For generations of Americans, the word Antietam - the name of a bucolic stream in western Maryland - held the same sense of horror and carnage that the date 9/11 does for Americans today. But Antietam eclipses even this modern tragedy as America's single bloodiest day, on which 22,000 men became casualties in a war to determine our nation's future.

Although he took command of the Army of the Potomac only three days before the first shots were fired at Gettysburg, Union general George G. Meade guided his forces to victory in the Civil War's most pivotal battle. Commentators often dismiss Meade when discussing the great leaders of the Civil War. But in this long-anticipated book, Kent Masterson Brown draws on an expansive archive to reappraise Meade's leadership during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River. It prevented the Union from using the river for shipping between the Union-controlled Midwest and New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Union navy tried to take Vicksburg, which sat on a high bluff overlooking the river, but couldn't do it. It took Grant's army and Admiral David Porter's navy to successfully invade Mississippi and lay siege to Vicksburg, forcing the city to surrender.

You think you know what you want in life. You've tried to achieve those things. But if you still don't have them, the culprit may be closer than you think. In this perspective-altering program, the world-renowned Pitbull of Personal Development(tm), Larry Winget, exposes the things you are doing right now to unknowingly prevent your own success in the most important areas of your life.

The American Civil War is often called the first “modern war.” Sandwiched between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, it spawned a host of “firsts” and is considered a precursor to the larger and more deadly 20th century wars. Confederate Gen. James Longstreet made overlooked but profound modern contributions to the art of war. Retired Lt. Col. Harold M. Knudsen explains what Longstreet did and how he did it in James Longstreet and the American Civil War: The Confederate General Who Fought the Next War.

The struggle over the fortified Confederate position known as Spotsylvania's Mule Shoe was without parallel during the Civil War. A Union assault that began at 4:30 A.M. on May 12, 1864, sparked brutal combat that lasted nearly twenty-four hours. By the time Grant's forces withdrew, some 55,000 men from Union and Confederate armies had been drawn into the fury, battling in torrential rain along the fieldworks at distances often less than the length of a rifle barrel. One Union private recalled the fighting as a "seething, bubbling, soaring hell of hate and murder."

From the acclaimed Civil War historian, a brilliant new history–the most intimate and richly readable account we have had–of the climactic three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), which draws the reader into the heat, smoke, and grime of Gettysburg alongside the ordinary soldier, and depicts the combination of personalities and circumstances that produced the greatest battle of the Civil War, and one of the greatest in human history.

December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln's government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country's law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American.

A collection of 10 new essays from some of our finest Civil War historians working today, Gateway to the Confederacy offers a reexamination of the campaigns fought to gain possession of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Each essay addresses how Americans have misconstrued the legacy of these struggles and why scholars feel it necessary to reconsider one of the most critical turning points of the American Civil War.

One of the most important and objective firsthand accounts of the Civil War. Unlike some other Confederate memoirists, General Edward Porter Alexander objectively evaluated and criticized prominent Confederate officers, including Robert E. Lee. The result is a clear-eyed assessment of the bloody conflict that divided but subsequently united the nation.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian's acclaimed Civil War history of the complex man and controversial Union commander whose battlefield brilliance ensured the downfall of the Confederacy. Preeminent Civil War historian Bruce Catton narrows his focus on commander Ulysses S. Grant, whose bold tactics and relentless dedication to the Union ultimately ensured a Northern victory in the nation's bloodiest conflict.

On October 8, 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed near Perryville, Kentucky, in what would be the largest battle ever fought on Kentucky soil. The climax of a campaign that began two months before in Northern Mississippi, Perryville came to be recognized as the high water mark of the western Confederacy. Some said the hard-fought battle, forever remembered by participants for its sheer savagery and for their commanders' confusion, was the worst battle of the war, losing the last chance to bring the Commonwealth into the Confederacy.

A magnificent history of the opening years of the Civil War by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Bruce Catton. The first book in Bruce Catton's Pulitzer Prize-winning Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Mr. Lincoln's Army is a riveting history of the early years of the Civil War, when a fledgling Union Army took its stumbling first steps under the command of the controversial general George McClellan.

Licensed battlefield guide James Hessler has produced the most deeply-researched, full-length biography to appear on this remarkable American icon. No individual who fought at Gettysburg was more controversial, both personally and professionally, than Major General Daniel E. Sickles. For Civil War enthusiasts who want to understand General Sickles’ scandalous life, Gettysburg’s battlefield strategies, the in-fighting within the Army of the Potomac, and the development of today’s National Park will find Sickles at Gettysburg it is a must-listen.

