramatic prose.