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Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War
by David Detzer
Book Description: Foreword by Gene Smith, author of Lee and GrantAn original and deeply human portrait of soldiers and civilians caught in the vortex of war. So vividly does Allegiance re-create the events leading to the firing of the first shot of the Civil War on April 12, 1861, that we can feel the fabric of the Union tearing apart. It is a tense and surprising story, filled with indecisive bureaucrats, uninformed leaders, hot-headed politicians, and dedicated and honorable soldiers on both sides.
The six-month-long agony that began with Lincoln's election in November sputtered from one crisis to the next until Lincoln's inauguration, and finally exploded as the soldiers at Sumter neared starvation. At the center of this dramatic narrative is the heroic figure of Major Robert Anderson, a soldier whose experience had taught him above all that war is the poorest form of policy. With little help from Washington, D.C., Anderson almost single-handedly forestalled the beginning of the war until he finally had no choice but to fight.
David Detzer's decade-long research illuminates the passions that led to the fighting, the sober reflections of the man who restrained its outbreak, and individuals on both sides who changed American history. No other historian has given us a clearer or more intimate picture of the human drama of Fort Sumter.
Hardcover from Harcourt
A Black Woman's Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp With the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, Late 1st South Carolina Volunteers
by Susie King Taylor, Patricia W. Romero, Willie Lee Rose
Paperback from Markus Wiener Pub
1988
Special OrderCarrying the Flag: The Story of the Confederacy's Unlikely Hero at the Battle of Spotsylvania
by Gordon C. Rhea
Book Description
The story of Private Charles Whilden, a hapless South Carolinian whose bravery at the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864 prolonged the Civil War for the Confederates
For forty years, Charles Whilden lived a life noteworthy for failure. Then, in a remarkable chain of events, this aging, epileptic desk clerk from Charleston found himself plunged into the brutal battlefields of the Wilderness (May 57, 1864) and Spotsylvania Court House (May 820, 1864). In an astonishing act of bravery, he wrapped the flag around his body and led a charge that won critical ground for the Confederates, changing the course of one of the war's most significant battles.Gordon C. Rhea combines his deep knowledge of Civil War history with original sources, such as a treasure trove of letters written by Charles Whilden, to tell the story of this unusual life. Growing up in a prominent family that had fallen on hard times, Charles received a good education, and his letters reveal flashes of intelligence. But he failed at the practice of law in his home state and in his endeavors elsewhere, including copper speculation, real estate ventures, and farming. After the attack on Fort Sumter, Charles returned to Charleston to enlist in Confederate service, only to be turned down until the rebellion was on its last legs. Even then he saw only a few weeks of combat. But in that time, he discovered a bravery within himself that nothing in his former existence suggested he had.
Hardcover from Basic Books
Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina
by Steven A. Channing
Paperback from W.W. Norton & Company
1974Confederate Charleston: An Illustrated History of the City and the People During the Civil War
by Robert N. Rosen
Hardcover from University of South Carolina Press
1994The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina
by Manisha Sinha
Paperback from Univ of North Carolina Pr
The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Women's Rights and Abolition
by Gerda Lerner
Paperback from Oxford Univ Pr on Demand
Far, Far from Home: The Wartime Letters of Dick and Tally Simpson Third South Carolina Volunteers
by Guy R. Everson, Edward W. Simpson, Carol Bleser
Paperback from Oxford Univ Pr on Demand
1994Flags of Civil War South Carolina
by Glenn Dedmondt
Paperback from Pelican Pub Co
The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (Civil War America)
by John C. Inscoe, Gordon B. McKinney
Paperback from Univ of North Carolina Pr
From the Ashes of Ruin
Flags of Civil War South Carolina
by Glenn Dedmondt
Paperback from Pelican Pub Co
by Miriam Freeman Rawl
Hardcover from Summerhouse Press
Let Us Meet in Heaven: The Civil War Letters of James Michael Barr, 5th South Carolina Cavalry
by James Michael Barr, Thomas D. Mays
Hardcover from McWhiney Foundation Pr
Manse: (One Man's War): A Biography Based on the Life and Legend of Manson Sherrill Jolly
by Wilton Earle
Hardcover from Adept
Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860
by Lacy K. Ford
Paperback from Oxford University Press
1991Pinpoint Guide to North Carolina & South Carolina Civil War Sites (Pinpoint Guides to Civil War Sites)
by Ray Jones, Jeff Slaton, James J. Condra
Paperback from Crane Hill Publishers
Plantations of the Carolina Low Country
by Samuel Gaillard Stoney
Paperback from Dover Pubns
1990Portrait of the Past : The Civil War on Hatteras Island North Carolina
by Drew Pullen, Robert V. Drapala, Katherine P. Zaremba
Hardcover from Aerial Perspective
Queen of the Confederacy: The Innocent Deceits of Lucy Holcombe Pickens
by Elizabeth Wittenmyer Lewis
Hardcover from University of North Texas Press
Touring the Carolinas' Civil War Sites (Touring the Backroads)
by Clint Johnson
Paperback from John F Blair Pub
The Young Lions: Confederate Cadets at War
by James Lee Conrad
Hardcover from Stackpole Books
A Woman Rice Planter (Southern Classics Series)
by Elizabeth Allston Pringle, Alice R. Huger Smith, Charles Joyner, Patience Pennington
Paperback from University of South Carolina Press
1992Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine
Audio Download from audible.comRehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment
by Willie Lee Nichols Rose, C. Vann Woodward
Paperback from University of Georgia Press
A Rising Star of Promise: The Civil War Odyssey of David Jackson Logan, 17th South Carolina Volunteers, 1861-1864 (Battles & Campaigns of the Carolinas)
by David Jackson Logan, Jason H. Silverman, Samuel N. Thomas
Hardcover from DaCapo Press
A Union Officer in the Reconstruction
by John William de Forest, James H. Croushore, David Morris Potter
Paperback from Louisiana State University Press
Special OrderA World Turned Upside Down: The Palmers of South Santee, 1818-1881
by Louis P. Towles
Listed under South Carolina GenealogyEnlisted for the War: The Struggles of the Gallant 24th Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, Infantry, 1861-1865
by Eugene W. Jones
Hardcover from Longstreet House
Out of Print - Try Used BooksNo Chariot Let Down: Charleston's Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War
by Michael P. Johnson, James L. Roark
Hardcover from Univ of North Carolina Pr
1900
Out of Print - Try Used Books
American Civil War - State History
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