William C. Davis, one of America’s best Civil War historians, here offers a definitive portrait of the Confederacy unlike any that has come before. Drawing on decades of writing and research among an unprecedented number of archives, Look Away! tells the story of the Confederate States of America not simply as a military saga (although it is that), but rather as a full portrait of a society and incipient nation.

One of the most important and objective firsthand accounts of the Civil War. Unlike some other Confederate memoirists, General Edward Porter Alexander objectively evaluated and criticized prominent Confederate officers, including Robert E. Lee. The result is a clear-eyed assessment of the bloody conflict that divided but subsequently united the nation.

For generations of Americans, the word Antietam - the name of a bucolic stream in western Maryland - held the same sense of horror and carnage that the date 9/11 does for Americans today. But Antietam eclipses even this modern tragedy as America's single bloodiest day, on which 22,000 men became casualties in a war to determine our nation's future.

Licensed battlefield guide James Hessler has produced the most deeply-researched, full-length biography to appear on this remarkable American icon. No individual who fought at Gettysburg was more controversial, both personally and professionally, than Major General Daniel E. Sickles. For Civil War enthusiasts who want to understand General Sickles’ scandalous life, Gettysburg’s battlefield strategies, the in-fighting within the Army of the Potomac, and the development of today’s National Park will find Sickles at Gettysburg it is a must-listen.

"Lee Is Trapped, and Must Be Taken": Eleven Fateful Days After Gettysburg: July 4 to July 14, 1863 focuses on the immediate aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg and addresses how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac in response to President Abraham Lincoln's mandate to bring about the "literal or substantial destruction" of Gen. Robert E. Lee's retreating Army of Northern Virginia.

From master historian William C. Davis, the definitive story of the Battle of New Orleans, the fight that decided the ultimate fate not only of the War of 1812 but the future course of the fledgling American republic. It was a battle that could not be won. Outnumbered farmers, merchants, backwoodsmen, smugglers, slaves, and Choctaw Indians, many of them unarmed, were up against the cream of the British army, professional soldiers who had defeated the great Napoleon and set Washington, DC, ablaze.

Colorful, dramatic, blundering, and tragic - these are some of the adjectives that have been applied to the two-day engagement at Shiloh. This battle, which bears the biblical name meaning “place of peace,” was one of the bloodiest encounters of the Civil War. The Union colonel, whose words give the present book its title, foretold the losses when he told his men: “Fill your canteens Boys! Some of you will be in hell before night….” Fought in the early spring of 1862 on the west bank of the Mississippi state line, Shiloh was, up to that time, the biggest battle of American history.

On to Petersburg follows the Union army's movement to the James River, the military response from the Confederates, and the initial assault on Petersburg, which Rhea suggests marked the true end of the Overland Campaign. Beginning his account in the immediate aftermath of Grant's three-day attack on Confederate troops at Cold Harbor, Rhea argues that the Union general's primary goal was not - as often supposed - to take Richmond, but rather to destroy Lee's army by closing off its retreat routes and disrupting its supply chain.

It was the largest campaign ever attempted in the Civil War: the Peninsula campaign of 1862. General George McClellan planned to advance from Yorktown up the Virginia Peninsula and destroy the Rebel army in its own capital. But with Robert E. Lee delivering blows to the Union army, McClellan’s plan fell through at the gates of Richmond.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River. It prevented the Union from using the river for shipping between the Union-controlled Midwest and New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Union navy tried to take Vicksburg, which sat on a high bluff overlooking the river, but couldn't do it. It took Grant's army and Admiral David Porter's navy to successfully invade Mississippi and lay siege to Vicksburg, forcing the city to surrender.

Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War's longest and among its most complex. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee squared off for more than nine months in their struggle for Petersburg, the key to the Confederate capital at Richmond. Featuring some of the war's most notorious battles, the campaign played out against a backdrop of political drama and crucial fighting elsewhere, with massive costs for soldiers and civilians alike.

Rufus R. Dawes (1838-1899) was just 23 years old when the Civil War broke out. He became a captain in the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, one of the regiments forming the "Iron Brigade" of the Union Army of the Potomac. First published in 1890, this work records his regiment’s routine and operational actions, including Second Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Petersburg. Dawes also recorded details about daily camp life and individual soldiers.

The Treaty of Paris, in 1783, formally ended the American Revolutionary War, but it was the pivotal campaigns and battles of 1781 that decided the final outcome. 1781 was one of those rare years in American history when the future of the nation hung by a thread, and only the fortitude, determination, and sacrifice of its leaders and citizenry ensured its survival.

From the acclaimed Civil War historian, a brilliant new history–the most intimate and richly readable account we have had–of the climactic three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), which draws the reader into the heat, smoke, and grime of Gettysburg alongside the ordinary soldier, and depicts the combination of personalities and circumstances that produced the greatest battle of the Civil War, and one of the greatest in human history.

