The Civil War : the third year told by those who lived it /
Simpson, Brooks D.,editor.
Spanning the crucial months from January 1863 to March 1864, this third volume of The Library of America's highly acclaimed four volume series presents an incomparable portrait of a nation at war with itself while illuminating the military and political events that brought the Union closer to victory and slavery closer to destruction. It brings together more than 140 contemporary letters, diary entries, speeches, articles, messages, and poems by more than eighty participants and observers, among them Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Mary Chesnut, Clement Vallandigham, Henry Adams, Charlotte Forten, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and George Templeton Strong, as well as Union officers Robert Gould Shaw, Charles B. Haydon, and Henry Livermore Abbott; Confederate diarists Catherine Edmondston, Kate Stone, and Judith McGuire; and Alabama soldier Samuel Pickens, Iowa housewife Catharine Peirce, Kentucky preacher George Richard Browder, and Kansas clergyman Richard Cordley. The selections include vivid and haunting eyewitness narratives of some of the war's most famous battles--Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Fort Wagner, Chickamauga, Chattanooga--as well as firsthand accounts of the merciless guerrilla war in Missouri and Kansas; the Richmond bread riot and the New York draft riots; the controversies surrounding the use of black soldiers and the Lincoln administration's curtailment of civil liberties; and the struggles of civilians both black and white to survive increasingly harsh wartime conditions.
"This Library of America volume is the third in a four-volume series bringing together memorable and significant writing by participants in the American Civil War"--preface.
Includes color maps on end papers.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 755-791) and index.
Picket duty and snowballs, Virginia, January 1863 / Edmund DeWitt Patterson (Journal, January 20, 1863) -- The mud march, Virginia, January 1863 / Theodore A. Dodge (Journal, January 21-24, 1863) -- Emancipation and public opinion, London, January 1863 / Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (January 23, 1863) -- A change in command, Virginia, January 1863 / George G. Meade to Margaret Meade (January 23, 26, and 28, 1863) -- Advising a new commander, Washington, D.C., January 1863 / Abraham Lincoln to Joseph Hooker (January 26, 1863) -- Raising a black regiment, Massachusetts, January 1863 / John A. Andrew to Francis Shaw (January 30, 1863) -- Debating black soldiers, Washington, D.C., February 1863 / William Parker Cutler (Diary, February 2 and 9, 1863) -- "These be dark blue days", New York, February 1863 / George Templeton Strong (Diary, February 3-5, 1863) -- "The soldier's pest", Virginia, February 1863 / Oliver W. Norton to Edwin Norton (February 6, 1863) -- Short rations, Virginia, February 1863 / Robert E. Lee to Mary Lee (February 8, 1863) -- Accepting a colonelcy, Virginia, February, 1863 / Robert Gould Shaw to Annie Haggerty (February 8, 1863) -- Emancipation and intervention, London, February 1863 / Richard Cobden to Charles Sumner (February 13, 1863) -- "These traitors right here", Springfield, February, 1863 / Isaac Funk (Speech in the Illinois State Senate, February 14, 1863) -- "His wife crying over him", Missouri, February 1863 / Taylor Peirce to Catharine Peirce (February 16, 1863) -- The menace of the press, Louisiana, February 1863 / William T. Sherman to Thomas Ewing, Sr. (February 17, 1863) and to John Sherman (February 18, 1863) -- Opposing conscription, Washington, D.C., February 1863 / Clement L. Vallandigham (Speech in Congress, February 23, 1863) -- "Vile and traitorous resolutions", Virginia, February 1863 / Samuel W. Fiske to the Springfield Republican (February 25, 1863) -- Defending Fort McAllister, Georgia, March 1863 / Charles C. Jones, Jr. to Charles C. Jones, Sr., and Mary Jones (March 3, 1863) -- "Fight more manfully than ever", Georgia, March 1863 / Charles C. Jones, Sr., to Charles C. Jones, Jr. (March 