John W. Green (1841-1920), an enlisted man with Kentucky's famed Confederate Orphan Brigade throughout the Civil War, fought at Shiloh, Baton Rouge, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Atlanta and many other crucial battles. An acute observer with a flair for humanizing the impersonal horror of war, he kept a record of his experiences, and penned an exciting front-line account of America's defining trial by fire. Albert D. Kirwan provides a brief history of the Orphan Brigade and a biography of Johnny Green. Introductions to each chapter explain references in the journal and also set the context for the major campaigns.

On September 18, 1861, ominous sounds of battle thundering in the distance, the Kentucky legislature voted to align itself with the Union. It was a decision which tore at the heart of the state, splitting apart families and severing friendships. For the newly formed First Kentucky Brigade, it marked a four-year separation from the beloved homeland. Fiercely independent to the end, these men would fight for the cause of the South. With their first march into battle, they became outcasts from their mother state — orphans in the raging strife of civil war. William C. Davis has written a gripping story of the rebel troops whose remarkable spirit and tenacity were heralded throughout the Confederacy. The First Kentucky Brigade was “baptized in fire and blood” at the Battle of Shiloh and went on to serve with great distinction at Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, Chickamauga, and the fight for Atlanta. In this vivid narrative, the author captures the searing drama of each battle, as well as the unbearable drudgery of the months between. We see men of all backgrounds and ranks coming to grips with the war: some of them, renowned leaders such as John C. Breckinridge; others, young soldiers learning the horror of death for the first time. Drawing from a wealth of documents, memoirs, personal letters, and journals, Davis brings to life the fascinating history of the Civil War’s “Orphan Brigade.”

The Kentuckian's of the Confederate Army The Orphan Brigade was the nickname given to the First Kentucky Brigade―the largest brigade to be recruited in the state consisting of the 2nd,3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th Confederate Infantry regiments―during the American Civil War. Its original commander was the popular John C. Breckinridge who had been a U.S Vice-President. The brigade fought in many engagements during the war. Most notably at the Battle of Stones River where after a particularly costly assault, General Braxton Bragg lamented as he saw the battered survivors, 'Oh, my poor orphans'. This sobriquet was reputedly derived from the fact that whilst Kentucky itself remained within the Union, its soldiers served both causes and the state was represented by a star on the national flags of both protagonists. The 'orphan' appellation was not widely used during the war but, promoted by Thompson, the unit's historian, became popular among veterans afterwards. This special Leonaur edition contains a well-regarded first-hand account and a history of the unit edited from Thompson's more expansive volume. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

The Civil War journal of John Jackman is one of the richest and most literate of all Confederate soldier narratives to survive the war. It is also the only surviving war period diary of a soldier in the famed First Kentucky or orphan Brigade. Jackman follows his brigade across the war-torn South, from Shiloh to Vicksburg, to Baton Rouge, through all the battles for Tennessee, and on through the Atlanta Campaign and the resistance to Sherman's march to the sea. Jackman is an observer right up to the end, when Jefferson Davis and his fleeing cabinet meet for the last time at Washington, Georgia. Written with wit and insight, and unfailingly entertaining. Jackman's journal catches the spirit of the common soldier of the Confederacy in camp and field, as well as some of the excitement and confusion of battle. His opinions are frank, his prejudices few, and his warm and generous nature show through in his remarks on his fellow orphans. Especially significant for its behind-the-lines vignettes of the Army of Tennessee, this journal is one of the most important soldier journals to come from that troubled yet fascinating army.

October 11, 1864. The Civil War rages on in Kentucky, where Union and Confederate loyalties have turned neighbors into enemies and once-proud soldiers into drifters, thieves, and outlaws. Stephen Gano Burbridge, radical Republican and military commander of the district of Kentucky, has declared his own war on this new class of marauding guerrillas, and his weekly executions at Louisville's public commons draw both crowds and widespread criticism. In this time of fear and division, a Kentucky journalist created a legend: Sue Mundy, female guerrilla, a "she-devil" and "tigress" who was leading her band of outlaws across the state in an orgy of greed and bloodshed. Though the "Sue Mundy" of the papers was created as an affront to embarrass Union authorities, the man behind the woman—twenty-year-old Marcellus Jerome Clarke—was later brought to account for "her" crimes. Historians have pieced together clues about this orphan from southern Kentucky whose idealism and later disillusionment led him to his fate, but Richard Taylor's work of imagination makes this history flesh—an exciting story of the Civil War told from the perspective of one of its most enigmatic figures. Sue Mundy opens in 1861, when fifteen-year-old Jerome Clark, called "Jarom," leaves everyone he loves—his aunt, his adopted family, his sweetheart—to follow his older cousin into the Confederate infantry. There, confronted by the hardships of what he slowly understands is a losing fight, Jarom's romanticized notions of adventure and heroism are crushed under the burdens of hunger, sleepless nights, and mindless atrocities. Captured by Union forces and imprisoned in Camp Morton, Jarom makes a daring escape, crossing the Ohio River under cover of darkness and finding refuge and refreshed patriotic zeal first in Adam R. Johnson's Tenth Kentucky Calvary, then among General John Hunt Morgan's infamous brigade. Morgan's shocking death in 1864 proves a bad omen for the Confederate cause, as members of his group of raiders scatter—some to rejoin organized forces, others, like Jarom, to opt for another, less civilized sort of warfare. Displaced and desperate for revenge, Jarom and his band of Confederate deserters wreak havoc in Kentucky: a rampage of senseless murder and thievery in an uncertain quest to inflict punishment on Union sympathizers. Long-locked and clean-shaven, Jarom is mistakenly labeled female by the media—but Sue Mundy is about more than the transformation of a man into a woman, and then a legend. Ironically, Sue Mundy becomes the persona by which Jarom's darkest self is revealed, and perhaps redeemed.

First Lieutenant Cushing was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by the pPresident of the United States on November 6, 2014, 151 years after his death at the Angle at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, where he commanded Battery A, Fourth United States Artillery. He is likely the last Civil War soldier to who will be so honored. Although many individuals were involved in the effort to give the Medal of Honor to Cushing, this book, first published in 1993, played a critical role.

More than just a military history, Walsh's narrative about Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia digs deeper, revealing the humanity of the general and his lieutenants as never before. "One of the best books on the war's eastern theater in some time."--"Booklist."