Richard McMurry compares the two largest Confederate armies, assessing why Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was more successful than the Army of Tennessee. His bold conclusion is that Lee's army was a better army--not just one with a better high command. "Sheds new light on how the South lost the Civil War.--American Historical Review "McMurry's mastery of the literature is impressive, and his clear and succinct writing style is a pleasure to read. . . . Comparison of the two great rebel armies offers valuable insights into the difficulties of the South's military situation.--Maryland Historian

The State of North Carolina was not as quick or eager to secede from the Union as her southern neighbors. However, after the firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and President Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops, the Old North State joined those already fighting for independence. North Carolina contributed and sacrificed more men for the Confederate cause than any other state. The first Confederate soldier killed in the war was a North Carolinian; North Carolina regiments made it farther into Union lines at Gettysburg and Chickamauga; and North Carolinians captured the last Union artillery battery, made the last charge, fired the last volley, and surrendered the last man at Appomattox Court House. North Carolina proudly earned the label: First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, Last at Appomattox. Confederate Military History of North Carolina recounts the contribution and sacrifice of North Carolinians made while serving in the Army of North Virginia and the great battles in which it participated-Big Bethel, 1st and 2nd Manassas, The Peninsula Campaign, Seven Days battles, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Bristoe Station, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Early's Valley Campaign, Petersburg, Appomattox, and many more. North Carolinians gallantly protected their state throughout the war, from Burnside's Expedition, to the battles of Fort Fisher and Kinston, and Sherman's Carolinas Campaign, ending with the battles of Averasboro and Bentonville. A few Tar Heel regiments fought in the West, seeing action at Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, and the Atlanta Campaign.

Few wartime cities in Virginia held more importance than Petersburg. Nonetheless, the city has, until now, lacked an adequate military history, let alone a history of the civilian home front. The noted Civil War historian A. Wilson Greene now provides an expertly researched, eloquently written study of the city that was second only to Richmond in size and strategic significance. Industrial, commercial, and extremely prosperous, Petersburg was also home to a large African American community, including the state's highest percentage of free blacks. On the eve of the Civil War, the city elected a conservative, pro-Union approach to the sectional crisis. Little more than a month before Virginia's secession did Petersburg finally express pro-Confederate sentiments, at which point the city threw itself wholeheartedly into the effort, with large numbers of both white and black men serving. Over the next four years, Petersburg's citizens watched their once-beautiful city become first a conduit for transient soldiers from the Deep South, then an armed camp, and finally the focus of one of the Civil War's most protracted and damaging campaigns. (The fall of Richmond and collapse of the Confederate war effort in Virginia followed close on Grant's ultimate success in Petersburg.) At war's end, Petersburg's antebellum prosperity evaporated under pressures from inflation, chronic shortages, and the extensive damage done by Union artillery shells. Greene's book tracks both Petersburg's civilian experience and the city's place in Confederate military strategy and administration. Employing scores of unpublished sources, the book weaves a uniquely personal story of thousands of citizens--free blacks, slaves and their holders, factory owners, merchants--all of whom shared a singular experience in Civil War Virginia.

The Confederate army went to war to defend a nation of slaveholding states, and although men rushed to recruiting stations for many reasons, they understood that the fundamental political issue at stake in the conflict was the future of slavery. Most Confederate soldiers were not slaveholders themselves, but they were products of the largest and most prosperous slaveholding civilization the world had ever seen, and they sought to maintain clear divisions between black and white, master and servant, free and slave. In Marching Masters Colin Woodward explores not only the importance of slavery in the minds of Confederate soldiers but also its effects on military policy and decision making. Beyond showing how essential the defense of slavery was in motivating Confederate troops to fight, Woodward examines the Rebels’ persistent belief in the need to defend slavery and deploy it militarily as the war raged on. Slavery proved essential to the Confederate war machine, and Rebels strove to protect it just as they did Southern cities, towns, and railroads. Slaves served by the tens of thousands in the Southern armies—never as soldiers, but as menial laborers who cooked meals, washed horses, and dug ditches. By following Rebel troops' continued adherence to notions of white supremacy into the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, the book carries the story beyond the Confederacy’s surrender. Drawing upon hundreds of soldiers’ letters, diaries, and memoirs, Marching Masters combines the latest social and military history in its compelling examination of the last bloody years of slavery in the United States.