4, 1863) -- Black refugees, Virginia, March 1863 / Harriet Jacobs to Lydia Maria Child (March 18, 1863) -- Unionist refugees, Missouri, March 1863 / William Henry Harrison Clayton to Nide and Rachel Pugh (March 26, 1863) -- Withdrawing slaves from the enemy, Washington, D.C., March 1863 / Henry W. Halleck to Ulysses S. Grant (March 31, 1863) -- The Army before Vicksburg, Louisiana, March 1863 / Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted (April 1, 1863) -- "A war for emancipation", April 1863 / Frederick Douglass (Why should a colored man enlist?, April 1863) -- Defending General Pemberton, Virginia, April 1863 / Jefferson Davis to William M. Brooks (April 2, 1863) -- The Richmond bread riot, Virginia, April 1863 / John B. Jones (Diary, April 2-4, 1863) -- The necessity of fighting, April 1863 / Whitelaw Reid to the Cincinnati Gazette (April 4, 1863) -- Lincoln Reviews the Army, Virginia, April 1863 / Charles S. Wainwright (Diary, April 5-12, 1863) -- Loyalty to the nation, New York, April 1863 / Francis Lieber (No Party Now, But All for Our Country, April 11, 1863) -- Home and family news, Iowa, April 1863 / Catharine Peirce to Taylor Peirce (April 12, 1863) -- "Fighting goes like fortunes", Tennessee, April 1863 / James A. Connolly to Mary Dunn Connolly (April 20, 1863) -- "I am doing my best", Louisiana, April 1863 / Ulysses S. Grant to Jesse Root Grant (April 21, 1863) -- Threatening retaliation, South Carolina, April 1863 / David Hunter to Jefferson Davis (April 23, 1863) -- "A night and day of terror", Louisiana, March-April 1863 / Kate Stone (Journal, April 25, 1863) -- Waiting to march, Virginia, April 1863 / Wilbur Fisk to The Green Mountain Freeman (April 26, 1863) -- "Rain, mud & night", Virginia, April 1863 / John Hampden Chamberlayne to Martha Burwell Chamberlayne (April 30, 1863) -- Expelling "enemies", Louisiana, April 1863 / Sarah Morgan (Diary, April 30, 1863) -- Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, May 1863 / Samuel Pickens (Diary, May 1-3, 1863) -- "Disorder reigned supreme", Virginia, May 1863 / Jedediah Hotchkiss (Journal, May 2-6, 1863) -- Battle of Port Gibson, Mississippi, May 1863 / Taylor Peirce to Catharine Peirce (May 4, 1863) -- "The nation's idol", North Carolina, May 1863 / Catherine Edmondston (Diary, May 5-7, 9 and 11-12, 1863) -- "The great Joe Hooker", Virginia, May 1863 / Charles F. Morse to his family (May 7, 1863) -- "Disgraceful and disastrous defeat", Virginia, May 1863 / Samuel W. Fiske to the Springfield Republican (May 9 and 11, 1863) -- Escaping slavery, Virginia, May 1863 / Charles B. Wilder (Testimony before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, May 9, 1863) -- Commanding a black regiment, South Carolina, May 1863 / Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Journal, May 10, 1863) -- Mourning Stonewall Jackson, Kentucky, May 1863 / Edward O. Guerrant (Diary, May 15, 1863) -- Swearing allegiance, Kentucky, May 1863 / George Richard Browder (Diary, May 17-26, 1863) -- "The people can be trusted", New York, May 1863 / Harper's Weekly (The arrest of Vallandigham, May 30, 1863) -- Meeting "Secesh" civilians, Virginia, June 1863 / Oliver W. Norton to Elizabeth Norton Poss (June 8, 1863) -- The burning of Darien, Georgia, June 1863 / Robert Gould Shaw to Annie Haggerty Shaw (June 9-13, 1863) -- Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, June 1863 / William Winters to Harriete Winters (June 9, 1863) -- Battle of Miliken's Bend, Louisiana, June 1863 / Matthew M. Miller to his aunt (June 10, 1863) -- "Dividing and weakening" the North, Virginia, June 1863 / Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis (June 10, 1863) -- "The hand of destruction", Mississippi, June 1863 / William T. Sherman to John T. Swayne (June 11, 1863) -- Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia, June 1863 / Henry C. Whelan to Mary Whelan (June 11, 1863) -- The constitution in wartime, Washington, D.C., June 1863 / Abraham Lincoln to Erastus Corning and others (June 12, 1863) -- The Vicksburg Siege continues, Mississippi, June 1863 / William Henry Harrison