Voices From The Civil War

Letters, diaries, memoirs, interviews, ballads, newspaper articles, and speeches depict life and events during the four years of the Civil War.

The most contentious event in our nation's history, the Civil War deeply divided families, friends, and communities. Both sides fought to define the conflict on their own terms -- Lincoln and his supporters struggled to preserve the Union and end slavery, while the Confederacy waged a battle for the primacy of local liberty or "states' rights." But the war had its own peculiar effects on the four border slave states that remained loyal to the Union. Internal disputes and shifting allegiances injected uncertainty, apprehension, and violence into the everyday lives of their citizens. No state better exemplified the vital role of a border state than Maryland -- where the passage of time has not dampened debates over issues such as the alleged right of secession and executive power versus civil liberties in wartime. In Maryland Voices of the Civil War, Charles W. Mitchell draws upon hundreds of letters, diaries, and period newspapers to portray the passions of a wide variety of people -- merchants, slaves, soldiers, politicians, freedmen, women, clergy, civic leaders, and children -- caught in the emotional vise of war. Mitchell reinforces the provocative notion that Maryland's Southern sympathies -- while genuine -- never seriously threatened to bring about a Confederate Maryland. Maryland Voices of the Civil War illuminates the human complexities of the Civil War era and the political realignment that enabled Marylanders to abolish slavery in their state before the end of the war.

Contains primary source material in the form of personal recollections from letters, diaries, photographs, sketches, and artifacts of both soldiers and civilians.

The U.S. Civil War touched the lives of millions of children on the battlefield and the home front. Based on eyewitness accounts of 120 children, ages four to sixteen, "Reluctant Witnesses" gives their perspective on America's bloodiest conflict and how they managed to cope. Their diaries, letters, and reminiscences are a testimony to the astonishing resiliency of the human spirit. Like children of contemporary wars, these children from the Union and the Confederacy speak without hate but with the stubborn hope that peace might prevail in the end.

This book challenges the assumption that men write of war, women of the hearth. The Lebanese war has seen the publication of many more works of fiction by women than by men. Miriam Cooke has termed these women the Beirut Decentrists, as they are decentered or excluded from both literary canon and social discourse. Although they may not share religious or political affiliation, they do share a perspective which holds them together. Cooke traces the transformation in consciousness that has taken place among women who observed and recorded the progress towards chaos in Lebanon. During the so-called "two year" war of 1975-76 little comment was made about those (usually men in search of economic security) who left the saturnalia of violence, but with time attitudes changed. Women became aware that they had remained out of a sense of responsibility for others and that they had survived. Consciousness of survival was catalytic: the Beirut Decentrists began to describe a society that had gone beyond the masculinization normal in most wars and achieved an almost unprecedented feminization. Emigration, the expected behavior for men before 1975, became the sin qua non for Lebanese citizenship. The writings of the Beirut Decentists offer hope of an escape from the anarchy. If men and women could espouse the Lebanese women's sense of responsibility, the energy that had fueled the unrelenting savagery could be turned to reconstruction. But that was before the invasion of 1982.

Text and illustrations describe the events before, during and after the Battle of Gettysburg.

A compilation of stories by the participants of the Civil War.

In this novel of intrigue and clashing cultures, Sarah faces danger from all sides--suspicious Union soldiers, angry rebel raiders and resentful runaway slaves.