Guerrilla Warfare and Violence in Thomas Goodrich's "Black Flag"

My great-great-great grandfather, Captain Bill Strong, was a brute, well known throughout Breathitt County, Kentucky at first by his Civil War fame, but also his terrible feudal era. In Spring of 1870, Amis and his sons went to Strong’s field and began firing at him while Strong was plowing. Captain Strong then ran to his house, grabbed his gun and shot JOhn Amis through both thighs. Once John recovered him, his father and brothers started warfare with Captain Strong. The next day the Amis family set out to Strong’s house and began firing at it, killing Strong’s negro; Captain Strong called for reinforcements because he was not well armed to fight them off.

The American Civil War has become a point of controversy and argument when discussing key events in shaping America. The arguments that arise when discussing the war tend to focus on whether the Confederate was constitutionally justified in seceding, or whether the North had the right to prevent the secession. However, when discussing the America Civil War and the idea of separation, it is important to be mindful that separation did not simply end at the state level. Letters written by Jesse Rolston, Jr. and Jedediah Hotchkiss portray two significantly different attitudes toward the war, despite the fact that the writers both fought for the Confederate States and give accounts of the same battle, one of which ended in the Confederate’s favor. When examining the documents, both writers express different viewpoints on life on and off the battlefield. This significant difference represents a division amongst the Confederate army.

James McPherson was born on October 11th 1936, he is an American Civil War historian. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, his most famous book. McPherson was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003, and is a member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica. In his early career McPherson wanted to leave a legacy as being known for the historian who focusses on more than one point. Through skillful narrative in a broad-ranging oeuvre of essays and books, McPherson has succeeded in telling both stories, combining social, political, and military history to reach a broad scholarly and popular audience, emphasizing all the while that the Civil War constituted a “second American Revolution.” Examining thousands of letters and diaries written by soldiers to gather a better insight and understanding, McPherson argued that deep political and ideological convictions about liberty, slavery, religion, and nation were the fundamental reasons that men on both sides enlisted and fought. McPherson’s views on the Civil War are broad in comparison to many other writers, he believes there are multiple causes to the war but that the underlying cause was slavery and that Southern states used the saying “States’ Rights” to justify their actions of slavery and secession. It became a psychological necessity for the South to deny that the war was about slavery that they were fighting for the preservation, defense and

Company Aytch, a memoir written by Sam Watkins, tells the personal tale of a lowly private fighting four long years in the American Civil War. Watkins was from Columbia, Tennessee, and was a part of Company H, 1st Tennessee Infantry. He recounts his military career in chronological order, from before the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 to the day the Confederacy surrendered at Nashville in 1865. Watkins is a humble writer, often reminds the reader that he is not aiming to provide a comprehensive account of the entire war, but rather a collection of personal stories. Military history books often recount the lives of generals and of great strategies, but this book insists that history should not exclude the common men who filled the ranks of the military.

No other war seems to hold our focus like the Civil War. Scholars have chosen to make it their life's work, authors have written reams about it, and we all feel some kind of connection to the Civil War. This paper was created to highlight some of the major battles that took place during that conflict. Major battles usually marked a drastic change in the momentum from one side to the other or led to massive losses of troops. These battles and their results all played a huge part in the outcome of the war.

The American Civil War occurred between 1861 and 1865 and is largely considered the most destructive conflict in U.S. history, resulting in approximately one million military casualties and an inestimable number of civil victims. Much controversy still surrounds the nature of this conflict, as its determining causes are complex. Contemporary international perception may have placed a progressive, anti-slavery label on the whole affair, yet the basic fact remains that nineteenth century America was an increasingly inhomogeneous country and prone to blatant discrepancy.

