Central Kansas Library System

Last year more than 30,000 people directly participated in reenactments of the classic battles of the Civil War, events that drew hundreds of thousands of spectators. Utterly authentic in terms of equipment and costumes (even down to the correct buttons), these events offered photographer Kris Kristoffersen the opportunity to capture on modern film the sweeping scenes of movement and battle that evaded contemporary Civil War photographers, whose primitive...

Look into the eyes of these soldiers and see the faces of those who dared to stare into the face of Death. The Battle of Fredericksburg, fought December 11-15, 1862, is often remembered for the seemingly futile attacks by the Army of the Potomac against dug in Confederates on Marye's Heights. Less well understood is the fighting south of the heights on what has become known as Slaughter Pen Farm. In this work the images of thirty Union soldiers are...

"Across The Continent with the Fifth Cavalry" by George F. Price, Captain Fifth Cavalry, U. S. A., is the history of the Fifth Cavalry of the United States Army from its organization in 1855 to 1883 when the book was published. The book is divided into two main parts: Part I is a narrative history of the Unit from 1855-83, while Part II gives a short biographical sketch of each of the unit's officers during this time period. The Fifth Cavalry was...

Will Emily find the courage to make one final bid for love and freedom?When the Union navy fires on Charleston, Emily must flee to Ella Wood-and to a father who has never forgiven her for attending the Maryland Institute against his will. There, she grapples with Jack's secret plans for the plantation and his final admonition that she carry them to fruition. But as a woman under the authority of her father, evoking even the slightest change may prove...

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty In early summer, 1863 Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia began moving northward. As Lee moved toward Maryland, the Union army followed, taking a parallel path on the opposite side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. From June 9 to the beginning of July the two armies skirmished at various locations along the route. Then, from July 1 through July 3, they clashed in the epic Battle of Gettysburg....

What was it like to be part of the U.S. Civil War? Personal accounts, newspaper stories, and other primary sources give students an opportunity to see what it was like to live during this amazing time in history.

With the stroke of a pen, President Abraham Lincoln freed the South's enslaved people in the midst of the brutal U.S. Civil War. Or, did he? Who did the Emancipation Proclamation really free? What effect did it have on the course of the Civil War? And, what became of the inkstand on which he wrote the famous document? Readers will find the answers to these questions and discover more of what an artifact can tell us about history.

The second volume of David Herbert Donald's Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of the most compelling senator of the Civil War era In the enthralling sequel to Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, acclaimed historian David Herbert Donald examines the life of the Massachusetts legislator from 1860 to his death in 1874. As a leader of the Radical Republicans, Sumner made the abolition of slavery his primary legislative focus-yet opposed the...

Walt Whitman was already famous for Leaves of Grass when he journeyed to Washington at the height of the Civil War to find his brother George, a Union officer wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Eventually, Whitman would serve as a volunteer "hospital missionary"-making more than six hundred hospital visits and serving over eighty thousand sick and wounded soldiers in the next three years. With the 1865 publication of Drum-Taps, Whitman became...

A native of Beaufort, South Carolina, Robert Smalls was born into slavery but-through acts of remarkable courage and determination-became the first African American hero of the Civil War and one of the most influential African American politicians in South Carolina history. In this largely political biography of Smalls's inspirational story, Edward A. Miller, Jr., traces the triumphs and setbacks of the celebrated U.S. congressman and advocate of...