In v. 1-11 each state has at end a "Biographical" section; "Additional sketches illustrating the services of officers and privates and patriotic citizens" are appended in v. 2 (Maryland, p. 185-447; West Virginia, p. 139-296) ; in v. 3 (Virginia) p. 693-1295 ; in v. 4 (North Carolina) p. 355-813; in v. 5 (South Carolina) p. 425-931. 1. Curry, J. L. M.; Legal justification of the South in secession. Garrett, W.R.; The South as a factor in the territorial expansion of the United States. Evans, C. A.; The Civil history of the Confederate States.--2. Johnson, B. T.; Maryland. White, Robert; West Virginia.--3. Hotchkiss, Jed; Virginia.--4. Hill, D. H. Jr.; North Carolina.--5. Capers, Ellison; South Carolina.--6. Derry, J. T.; Georgia.--7. Wheeler, Joseph; Alabama. Hooker, C. E.; Mississippi.--8. Porter, J. D.; Tennessee.--9. Johnston, J. S.; Kentucky. Moore, J. C.; Missouri.--10. Dimitry, John; Louisiana. Harrell, J. M.; Arkansas.--11. Roberts, O. M.; Texas. Dickinson, J. J.; Florida.--12. Parker, W. H.; The Confederate States navy. Jones, J. W.; The morale of the Confederate armies. Evans, C. A.; An outline of Confederate military history. Lee, S. D.; The South since the war. Documental and statistical appendix.

The Army of Northern Virginia's chaotic dispersal began even before Lee and Grant met at Appomattox Court House. As the Confederates had pushed west at a relentless pace for nearly a week, thousands of wounded and exhausted men fell out of the ranks. When word spread that Lee planned to surrender, most remaining troops stacked their arms and accepted paroles allowing them to return home, even as they lamented the loss of their country and cause. But others broke south and west, hoping to continue the fight. Fearing a guerrilla war, Grant extended the generous Appomattox terms to every rebel who would surrender himself. Provost marshals fanned out across Virginia and beyond, seeking nearly 18,000 of Lee's men who had yet to surrender. But the shock of Lincoln's assassination led Northern authorities to see threats of new rebellion in every rail depot and harbor where Confederates gathered for transport, even among those already paroled. While Federal troops struggled to keep order and sustain a fragile peace, their newly surrendered adversaries seethed with anger and confusion at the sight of Union troops occupying their towns and former slaves celebrating freedom. In this dramatic new history of the weeks and months after Appomattox, Caroline E. Janney reveals that Lee's surrender was less an ending than the start of an interregnum marked by military and political uncertainty, legal and logistical confusion, and continued outbursts of violence. Janney takes readers from the deliberations of government and military authorities to the ground-level experiences of common soldiers. Ultimately, what unfolds is the messy birth narrative of the Lost Cause, laying the groundwork for the defiant resilience of rebellion in the years that followed.

In the first comprehensive study of the experience of Virginia soldiers and their families in the Civil War, Aaron Sheehan-Dean captures the inner world of the rank-and-file. Utilizing new statistical evidence and first-person narratives, Sheehan-Dean explores how Virginia soldiers--even those who were nonslaveholders--adapted their vision of the war's purpose to remain committed Confederates. Sheehan-Dean challenges earlier arguments that middle- and lower-class southerners gradually withdrew their support for the Confederacy because their class interests were not being met. Instead he argues that Virginia soldiers continued to be motivated by the profound emotional connection between military service and the protection of home and family, even as the war dragged on. The experience of fighting, explains Sheehan-Dean, redefined southern manhood and family relations, established the basis for postwar race and class relations, and transformed the shape of Virginia itself. He concludes that Virginians' experience of the Civil War offers important lessons about the reasons we fight wars and the ways that those reasons can change over time.

"The Battle of New Market, though a smaller conflict, represented a crucial moment in the Union's offensive movements in the spring of 1864 and became the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The results of the battle between Franz Sigel and John C. Breckinridge - with the Virginia Military Institute Cadets pushing the conflict in the Confederates' favor - altered the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and the course of the American Civil War in Virginia."--Provided by publisher.