Contributions by Christian K. Anderson, Marcia Bennett, Lauren Yarnell Bradshaw, Holly A. Foster, Tiffany Greer, Don Holmes, Donavan L. Johnson, Lauren Lassabe, Sarah Mangrum, R. Eric Platt, Courtney L. Robinson, David E. Taylor, Zachary A. Turner, Michael M. Wallace, and Rhonda Kemp WebbTo date, most texts regarding higher education in the Civil War South focus on the widespread closure of academies. In contrast, Persistence through Peril: Episodes of College Life and Academic...

Recounts the history and development of Jesuit higher education in the American SouthR. Eric Platt examines in Sacrifice and Survival the history and evolution of Jesuit higher education in the American South and hypothesizes that the identity and mission of southern Jesuit colleges and universities may have functioned as catalytic concepts that affected the “town and gown” relationships between the institutions and their host communities in ways ...

A study of Louisiana French Creole sugar planters’ role in higher education and a detailed history of the only college ever constructed to serve the sugar eliteThe education of individual planter classes—cotton, tobacco, sugar—is rarely treated in works of southern history. Of the existing literature, higher education is typically relegated to a footnote, providing only brief glimpses into a complex instructional regime responsive to wealthy planters. R. E...

A "well-reasoned and timely" ( Booklist) essay collection interrogates the Lost Cause myth in Civil War historiography.Was the Confederacy doomed from the start in its struggle against the superior might of the Union? Did its forces fight heroically against all odds for the cause of states' rights? In reality, these suggestions are an elaborate and intentional effort on the part of Southerners to rationalize the secession and the war itself. Unfortunately,...

The Astonishing True Story of a Slave Who Risked Everything for FreedomIn 1862, amidst the turmoil of the Civil War, a daring 23-year-old slave named Robert Smalls seized a Confederate steamer in Charleston, South Carolina. With his wife and two young children hidden aboard, Smalls and his small crew navigated through heavily armed fortifications to deliver the valuable vessel to nearby Union forces. His courageous act not only granted freedom to his family but als...

"Ty Seidule scorches us with the truth and rivets us with his fierce sense of moral urgency." --Ron ChernowIn a forceful but humane narrative, former soldier and head of the West Point history department Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy—and explores why some of this country’s oldest wounds have never healed.Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhoo...

Filled with engaging stories and astonishing facts, From Underground Railroad to Rebel Refuge examines the role of Canadians in the American Civil WarDespite all we know about the Civil War, its causes, battles, characters, issues, impacts, and legacy, few books have explored Canada’s role in the bloody conflict that claimed more than 600,000 lives.A surprising 20,000 Canadians went south to take up arms on both sides of the conflict, whil...

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor."An important contribution to reconciling the myths with the facts." —New York Times Book Review...

**Using letters, diaries, and regimental newspapers to take us inside the minds of Civil War soldiers—black and white, Northern and Southern—as they fought and marched across a divided country, this unprecedented account is “an essential contribution to our understanding of slavery and the Civil War" (**The Philadelphia Inquirer).In this unprecedented account, Chandra Manning With stunning poise and narrative verve, Manning explores how the Union and Confe...

"The best and most balanced of the Lee biographies."—New York Review of BooksThe life of Robert E. Lee is a story not of defeat but of triumph—triumph in clearing his family name, triumph in marrying properly, triumph over the mighty Mississippi in his work as an engineer, and triumph over all other military men to become the towering figure who commanded the Confederate army in the American Civil War. But late in life Lee confessed that he "was always wan...

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in HistoryWinner of the Gov. John Andrew Award (Union Club of Boston)An acclaimed, groundbreaking, and “powerful exploration” (Washington Post) of the fate of Union veterans, who won the war but couldn’t bear the peace.For well over a century, traditional Civil War histories have concluded in 1865, with a bitterly won peace and Union soldiers returning triumphantly home. In a landmark work tha...

In early 1864, as the Confederate Army of Tennessee licked its wounds after being routed at the Battle of Chattanooga, Major-General Patrick Cleburne (the "Stonewall of the West") proposed that "the most courageous of our slaves" be trained as soldiers and that "every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war" be freed. In Confederate Emancipation, Bruce Levine looks closely at such Confederate plans to arm and free slaves. He shows that within a year...