States at War, Volume 4


Book Description

While many Civil War reference books exist, there is no single compendium that contains important details about the combatant states (and territories) that Civil War researchers can readily access for their work. People looking for information about the organizations, activities, economies, demographics, and prominent personalities of Civil War States and state governments must assemble data from a variety of sources, with many key sources remaining unavailable online. This crucial reference book, the fourth in the States at War series, provides vital information on the organization, activities, economies, demographics, and prominent personalities of Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey during the Civil War. Its principal sources include the Official Records, state adjutant-general reports, legislative journals, state and federal legislation, federal and state executive speeches and proclamations, and the general and special orders issued by the military authorities of both governments, North and South. Designed and organized for easy use by professional historians and amateurs, this book can be read in two ways: by individual state, with each chapter offering a stand-alone history of an individual stateÕs war years; or across states, comparing reactions to the same event or solutions to the same problems.




Loyalty on the Line


Book Description

During the American Civil War, Maryland did not join the Confederacy but nonetheless possessed divided loyalties and sentiments. These divisions came to a head in the years that followed the war. In Loyalty on the Line, David K. Graham argues that Maryland did not adopt a unified postbellum identity and that the state remained divided, with some identifying with the state’s Unionist efforts and others maintaining a connection to the Confederacy and its defeated cause. Depictions of Civil War Maryland, both inside and outside the state, hinged on interpretations of the state’s loyalty. The contested Civil War memories of Maryland not only mirror a much larger national struggle and debate but also reflect a conflict that is more intense and vitriolic than that in the larger national narrative. The close proximity of conflicting Civil War memories within the state contributed to a perpetual contestation. In addition, those outside the state also vigorously argued over the place of Maryland in Civil War memory in order to establish its place in the divisive legacy of the war. By using the dynamics interior to Maryland as a lens for viewing the Civil War, Graham shows how divisive the war remained and how central its memory would be to the United States well into the twentieth century.




A Confederate in Congress


Book Description

In May 1865, the final month of the Civil War, the U.S. Army arrested and prosecuted a sitting congressman in a military trial in the border state of Maryland, though the federal criminal courts in the state were functioning. Convicted of aiding and abetting paroled Confederate soldiers, Benjamin Gwinn Harris of Maryland's Fifth Congressional District was imprisoned and barred from holding public office. Harris was a firebrand--effectively a Confederate serving in Congress--and had long advocated the constitutionality of slavery and the right of states to secede from the Union. This first-ever book-length analysis of the unusual trial examines the prevailing opinions in Southern Maryland and in the War Department regarding slavery, treason and the Constitution's guarantee of property rights and freedom of speech.




Maryland, My Maryland


Book Description

Historians have long treated the patriotic anthems of the American Civil War as colorful, if largely insignificant, side notes. Beneath the surface of these songs, however, is a complex story. “Maryland, My Maryland” was one of the most popular Confederate songs during the American Civil War, yet its story is full of ironies that draw attention to the often painful and contradictory actions and beliefs that were both cause and effect of the war. Most telling of all, it was adopted as one of a handful of Southern anthems even though it celebrated a state that never joined the Confederacy. In Maryland, My Maryland: Music and Patriotism during the American Civil War James A. Davis illuminates the incongruities underlying this Civil War anthem and what they reveal about patriotism during the war. The geographic specificity of the song’s lyrics allowed the contest between regional and national loyalties to be fought on bandstands as well as battlefields and enabled “Maryland, My Maryland” to contribute to the shift in patriotic allegiance from a specific, localized, and material place to an ambiguous, inclusive, and imagined space. Musical patriotism, it turns out, was easy to perform but hard to define for Civil War–era Americans.




Beleaguered Winchester


Book Description

During the Civil War, the strategically located town of Winchester, Virginia, suffered from the constant turmoil of military campaigning perhaps more than any other town. Occupied dozens of times by alternating Union and Confederate forces, Winchester suffered through three major battles, including some seventy smaller skirmishes. In his voluminous community study of the town over the course of four tumultuous years, Richard R. Duncan shows that in many ways Winchester's history provides a paradigm of the changing nature of the war. Indeed, Duncan reveals how the town offers a microcosm of the war: slavery collapsed, women assumed control in the absence of men, and civilians vied for authority alongside an assortment of revolving military commanders. Control over Winchester was vital for both the North and the South. Confederates used it as a base to strike the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and conduct raids into western Maryland and Pennsylvania, and when Federal forces occupied the town, they threatened Staunton -- Lee's breadbasket -- and the Virginia Central Railroad. At various times during the war, generals "Stonewall" Jackson, Nathaniel Banks, Robert Milroy, Richard Ewell, Jubal Early, and Philip Sheridan each controlled the town. Guerrilla activity further compounded the region's strife as insecurity became the norm for its civilian population. In this first scholarly treatment of occupied Winchester, Duncan has compiled a narrative of voices from the entire community, including those of groups often omitted from such studies, such as slaves, women, and Confederate dissenters. He shows how Federal occupation meant an early end to slavery in Winchester and how the paucity of men left women to serve as the major cohesive force in the community, making them a bulwark of Confederate support. He also explores the tensions between civilians and military personnel that inevitably arose as each group sought to protect its interests. The war, Duncan explains, left Winchester a landscape of wreckage and economic loss. A fascinating case study of civilian survival amid the turmoil of war, Beleaguered Winchester will appeal to Civil War scholars and enthusiasts alike.




