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HIS 131 - American History I: Books, eBooks, and Websites

This course is a survey of American history from pre-history through the Civil War era. Topics include the migrations to the Americas, the colonial and revolutionary periods, the development of the Republic, and the Civil War.

Websites

Ebooks on the Civil War

American Civil War

A concise and well-informed introduction to the most traumatic and bloodiest war in American history. Recounts the events that led from the early battles through the terrible confrontations at Gettysburg and Vicksburg to the South's final surrender at Appomattox in 1865.

Trials and Triumphs

In Trials and Triumphs, Marilyn Mayer Culpepper provides incomparable insights into women's lives during America's Civil War era. Her respect for these nineteenth-century women and their experiences, as well as her engaging and intimate style, enable Culpepper to transport readers into a tumultuous time of death, destruction, and privation.

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass's life as a slave and after his escape from slavery in his own words.

Captives in Gray

Contemporary reports from prisoners and witnesses humanize the grim realities of the POW camps. Perhaps no topic is more heated, and the sources more tendentious, than that of Civil War prisons and the treatment of prisoners of war.

Books on the Civil War

Out of the Mouth of Hell

Early in the Civil War, prisons were adequate to hold the numbers of prisoners. As the war continued and the number of prisoners increased, so did the number of facilities. Some 150 locations were utilized to hold soldiers captured on the battlefield as well as political prisoners suspected of disloyalty.

Andersonville Prison

This book explores the Andersonville Prison experience and examines the prison as an organization.

The New York Times the Complete Civil War, 1861-1865

The Civil War as you've never experienced it before, through original, first-hand reportage of The New York Times, the country's newspaper of record.

Gettysburg

History was made on the first three days of July 1863 at Gettysburg, Pa., where Confederate General Robert E. Lee waged a final desperate gamble to win the Civil War-and lost. Now TIME celebrates the 150th anniversary of this pivotal battle in a freshly reported, incisively written and beautifully illustrated volume. TIME has enlisted a brilliant roster of writers to offer fresh perspectives on this iconic battle. Best-selling novelist Jeff Shaara will create a fictional portrait of a Southern soldier in the ranks, and military historian David Eisenhower will examine the strategy of the battle.

Photography and the American Civil War

Six hundred thousand lives were lost between 1861 and 1865, making the conflict between North and South the nation's deadliest war. If the "War Between the States" was the test of the young republic's commitment to its founding precepts, it was also a watershed in photographic history, as the camera recorded the epic, heartbreaking narrative from beginning to end--providing those on the home front, for the first time, with immediate visual access to the horrors of the battlefield. Photography and the American Civil War features both familiar and rarely seen images that include haunting battlefield landscapes strewn with bodies.

Demon of the Lost Cause

  At the end of the Civil War, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman was surprisingly more popular in the newly defeated South than he was in the North. Yet, only thirty years later, his name was synonymous with evil and destruction in the South, particularly as the creator and enactor of the "total war" policy. In Demon of the Lost Cause, Wesley Moody examines these perplexing contradictions and how they and others function in past and present myths about Sherman.

Civil War Weapons

War is a driver for technological change, and the evolution of weapons can be seen by studying the design of the Civil War weapons cataloged in this attractive full-color reference book. The Civil War was fought all over the United States, although mainly in the south. More than three million Americans fought in the Civil War and over six hundred thousand men, or two percent of the population, died in this deradful conflict. Studying the weapons used by both the Union army and Confderate forces tells an intriguing story of its own. The well-equipped Union army had access to the best of the industrial North's manufacturing output.

Narrative of Sojourner Truth

This inspiring memoir, first published in 1850, recounts the struggles of a distinguished African-American abolitionist and champion of women's rights. Sojourner Truth tells of her life in slavery, her self-liberation, and her travels across America in pursuit of racial and sexual equality. Essential reading for students of American history.

Civil War Journal

This is the first book in a series of three developed from the popular History Channel series "Civil War Journal. The Leaders" explores the Federals and Confederates who had the greatest influence on how the war was fought. Illustrated and indexed.