Clayton to Amos and Grace Clayton (June 18, 1863) and to George Washington Clayton and John Quincy Adams Clayton (June 28, 1863) -- "A soldier never knows", Mississippi, June 1863 / Charles B. Haydon (Journal, June 20, 1863) -- "They have sowed the wind", Mississippi, June 1863 / William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman (June 27, 1863) -- Invading the North, Maryland and Pennsylvania, June 1863 / Edmund DeWitt Patterson: Journal, June 24-30, 1863 -- "A very different race", Pennsylvania, June 1863 / Lafayette McLaws to Emily McLaws (June 28, 1863) -- Changing commanders, Maryland, June 1863 / Alpheus S. Williams to Irene and Mary Williams (June 29, 1863) -- "This business of war", Maryland, June 1863 / Samuel W. Fiske to the Springfield Republican (June 30, 1863) --
Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863 / Arthur James Lyon Fremantle (Diary, July 1-4, 1863) -- "What terrible work", Pennsylvania, July 1863 / Samuel Pickens (Diary, July 1-3, 1863) -- "This trial of the nerves", Pennsylvania, July 1863 / Francis Adams Donaldson (Narrative of Gettysburg, July 2-3, 1863) -- News of Gettysburg, Washington, D.C., July, 1863 / Elizabeth Blair Lee to Samuel Phillips Lee (July 3 and 4-5, 1863) -- Defending Little Round Top, Pennsylvania, July 1863 / Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to George B. Herendeen (July 6, 1863) -- Defeating Pickett's charge, Pennsylvania, July 1863 / Henry Livermore Abbott to Josiah Gardner Abbott (July 6, 1863) -- "A series of terrible engagements", Pennsylvania, July 1863 / Lafayette McLaws to Emily McLaws (July 7, 1863) -- A nurse at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863 / Cornelia Hancock to her cousin (July 7, 1863) and to Ellen Hancock Child (July 8, 1863) -- Celebrating the fourth, Iowa, July 1863 / Catharine Peirce to Taylor Peirce (July 5, 1863) -- Vicksburg surrenders, Mississippi, July 1863 / William Henry Harrison Clayton to Amos and Grace Clayton (July 5, 1863) -- "The event of the war", Mississippi, July 1863 / William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman (July 5, 1863) -- A "forlorn and forsaken" place, Mississippi, July 1863 / William Winters to Harriet Winters (July 6, 1863) -- "The glorious result", Washington, D.C., July 1863 / Benjamin B. French (Journal, July 8, 1863) -- War news and rumors, North Carolina, July 1863 / Catherine Edmondston (Diary, July 8-11, 1863) -- Fighting on the Mississippi, Louisiana, July 1863 / George Hamilton Perkins to Susan G. Perkins (July 29, 1863) -- "I must die very soon", Mississippi, July 1863 / Charles B. Haydon (Journal, July 11, 1863) -- "The Prest was deeply grieved", Washington, D.C., July 1863 / John Hay (Diary, July 11-15, 1863) -- Acknowledging a victory, Washington, D.C., July 1863 / Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant (July 13, 1863) -- "Your golden opportunity is gone", Washington, D.C., July 1863 / Abraham Lincoln to George G. Meade (July 14, 1863) -- Crossing the Potomac, Maryland and West Virginia, July 1863 / Samuel Pickens (Diary, July 14, 1863) -- The draft riots, New York, July 1863 / George Templeton Strong (Diary, July 13-17, 1863) -- Battle of Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, July 1863 / Emma Holmes (Diary, July 16-19, 1863) -- "We crippled them severely", Virginia, July 1863 / Walter H. Taylor to Richard Taylor (July 17, 1863) -- Battle of Fort Wagner, South Carolina, July 1863 / James Henry Gooding to the New Bedford Mercury (July 20, 1863) -- "Not a man flinched", South Carolina, July 1863 / Lewis Douglass to Amelia Loguen (July 20, 1863) -- Mourning Colonel Shaw, South Carolina, July 1863 / Charlotte Forten (Journal, July 20-24, 1863) -- "Four days of great anxiety", New York, July 1863 / Maria Lydig Daly (Diary, July 23, 1863) -- "The Atheist roar of riot", New York, July 1863 / Herman Melville (The House-top) -- News of victory, London, July 1863 / Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (July 23, 1863) -- Justifying a decision, Virginia, July 1863 / George G. Meade to Henry W. Halleck (July 31, 1863) -- "I am