Prince George's County and the Civil War


Book Description

Bordered by the Federal capital but separated from Virginia and the Confederacy only by the Potomac River, the citizens of Prince George's County found themselves on the front lines of the Civil War. As Maryland's largest slave-owning county, some--including members of the Bowie and Surratt families--joined the Confederacy. Many remained loyal to the Union, losing sons and property for the cause. Three forts in the county were dedicated to the capital's defense: Fort Foote, Fort Washington and Fort Lincoln. This did not prevent Confederate general Jubal Early's troops from invading in July 1864. The Rebel forces blew up rail lines in Beltsville and took the Rossborough Inn near the Maryland Agricultural College--now the University of Maryland, College Park--as their headquarters. "Prince George's County and the Civil War: Life on the Border" charts the course of a community caught in the midst of the bloodiest conflict in American history.




Decision at Tom's Brook


Book Description

The Battle of Tom’s Brook, recalled one Confederate soldier, was “the greatest disaster that ever befell our cavalry during the whole war.” The fight took place during the last autumn of the Civil War, when the Union General Phil Sheridan vowed to turn the crop-rich Shenandoah Valley into “a desert.” Farms and homes were burned, livestock slaughtered, and Southern families suffered. The story of the Tom’s Brook cavalry affair centers on two young men who had risen to prominence as soldiers: George A. Custer and Thomas L. Rosser. They had been fast friends since their teenage days at West Point, but the war sent them down separate paths—Custer to the Union army and Rosser to the Confederacy. Each was a born warrior who took obvious joy in the exhilaration of battle. Each possessed almost all of the traits of the ideal cavalryman—courage, intelligence, physical strength, inner-fire. Only their judgment was questionable. Their separate paths converged in the Shenandoah Valley in the summer of 1864, when Custer was ordered to destroy, and Rosser was ordered to stop him. For three days, Rosser’s gray troopers pursued and attacked the Federals. On the fourth day, October 9, the tables turned in the open fields above Tom’s Brook, where each ambitious friend sought his own advancement at the expense of the other. One capitalized upon every advantage fate threw before him, while the other, sure of his abilities in battle and eager to fight, attempted to impose his will on unfavorable circumstances and tempted fate by inviting catastrophe. This long-overlooked cavalry action had a lasting effect on mounted operations and influenced the balance of the campaign in the Valley. Based upon extensive research in primary documents and gracefully written, award-winning author William J. Miller’s Decision at Tom’s Brook presents significant new material on Thomas Rosser, and argues that his character was his destiny. Rosser’s decision-making that day changed his life and the lives of hundreds of other men. Miller’s new study is Civil War history and high personal drama at its finest.




Sheet Music of the Confederacy


Book Description

The creation of the Confederate States of America and the subsequent Civil War inspired composers, lyricists, and music publishers in Southern and border states, and even in foreign countries, to support the new nation. Confederate-imprint sheet music articulated and encouraged Confederate nationalism, honored soldiers and military leaders, comforted family and friends, and provided diversion from the hardships of war. This is the first comprehensive history of the sheet music of the Confederacy. It covers works published before the war in Southern states that seceded from the Union, and those published during the war in Union occupied capitals, border and Northern states, and foreign countries. It is also the first work to examine the contribution of postwar Confederate-themed sheet music to the South's response to its defeat, to the creation and fostering of Lost Cause themes, and to the promotion of national reunion and reconciliation.




Colonels in Blue


Book Description

" ... profiles ... contain an overview of each colonel's military career, including his previous ranks and commands; his occupation and education; his dates of birth and death; his place of burial; and a list of sources for further reading. Where possible, a photograph accompanies each profile. The author has also provided a list of every infantry, militia, cavalry, and artillery regiment in each state, complete with a succession of its commanding officers."--Dust jacket flap.