     Michael Shaara’s fictional novel, The Killer Angels, is based on the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. The novel allows the reader to recognize the heart and courage of the more than two million men that fought in the war. Shaara focuses the reader to better understand the reason why these men fight and the meaning of the war. Ultimately, the reader observes that the war is fought on an individual level as much as a governmental level. These men are there to fight for what they believe is truly right. The Confederates fought for their rights to hold slaves, their freedom tyranny of the Federal Government, and their

In his conclusion, McPherson answer what may lead one to ask if the American Civil War was indeed an extraordinary revolution, one whose likes the world had ever seen. The answer lies in the exact opposite of revolution. Counterrevolution occurred at first chance which in so many ways blanketed the revolutionary characteristics to the best of its applicability. From 1865 to 1866, immediately after the war, black codes began to surface. The purpose of these codes were to keep black labor in a state of dependence and subjection as close to slavery as possible. These codes appeared in the forms of vagrancy laws, contract labor laws the subjected freedmen to peonage and sharecropping, and violence. This code also makes for the final piece of evidence toward support of McPherson’s goal in categorizing the American Civil War as a revolution. Southern redeemers, after the withdrawal of northern Republican interest, went through great lengths to counter evolve them. Why would that be? In order to

The American Civil war is considered to be one of the most defining moments in American history. It is the war that shaped the social, political and economic structure with a broader prospect of unifying the states and hence leading to this ideal nation of unified states as it is today. In the book “Confederates in the Attic”, the author Tony Horwitz gives an account of his year long exploration through the places where the U.S. Civil War was fought. He took his childhood interest in the Civil War to a new level by traveling around the South in search of Civil War relics, battle fields, and most importantly stories. The title “Confederates in the Attic”: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War carries two meanings in Tony Horwitz’s

The Civil War was a very important time in history. The Missouri Compromise was one of the causes of the war. It basically settled the dispute of Missouri wanting to be a slave state. The Missouri Compromise was the states way of stopping all the newly gained states from becoming anti-slavery. The fear of having slavery banned across the whole United States scared many people.

Black Hearts tells the story of a few bad soldiers from 1st platoon, Bravo company of the 1-502nd Infantry Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division, that was plagued with toxic leadership and lack of control over soldiers. The book documents the events that led to the ultimate demise of the soldiers involved in the horrific incident that occurred on March 12, 2006. Four soldiers were arrested in the brutal murder of an Iraqi family, which was a result of the lack of leadership and structure these soldiers received. Black Hearts takes a deep look into what happened to this troubled platoon and what unfortunate events occurred during their deployment.

James M. McPherson, author of For Cause and Comrades, uses more than 25,000 unaltered letters and closely 250 private journals from Civil War soldiers—both Union and Confederate—in his attempt to explain what possessed these men to endure the roaring, gruesome chaos of war. What better way to express the motivation behind fighting than words straight from the pens of the men who were physically there and experienced the Civil War to its fullest? I personally feel as though McPherson succeeded in his explanation of the different driving forces that kept each man going during these difficult years of battle. The Wall Street Journal describes McPherson’s work as “an extraordinary book, full of fascinating details and moving self-portraits.”

The American Civil War was a military conflict between the United States of America (the Union), and 11 secessionist Southern states, organized as the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy). It was the culmination of four decades of intense sectional conflict and it reflected deep-seated economic, social, and political differences between the North and the South. Many books have been written on this “first modern war” describing how over 620,000 men were killed. Jeff Shaara goes deeper and explores the personal conflicts of four historical figures, two from the South and two from North: General Lee, General Jackson, Colonel Chamberlain, and Hancock.

The Civil War of America has been discussed as the first modern war of the new industrial age. Army’s of such a large size had yet to meet head on, face to face in the battle field with weapons of such mass destruction and deadly force. America had not yet seen casualties of this magnitude to

The Columbian University journalism professor Nicholas Lemann’s aim of writing this book is to look at the brutal campaign of fraud and violence during the mid-1870s that ultimately led to the restoration of conservative, white governments in some southern states. The author focuses on the reconstruction of Mississippi. He stirs memories of the murderous Southern resistance and to civil rights movements 90 years later. Lemann writes at an era when neo-Confederate sympathies have cropped up again in southern politics, and amid several reports of the suppression of the minority voting throughout the country. Mr. Lemann presents the last battle of the Civil War.