Stephen W Sears

Presents a group portrait of the commanders who led the Army of the Potomac to explore how interpersonal tensions and their disagreements with Washington politics rendered them pawns to a vindictive Congress.

The greatest of all Civil War campaigns, Gettysburg was the turning point of the turning point in our nation's history. Volumes have been written about this momentous three-day battle, but recent histories have tended to focus on the particulars rather than the big picture: on the generals or on single days of battle-even on single charges-or on the daily lives of the soldiers. In Gettysburg Sears tells the whole story in a single volume. From the...

From the award-winning, national bestselling author of Gettysburg, this is the definitive account of the Chancellorsville campaign, from the moment "Fighting Joe" Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac to the Union's stinging, albeit temporary, defeat. Along with a vivid description of the experiences of the troops. Most notable is his use of Union military intelligence reports to show how Gen. Joseph Hooker was fed a stream of accurate information...

By age 35, General George B. McClellan (1826–1885), designated the "Young Napoleon," was the commander of all the Northern armies. He forged the Army of the Potomac into a formidable battlefield foe, and fought the longest and largest campaign of the time as well as the single bloodiest battle in the nation's history. Yet, he also wasted two supreme opportunities to bring the Civil War to a decisive conclusion. In 1864 he challenged Abraham Lincoln...

The air war over Europe during World War II proved that combat in the sky can be even more devastating than combat on the ground. When the war ended, every major city in Germany was virtually destroyed. A German writer admitted that his own nation, in taking up the sword to conquer the world, had "summoned up those bands of furies which raced across the German skies."

Here is the story of how the English acquired their vast domain; how they ruled, maintained, and exploited it; and how, within decades, they presided over its dissolution. Here are Britain's triumphs and also her stinging defeats, her heroes and her scoundrels. It is a full and fascinating chronicle of the growth of the British Empire and its people and of the impact that empire had on the rest of the world.

Collects diaries, letters, and eyewitness accounts of individuals from all walks of life on such topics as Lincoln's election, the firing on Fort Sumter, and the battle at Shiloh.