Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, [Steven E. The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi Paperback: pages; Publisher: Vintage; Complete Numbers Starting with 1, 1st Ed . historically accurate, and an essential addition to any Civil War library.
Table of contents
- Nothing But Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, - Steven E. Woodworth - Google Книги
- Nothing but Victory
- Product details
The Army of the Tennessee, — Download high-resolution cover Look inside. Written by Steven E. Add to Wish List Look inside. On sale Oct 17, Pages Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies. Composed almost entirely of Midwesterners and molded into a lean, skilled fighting machine by Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, the Army of the Tennessee marched directly into the heart of the Confederacy and won major victories at Shiloh and at the rebel strongholds of Vicksburg and Atlanta. Acclaimed historian Steven Woodworth has produced the first full consideration of this remarkable unit that has received less prestige than the famed Army of the Potomac but was responsible for the decisive victories that turned the tide of war toward the Union.
The Army of the Tennessee also shaped the fortunes and futures of both Grant and Sherman, liberating them from civilian life and catapulting them onto the national stage as their triumphs grew. Editor George Mills hastened to explain that the color was caused by fine flakes of reddish clay mixed with the precipitation. Wind had swept dust into the atmosphere far to the west, providing the residents of eastern Iowa with a bit of unusual late-winter color.
It was a simple scientific explanation, easily understood by modern Americans in this enlightened second half of the nineteenth century. Yet as editor Mills observed, many Iowans could hardly help wondering whether the eerie reddish cast of their normally snow-whitened plains was not some vague but appalling portent of terrible things to come. Americans elsewhere would have asked themselves the same question. On the same day the red snow fell in Iowa, Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office as president of a country that was tearing itself apart.
The issue of slavery had festered between North and South for two generations, and for many people in Iowa, as in the other Midwestern states, the tension in Washington, D. On January 9, Mississippi followed.
- Decision & Control in Management Science: Essays in Honor of Alain Haurie (Advances in Computational.
- Top Authors!
- Think Fit 2 Be Fit;
- Nothing but Victory by Steven E. Woodworth | leondumoulin.nl.
- Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, - Steven E. Woodworth - Google Книги.
- The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865;
- Lost Souls: Found! Inspiring Stories About Boxers.
Florida went on January 10, and the next day it was Alabama. Other Deep South states followed throughout the month. On February 1, Texas became the seventh state to declare itself out of the Union. Throughout the winter, the fire-eaters in the Southern states had spoken of seceding peacefully if possible, violently if necessary, and Southern military preparations had gone on apace. Here and there across the North, men began to think of making military preparations of their own.
Some towns organized volunteer companies.
Nothing But Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, - Steven E. Woodworth - Google Книги
In January, brothers and coeditors of the Cedar Falls Gazette, Henry and George Perkins, began encouraging the formation of such a group in their Iowa town. They drilled diligently and were soon gaining additional recruits. Similar companies sprang up elsewhere.
Peoria, Illinois, had four: Like the first jarring peal of a prairie thunderstorm came the news in mid-April that Confederate forces ringing the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, had opened fire on the United States flag and garrison at Fort Sumter in the predawn hours of April Thirty-four hours later, the fort surrendered. On April 15, President Lincoln, following the example of George Washington in the days of the Whiskey Rebellion, called upon the states to provide militia for ninety days of Federal service—75, of them—in order to put down the rebellion.
Maxwell was behind the plow preparing his fields for spring planting when he heard the news of Fort Sumter. He put away the plow and horses, and set out for nearby Canton, Illinois, to join what was to become Company H of the 17th Illinois Regiment. Smith was a student in the city schools of Monmouth, Illinois. Within the week, he had enlisted and, with several other youths, was eagerly working to organize a company. They too would end up in the 17th Illinois.
Nearby Peoria, where the 17th would muster, got the news of Fort Sumter on April 13 and went into an uproar. The enrollment of additional troops began that very evening. On April 15 in the Illinois capital, the Springfield Grays, who had the advantage of proximity, became the first company to formally offer its services to the state. Chicago seethed with outrage at the Confederate attack. Thousands of men volunteered to go and fight for the Union. Among them were the Highland Guards, a company of ethnic Scots, making a striking appearance in their Scottish caps.