The Seven Days Campaign was a series of battles fought near Richmond at the end of June 1862. General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had routed General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Depriving McClellan of a military decision meant the war would continue for two more years. The Seven Days depicts a critical turning point in the Civil War that would ingrain Robert E. Lee in history as one of the finest generals of all time.

On October 8, 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed near Perryville, Kentucky, in what would be the largest battle ever fought on Kentucky soil. The climax of a campaign that began two months before in Northern Mississippi, Perryville came to be recognized as the high water mark of the western Confederacy. Some said the hard-fought battle, forever remembered by participants for its sheer savagery and for their commanders' confusion, was the worst battle of the war, losing the last chance to bring the Commonwealth into the Confederacy.

The bloody two-day battle of Shiloh changed the course of the American Civil War. The conflagration at Shiloh had its roots in the strong Union advance that resulted in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. The offensive collapsed General Albert S. Johnston's advanced line in Kentucky and forced him to withdraw to northern Mississippi. Anxious to attack the enemy, Johnston began concentrating Southern forces at Corinth, a major railroad center just below the Tennessee border.

The struggle over the fortified Confederate position known as Spotsylvania's Mule Shoe was without parallel during the Civil War. A Union assault that began at 4:30 A.M. on May 12, 1864, sparked brutal combat that lasted nearly twenty-four hours. By the time Grant's forces withdrew, some 55,000 men from Union and Confederate armies had been drawn into the fury, battling in torrential rain along the fieldworks at distances often less than the length of a rifle barrel. One Union private recalled the fighting as a "seething, bubbling, soaring hell of hate and murder."

SHILOH, 1862 - The Battle of Shiloh, fought in the wilderness of southern Tennessee in April 1862, marked a violent crossroads in the Civil War. What began as a surprise attack by Confederate troops on a Union stronghold to gain control of the Mississippi River Valley became a bloody two-day conflict that would eerily foretell the brutal reality of the next three years.

Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War's longest and among its most complex. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee squared off for more than nine months in their struggle for Petersburg, the key to the Confederate capital at Richmond. Featuring some of the war's most notorious battles, the campaign played out against a backdrop of political drama and crucial fighting elsewhere, with massive costs for soldiers and civilians alike.

From the acclaimed Civil War historian, a brilliant new history–the most intimate and richly readable account we have had–of the climactic three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), which draws the reader into the heat, smoke, and grime of Gettysburg alongside the ordinary soldier, and depicts the combination of personalities and circumstances that produced the greatest battle of the Civil War, and one of the greatest in human history.

The Civil War battle waged on September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek, Maryland, was one of the bloodiest in the nation's history: On this single day, the battle claimed nearly 23,000 casualties. In Landscape Turned Red, the renowned historian Stephen Sears draws on a remarkable cache of diaries, dispatches, and letters to recreate the vivid drama of Antietam as experienced not only by its leaders but also by its soldiers, both Union and Confederate.

A collection of 10 new essays from some of our finest Civil War historians working today, Gateway to the Confederacy offers a reexamination of the campaigns fought to gain possession of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Each essay addresses how Americans have misconstrued the legacy of these struggles and why scholars feel it necessary to reconsider one of the most critical turning points of the American Civil War.

While fighting his way toward Atlanta, William T. Sherman encountered his biggest roadblock at Kennesaw Mountain, where Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee held a heavily fortified position. The opposing armies confronted each other from June 19 to July 3, 1864, and Sherman initially tried to outflank the Confederates. His men endured heavy rains, artillery duels, sniping, and a fierce battle at Kolb’s Farm before Sherman decided to attack Johnston’s position directly on June 27.

You think you know what you want in life. You've tried to achieve those things. But if you still don't have them, the culprit may be closer than you think. In this perspective-altering program, the world-renowned Pitbull of Personal Development(tm), Larry Winget, exposes the things you are doing right now to unknowingly prevent your own success in the most important areas of your life.

Born to Battle examines the Civil War’s complex and decisive western theater through the exploits of its greatest figures: Ulysses S. Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest. These two opposing giants squared off in some of the most epic campaigns of the war, starting at Shiloh and continuing through Perryville, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga - battles in which the Union would slowly but surely divide the western Confederacy, setting the stage for the final showdowns of this bloody and protracted conflict.

When Vicksburg fell to Union forces under General Grant in July 1863, the balance turned against the Confederacy in the trans-Appalachian theater. The Federal success along the river opened the way for advances into central and eastern Tennessee, which culminated in the bloody battle of Chickamauga and then a struggle for Chattanooga. Chickamauga is usually counted as a Confederate victory, albeit a costly one.