In August 1862, nineteen-year-old Edward G. Granger joined the 5th Michigan Cavalry Regiment as a second lieutenant. On August 20, 1863, the newly promoted Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer appointed Granger as one of his aides, a position Granger would hold until his death in August 1864. Many of the forty-four letters the young lieutenant wrote home during those two years, introduced and annotated here by leading Custer scholar Sandy Barnard, provide a unique look into the words and act...

Witness how a vulnerable trading hub in ancient Mesopotamia became military history’s most chilling engine of terror. Whether you are settling in for a gripping commute or seeking an immersive escape into antiquity, this dark, cinematic narrative brings the ruthless rise and sudden collapse of an ancient superpower to life.Far from mindless savagery, this epic saga reveals a highly calculated system of mass deportation, psychological warfare, and sophisticated bureaucracy. It offer...

The name George Armstrong Custer looms large in American history, specifically for his leadership in the American Indian Wars and unfortunate fall at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But before his time in the West, Custer began his career fighting for the Union in the Civil War. In Custer: The Making of a Young General, legendary Civil War historian Edward G. Longacre provides fascinating insight into this often-overlooked period in Custer's life.In 1863, under the patronage ...

The rise of Civil War general John Bell Hood, his command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, and the decisions that led to its downfall.Though he barely escaped expulsion from West Point, John Bell Hood quickly rose through the ranks of the Confederate army. With bold leadership in the battles of Gaines' Mill and Antietam, Hood won favor with Confederate president Jefferson Davis. But his fortunes in war took a tragic turn when he assumed command of the Confedera...

"The definitive account of Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans' operational masterpiece—the almost bloodless conquest . . . of Middle Tennessee." —Sam Davis Elliott, author of Soldier of TennesseeJuly 1863 was a momentous month in the Civil War. News of Gettysburg and Vicksburg electrified the North and devastated the South. Sandwiched geographically between those victories and lost in the heady tumult of events was news that William S. Rosecrans's Army of...

WINNER FOR OPERATIONAL / BATTLE HISTORY, 2008, ARMY HISTORICAL FOUNDATION DISTINGUISHED BOOK AWARDThe Iron Brigade--an all-Western outfit famously branded as The Iron Brigade of the West--served out their enlistments entirely in the Eastern Theater. Hardy men were these soldiers from Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan, who waged war beneath their unique black Hardee Hats on many fields, from Brawner’s Farm during the Second Bull Run Campaign all the way to Appomattox...

Since its publication, Richard Moe's The Last Full Measure has garnered a reputation as the definitive history of the First Minnesota Regiment and one of a handful of classic regimental histories of the Civil War.The First Minnesota Volunteers, the first regiment offered to President Lincoln after the fall of Fort Sumter, served in virtually every major battle fought in the eastern theater during the first three years of the Civil War. This is the story of the Army of the Potomac d...

An "exciting and informative" account of the Civil War battle that opened the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, with illustrations included ( Lone Star Book Review).Charles Knight's Valley Thunder is the first full-length account in decades to examine the combat at New Market on May 15, 1864 that opened the pivotal Shenandoah Valley Campaign.Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who set in motion the wide-ranging operation to subjugate the South in 1864...

Why another book on the Iron Brigade? Because this is really the first book on this storied outfit—and it could not have been written without the lifetime of study undertaken by award-winning author Lance J. Herdegen. More than a standard military account, Herdegen’s latest puts flesh and faces on the men who sat around the campfires, marched through mud and snow and dust, fought to put down the rebellion, and recorded much of what they did and witnessed for posterity.The Iron Brig...

Cavalryman of the Lost Cause is the first major biography in decades of the famous Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart. Based on research in manuscript collections, personal memoirs and reminiscences, and regimental histories, this comprehensive volume reflects outstanding Civil War scholarship.James Ewell Brown Stuart was the premier cavalry commander of the Confederacy. He gained a reputation for daring early in the war when he rode around the Union army in the P...

An award-winning Civil War historian's profile of the brilliant Union cavalry officer and the strategies he employed to prevent catastrophe at Gettysburg.The Battle of Gettysburg turned the tide of the Civil War. But the outcome of the decisive confrontation between North and South might have been dramatically different if not for the actions of Brig. Gen. John Buford, commander of the Union army's First Cavalry Division.An award-winning chronicler of Ameri...

A detailed history of the Confederate retreat after the Battle of Gettysburg and the Union effort to destroy the enemy during the American Civil War.The three-day Battle of Gettysburg left 50,000 casualties in its wake, a battered Southern army far from its base of supplies, and a rich historiographic legacy. Thousands of books and articles cover nearly every aspect of the battle, but One Continuous Fight is the first detailed military history of Lee's retr...