Also joining the 12th Illinois was a company from the lead-mining town of Galena, in the far northwest corner of the state. The citizens of Galena held a mass meeting on April 16 to discuss news of the Southern attack. When the tumult subsided, a succession of more patriotic citizens made impassioned speeches pleading for manly resistance to Southern aggression. One of the speakers was a consumptive-looking lawyer named John A. Another was local U. Washburne, who concluded by exhorting his fellow citizens to raise two companies of volunteers for the war.
Nothing but Victory
Washburne suggested that the appropriate chairman for this meeting would be a quiet-spoken local leather-goods clerk who was a genuine West Point graduate and veteran of the Mexican War. No matter—Washburne and Rawlins could make the fiery speeches. Wealthy Galena businessman Augustus L. Chetlain chimed in, stating his own intention of going as a volunteer. A number of others stepped forward for military service that night, and in the days that followed, Grant, Chetlain, and the others canvassed the nearby towns of Jo Daviess County for more recruits.
They soon had a full company, named it the Jo Daviess Guard, offered it to Gov. Richard Yates, and got orders to head for Springfield. Grant declined to serve as captain of the company. If an officer of his training and experience was of any value at all to the country, it ought to be at a higher rank. Chetlain got the slot instead, but Grant went along to Springfield to assist the company as it became part of a regimental organization.
McPherson, who fell early in the fight, the army rallied and drove off its attackers with heavy losses. Sherman later told the men wryly that the only unmilitary thing they had done that day was that they did not surrender. I think, however, that if we could ask the soldiers what was for them the high point of their experience in the Army of the Tennessee, they would state emphatically that it was the Grand Review in Washington, D.
The war was over, the Union saved, and the men would soon be going home. The Army of the Tennessee, leading the western Union armies, marched through the capital city between cheering, sometimes singing, crowds of spectators, who threw flowers, waved flags, and held up signs expressing their gratitude. Where did you do your research and how did you obtain these documents?
The men were often homesick, and the way they dealt with it was to write letters. Families saved many of those letters, and happily many of them are available to researchers today. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle, PA, possesses the papers of more than 5, Civil War soldiers, though most of them were from the eastern armies. Hayes Center in Fremont, OH. I could have written this book two or three times over using completely different soldier anecdotes every time.
The army was not only fighting to unite a country, but tens of thousands of slaves were also awaiting their arrival to bring them freedom. Please explain how the soldiers dealt with these difficult race relations. This was a difficult issue for the Army of the Tennessee, which was recruited from a section of the country the Midwest that was deeply conflicted on issues of race. Some soldiers, especially from the upper Midwest, believed it was their duty to end slavery and opined that the war would never be won until the Union embraced the cause of emancipation.
By contrast, soldiers from the Ohio Valley could often be strongly racist. If they objected to slavery at all, it was merely because slavery brought African-Americans into territories that they wanted to save for white men. Such soldiers would sometimes write of the slaves in the most brutal terms. Still, as the war progressed, the men began to realize that it was slavery that was threatening their country, and they began to see the institution of slavery itself as their enemy.
As a historian, are there times when you get tired of your topic of choice? Are there other periods in American history that are also of interest to you?
Product details
Yes, I do get tired of the Civil War sometimes. Yet I still enjoy studying and writing about it. Among my other interests are the period of roughly 30 years leading up to the Civil War, and the 50 or so years following the end of Reconstruction , as well as the s. As a professor of history at Texas Christian University, do you find your students to be fascinated by this particular time in history?
How do they view this war in comparison to the other wars America has fought? A Our students have a very strong interest in the Civil War. I think the Civil War excites people particularly because it happened right here in America. Its relics and sites are among us, and the key objectives and terrain features that we read about in the stories of its campaigns are often rivers and towns that we know well. It was so big that its effects engulfed almost every facet of society, and it called forth the utmost determination from both sides. Given that you have devoted your career to studying the era of the Civil War, are there any specific moments that you wish you could have witnessed?
There are of course many events in the Civil War that I wish I could witness, including all of those great moments of the Army of the Tennessee that I mentioned above. From the Hardcover edition.
Woodworth By Steven E. Civil War Period Military History. About Nothing but Victory Composed almost entirely of Midwesterners and molded into a lean, skilled fighting machine by Ulysses S. Also in Vintage Civil War Library. Also by Steven E. See all books by Steven E. Inspired by Your Browsing History. Looking for More Great Reads? Download our Spring Fiction Sampler Now. LitFlash The eBooks you want at the lowest prices. Read it Forward Read it first. Unbound Worlds Exploring the science fiction and fantasy universe. Stay in Touch Sign up.
We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later.