Confederate General R.S. Ewell

Confederate General R.S. Ewell
Author: Paul D. Casdorph
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 719
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0813194229

Richard Stoddert Ewell is best known as the Confederate General selected by Robert E. Lee to replace "Stonewall" Jackson as chief of the Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. Ewell is also remembered as the general who failed to drive Federal troops from the high ground of Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. Many historians believe that Ewell's inaction cost the Confederates a victory in this seminal battle and, ultimately, cost the Civil War. During his long military career, Ewell was never an aggressive warrior. He graduated from West Point and served in the Indian wars in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In 1861 he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and rushed to the Confederate standard. Ewell saw action at First Manassas and took up divisional command under Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign and in the Seven Days' Battles around Richmond. A crippling wound and a leg amputation soon compounded the persistent manic-depressive disorder that had hindered his ability to make difficult decisions on the battlefield. When Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia in May of 1863, Ewell was promoted to lieutenant general. At the same time he married a widowed first cousin who came to dominate his life—often to the disgust of his subordinate officers—and he became heavily influenced by the wave of religious fervor that was then sweeping through the Confederate Army. In Confederate General R.S. Ewell, Paul D. Casdorph offers a fresh portrait of a major—but deeply flawed—figure in the Confederate war effort, examining the pattern of hesitancy and indecisiveness that characterized Ewell's entire military career. This definitive biography probes the crucial question of why Lee selected such an obviously inconsistent and unreliable commander to lead one-third of his army on the eve of the Gettysburg Campaign. Casdorph describes Ewell's intriguing life and career with penetrating insights into his loyalty to the Confederate cause and the Virginia ties that kept him in Lee's favor for much of the war. Complete with riveting descriptions of key battles, Ewell's biography is essential reading for Civil War historians.

Richard S. Ewell

Richard S. Ewell
Author: Donald Pfanz
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 686
Release: 1998
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780807823897

Biography.

Richard S. Ewell

Richard S. Ewell
Author: Donald C. Pfanz
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 678
Release: 2000-11-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807888524

General Richard Stoddert Ewell holds a unique place in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia. For four months Ewell was Stonewall Jackson's most trusted subordinate; when Jackson died, Ewell took command of the Second Corps, leading it at Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. In this biography, Donald Pfanz presents the most detailed portrait yet of the man sometimes referred to as Stonewall Jackson's right arm. Drawing on a rich array of previously untapped original source materials, Pfanz concludes that Ewell was a highly competent general, whose successes on the battlefield far outweighed his failures. But Pfanz's book is more than a military biography. It also examines Ewell's life before and after the Civil War, including his years at West Point, his service in the Mexican War, his experiences as a dragoon officer in Arizona and New Mexico, and his postwar career as a planter in Mississippi and Tennessee. In all, Pfanz offers an exceptionally detailed portrait of one of the South's most important leaders.

The Guns of the South

The Guns of the South
Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: Del Rey
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2011-04-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307792358

"It is absolutely unique--without question the most fascinating Civil War novel I have ever read." Professor James M. McPherson Pultizer Prize-winning BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM January 1864--General Robert E. Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equpped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower. Then, Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: Its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking--and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantitites to the Confederates. The name of the weapon is the AK-47.... Selected by the Science Fiction Book Club A Main Selection of the Military Book Club

The Killer Angels

The Killer Angels
Author: Michael Shaara
Publisher: Modern Library
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2004-11-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0679643249

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “remarkable” (Ken Burns), “utterly absorbing” (Forbes) Civil War classic that inspired the film Gettysburg, with more than three million copies in print “My favorite historical novel . . . a superb re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, but its real importance is its insight into what the war was about, and what it meant.”—James M. McPherson In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war. Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny.

At the Forefront of Lee's Invasion

At the Forefront of Lee's Invasion
Author: Robert J. Wynstra
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Gettysburg Campaign, 1863
ISBN: 9781606353547

"This is about the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania through the eyes of the soldiers and civilians who experienced it"--

Major General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble

Major General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble
Author: Leslie R. Tucker
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2005-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0786421312

Major General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble, one of the oldest and more eccentric officers involved in the Civil War, made himself a favorite of Stonewall Jackson through his courage and stubborn energy. Born to a Quaker family, Trimble spent his childhood on the American frontier. After graduating from West Point, he served in the Old Army and then involved himself with the growing railroad industry of the 1830s, living at the forefront of American modernization. As the war began, he sided with the South, burning railroad bridges north of Baltimore to deny Washington the support of Union troops, and then moving to Virginia. He enlisted in the Engineers and constructed battery emplacements. Commissioned brigadier general in late 1861, Trimble distinguished himself at Cross Keys, Gaines's Mill, Manassas, and Gettysburg; was involved in the Baltimore riots; and spent time as a prisoner on Johnson's Island. This biography covers Trimble's personal life and career with both the railroad and the military. Simultaneously, it serves as a case study of an American who chose to side with the South. Before the war, Trimble traveled freely between states and showed no early indication of a regional attachment. The work uses Abraham Maslow's motivation model, the hierarchy of needs, to reconcile Trimble's self-interest with his need to belong to a community. It also raises various questions related to Southern history, including community identity, modernization, and the concept of the "New South."