alone to blame", Virginia, July 1863 / Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis (July 31, 1863) -- "What is right", New York, July 1863 / Hannah Johnson to Abraham Lincoln (July 31, 1863) -- Refusing to recruit, New York, August 1863 / Frederick Douglass to George L. Stearns (August 1, 1863) -- Demanding retaliation, New York, August 1863 / Frederick Douglass (The Commander-in-Chief and His Black Soldiers, August 1863) -- Visiting the wounded, Washington, D.C., August 1863 / Walt Whitman to Lewis Kirk Brown (August 1, 11, and 15, 1863) -- Demanding equal pay, South Carolina, August 1863 / George E. Stephens to the Weekly Anglo-African (August 7, 1863) -- An offer to resign Virginia, August 1863 / Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis (August 8, 1863) -- Refusing a resignation, Virginia, August 1863 / Jefferson Davis to Robert E. Lee (August 11, 1863) -- Pillaging wood, Virginia, August 1863 / Wilbur Fisk to The Green Mountain Freeman (August 10, 1863) -- Meeting the President, Washington, D.C., August 1863 / Frederick Douglass to George L. Stearns (August 12, 1863) -- Demoralization at Galveston, Texas, August 1863 / William H. Neblett to Elizabeth Scott Neblett (August 18, 1863) -- "Such a scene of horror", Kansas, August 1863 / Richard Cordley (Narrative of the Lawrence Massacre) -- The impact of black troops, Illinois, August 1863 / Ulysses S. Grant to Abraham Lincoln (August 23, 1863) -- Peace meetings, North Carolina, August 1863 / Jonathan Worth to Jesse G. Henshaw (August 24, 1863) -- "The most radical remedy", Missouri, August 1863 / John M. Schofield to Thomas Ewing Jr. (August 25, 1863) -- Emancipation and black soldiers, Washington, D.C., August 1863 / Abraham Lincoln to James C. Conkling (August 26, 1863) -- "Slavery is already dead", Mississippi, August 1863 / Ulysses S. Grant to Elihu B. Washburne (August 30, 1863) -- The Laird Rams, London, September 1863 / Charles Francis Adams to Lord Russell (September 5, 1863) -- The Siege of Charleston, South Carolina, September 1863 / Charles C. Jones Jr. to Mary Jones (September 6 and 9, 1863) -- The Raider Alabama, Cape Colony, September 1863 / Raphael Semmes (Journal, September 16-24, 1863) -- Reconstruction, Mississippi, September 1863 / William T. Sherman to Henry W. Halleck (September 17, 1863) -- Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, September 1863 / William W. Heartsill (Journal, September 17-28, 1863) -- "Lying so thick over the field", Georgia, September 1863 / John S. Jackman (Diary, September 18-21, 1863) -- "The nameless dead: Georgia, September-October 1863 / Kate Cumming (Journal, September 28-October 1, 1863) -- Speech at Missionary Ridge, October 10, 1863, Tennessee, October 1863 / Jefferson Davis -- Becoming an officer, Washington, D.C., October 1863 / Oliver W. Norton to Elizabeth Norton Poss (October 15, 1863) -- Speech at Wilmington, November 5, 1863, North Carolina, November 1863 / Jefferson Davis -- "We have no fears", Virginia, November 1863 / Walter H. Taylor to Bettie Saunders (November 15, 1863) -- Contraband hospital, Washington, D.C., November 1863 / Cornelia Hancock to an unknown correspondent (November 15, 1863) -- A trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 1863 / John Hay (Diary, November 18-19, 1863) -- Address at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863, Pennsylvania, November 1863 / Abraham Lincoln -- Petition from the Colored Citizens of Beaufort, November 20, 1863, Protesting impressment, North Carolina, November 1863 -- Battle of Chattanooga, Tennessee, November 1863 / William Wrenshall Smith (Journal, November 13-25, 1863) -- "Wild with excitement", Tennessee, November 1863 / Montgomery C. Meigs (Journal, November 23-25, 1863) -- "The grandest sight I ever saw", Tennessee and Georgia, November 1863 / James A. Connolly to Mary Dunn Connolly (November 26 and December 7, 1863) -- The Mine Run Campaign, Virginia, November-December 1863 / Theodore Lyman (Journal, November 26-December 2, 1863) --