Campbell Brown's Civil War

Campbell Brown's Civil War
Author: Terry L. Jones
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2001-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780807130193

The Civil War writings of G. Campbell Brown—cousin, stepson, and staff officer of famed Confederate General Richard S. Ewell—provide a comprehensive account of the major campaigns in the north Virginia theater. Terry L. Jones has performed an invaluable service by gathering these widely scattered but oft-cited primary sources into a deftly edited volume. Brown’s memoir details his service under Ewell during the campaigns of First Manassas, the Shenandoah Valley, the Seven Days, Second Manassas, and Gettysburg, and under Joseph E. Johnston at Vicksburg. His correspondence and memoranda form a suspenseful recounting of the Overland Campaign, the siege of Richmond, and a harrowing retreat that ended with the capture of Brown and Ewell at Sayler’s Creek just three days before Robert E. Lee’s surrender. Their subsequent three-month captivity in Fort Warren, Massachusetts, is documented in Brown’s letters. Leaders such as Ewell, Johnston, Lee (whose daughter Brown tried to marry), “Stonewall” Jackson, and Jubal A. Early come to life in rich anecdotes and occasional critiques of their wartime actions. A southern aristocrat from Tennessee, Brown exhibits a grasp of the nuances of military protocol that is as compelling as his descriptions of battlefield horrors. Brown’s eagerness to report all he sees—from the quotidian to the bloodcurdling—makes his writings among the finest to come out of the Civil War. Scholars will want copies of this volume at close hand for ready reference, and buffs will treasure the play of a nimble mind over a dire and fascinating time.

Lee and Jackson

Lee and Jackson
Author: Paul D. Casdorph
Publisher: Paragon House Publishers
Total Pages: 498
Release: 1992
Genre: Generals
ISBN: 9781557785350

The first dual biography of the Confederacy's greatest commanders. Casdorph's exceptional biography brings the legend of Lee and Jackson to life. It is filled with keen insights, colorful anecdotes, dramatic battle scenes, and cogent analysis of tactics and strategy; it also gives us the key to understanding the most remarkable collaboration in American military history.

Rashness of That Hour

Rashness of That Hour
Author: Robert Wynstra
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2010-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1611210577

WINNER, 2010, DR. JAMES I. ROBERTSON LITERARY PRIZE FOR CONFEDERATE HISTORY AWARD WINNER, 2011, THE BACHELDER-CODDINGTON LITERARY AWARD, GIVEN BY THE ROBERT E. LEE CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE OF CENTRAL NEW JERSEY No commander in the Army of Northern Virginia suffered more damage to his reputation at Gettysburg than did Brig. Gen. Alfred Holt Iverson. In little more than an hour during the early afternoon of July 1, 1863, much of his brigade (the 5th, 12th, 20th, and 23rd North Carolina regiments) was slaughtered in front of a stone wall on Oak Ridge. Amid rumors that he was a drunk, a coward, and had slandered his own troops, Iverson was stripped of his command less than a week after the battle and before the campaign had even ended. After months of internal feuding and behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, the survivors of Iverson's ill-fated brigade had no doubt about who to blame for their devastating losses. What remained unanswered was the lingering uncertainty of how such a disaster could have happened. This and many other questions are explored for the first time in Robert J. Wynstra's The Rashness of That Hour: Politics, Gettysburg, and the Downfall of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson. Wynstra's decade-long investigation draws upon a wealth of newly discovered and previously unpublished sources to provide readers with fresh perspectives and satisfying insights. The result is an engrossing chronicle of how the brigade's politics, misadventures, and colorful personalities combined to bring about one of the Civil War's most notorious blunders. As Wynstra's research makes clear, Iverson's was a brigade in fatal turmoil long before its rendezvous with destiny in Forney field on July 1. This richly detailed and thoughtfully written account is biographical, tactical, and brigade history at its finest. For the first time we have a complete picture of the flawed general and his brigade's bitter internecine feuds that made Iverson's downfall nearly inevitable and help us better understand "the rashness of that hour." About the Author: Robert J. Wynstra recently retired as a senior writer for the News and Public Affairs Office in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in history and a Master's degree in journalism, all from the University of Illinois. Rob has been researching Alfred Iverson's role in the Civil War for more than ten years. He is finishing work on a study of Robert Rodes' Division in the Gettysburg Campaign.