A soldier at Mine Run, Virginia, November-December 1863 / Wilbur Fisk to the Green Mountain Freeman (November 29 and December 8, 1863) -- "My conscience is clear", Virginia, December 1863 / George G. Meade to Margaret Meade (December 2 and 7, 1863) -- "Every free man a voter", Pennsylvania, December 1863 / Frederick Douglass (Our Work Is Not Done, December 4, 1863) -- Annual message to Congress, December 8, 1863, Washington, D.C., December 1863 / Abraham Lincoln -- Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, December 8, 1863, Washington, D.C., December 1863 / Abraham Lincoln -- Subduing the South, New York, December 1863 / George Templeton Strong (Diary, December 11-13, 1863) -- "One misfortune follows another", North Carolina, December 1863 / Catherine Edmondston (Diary, December 11, 1863) -- "God help my country", Virginia, January 1864 / Mary Chesnut (Diary, January 1, 1864) -- "And yet we must go on", Virginia, January 1864 / Judith W. McGuire (Diary, January 1, 1864) -- Sacrificing slavery, Georgia, January 1864 / Patrick R. Cleburne (Memorandum on Emancipation and Enlisting Black Soldiers, January 2, 1864) -- "They have appealed to war", Mississippi, January 1864 / William T. Sherman to Roswell M. Sawyer (January 31, 1864) -- Meeting "Father Abraham", Washington, D.C., February 1864 / Lois Bryan Adams to the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune (February 8 and 23, 1864) -- Sinking of the Housatonic, South Carolina, February 1864 / Francis J. Higginson to John A. Dahlgren (February 18, 1864) -- A submarine torpedo boat, South Carolina, October 1863-February 1864 / James H. Tomb (Notes on the H.L. Hunley, January 1865) -- A soldier's widow, Virginia, February 1864 / Judith W. McGuire (Diary, February 28, 1864) -- Hanging deserters, North Carolina, February 1864 / John Paris (Sermon preached at Kinston, February 28, 1864) -- Battle of Olustee, Florida, February 1864 / Oliver W. Norton to Elizabeth Norton Poss (February 29, 1864) -- The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid, Virginia, March 1864 / John B. Jones (Diary, March 1-2 and 5, 1864) -- Summoned to Washington, Tennessee, March, 1864 / Ulysses S. Grant to William T. Sherman (March 4, 1864) -- "Come out West", Tennessee, March 1864 / William T. Sherman to Ulysses S. Grant (March 10, 1864) -- Chronology.
Spanning the crucial months from January 1863 to March 1864, this third volume of The Library of America's highly acclaimed four volume series presents an incomparable portrait of a nation at war with itself while illuminating the military and political events that brought the Union closer to victory and slavery closer to destruction. It brings together more than 140 contemporary letters, diary entries, speeches, articles, messages, and poems by more than eighty participants and observers, among them Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Mary Chesnut, Clement Vallandigham, Henry Adams, Charlotte Forten, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and George Templeton Strong, as well as Union officers Robert Gould Shaw, Charles B. Haydon, and Henry Livermore Abbott; Confederate diarists Catherine Edmondston, Kate Stone, and Judith McGuire; and Alabama soldier Samuel Pickens, Iowa housewife Catharine Peirce, Kentucky preacher George Richard Browder, and Kansas clergyman Richard Cordley. The selections include vivid and haunting eyewitness narratives of some of the war's most famous battles--Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Fort Wagner, Chickamauga, Chattanooga--as well as firsthand accounts of the merciless guerrilla war in Missouri and Kansas; the Richmond bread riot and the New York draft riots; the controversies surrounding the use of black soldiers and the Lincoln administration's curtailment of civil liberties; and the struggles of civilians both black and white to survive increasingly harsh wartime conditions.
Brooks D. Simpson, editor, is Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University. He is the author of Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 and Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865, and the co-editor of Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-65.