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When are people willing to sacrifice for the common good? What are the benefits of friendship? How do communities deal with betrayal? And what are the costs and benefits of being in a diverse community? Using the life histories of more than forty thousand Civil War soldiers, Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn answer these questions and uncover the vivid stories, social influences, and crucial networks that influenced soldiers' lives both during and after the war. Drawing information from government documents, soldiers' journals, and one of the most extensive research projects about Union Army soldiers ever undertaken, Heroes and Cowards demonstrates the role that social capital plays in people's decisions. The makeup of various companies--whether soldiers were of the same ethnicity, age, and occupation--influenced whether soldiers remained loyal or whether they deserted. Costa and Kahn discuss how the soldiers benefited from friendships, what social factors allowed some to survive the POW camps while others died, and how punishments meted out for breaking codes of conduct affected men after the war. The book also examines the experience of African-American soldiers and makes important observations about how their comrades shaped their lives. Heroes and Cowards highlights the inherent tensions between the costs and benefits of community diversity, shedding light on how groups and societies behave and providing valuable lessons for the present day.

Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War chronicles the lives and concerns of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore families of piedmont South Carolina during the late-antebellum and Civil War eras through 124 letters dated 1853 to 1865. The letters provide valuable firsthand accounts of evolving attitudes toward the war as conveyed between battlefronts and the home front, and they also express rich details about daily life in both environments. As the men of service age from each family join the Confederate ranks and write from military camps in Virginia and the Carolinas, they describe combat in some of the war's more significant battles. Though the surviving combatants remain staunch patriots to the Southern cause until the bitter end, readers witness in their letters the waning of initial enthusiasm in the face of the realities of warfare. The corresponding letters from the home front offer a more pragmatic assessment of the period and its hardships. Emblematic of the fates of many Southern families, the experiences of these representative South Carolinians are dramatically illustrated in their letters from the eve of the Civil War through its conclusion.

During the Civil War, Americans from homefront to battlefront played baseball as never before. While soldiers slaughtered each other over the country's fate, players and fans struggled over the form of the national pastime. George Kirsch gives us a color commentary of the growth and transformation of baseball during the Civil War. He shows that the game was a vital part of the lives of many a soldier and civilian--and that baseball's popularity had everything to do with surging American nationalism. By 1860, baseball was poised to emerge as the American sport. Clubs in northeastern and a few southern cities played various forms of the game. Newspapers published statistics, and governing bodies set rules. But the Civil War years proved crucial in securing the game's place in the American heart. Soldiers with bats in their rucksacks spread baseball to training camps, war prisons, and even front lines. As nationalist fervor heightened, baseball became patriotic. Fans honored it with the title of national pastime. War metaphors were commonplace in sports reporting, and charity games were scheduled. Decades later, Union general Abner Doubleday would be credited (wrongly) with baseball's invention. The Civil War period also saw key developments in the sport itself, including the spread of the New York-style of play, the advent of revised pitching rules, and the growth of commercialism. Kirsch recounts vivid stories of great players and describes soldiers playing ball to relieve boredom. He introduces entrepreneurs who preached the gospel of baseball, boosted female attendance, and found new ways to make money. We witness bitterly contested championships that enthralled whole cities. We watch African Americans embracing baseball despite official exclusion. And we see legends spring from the pens of early sportswriters. Rich with anecdotes and surprising facts, this narrative of baseball's coming-of-age reveals the remarkable extent to which America's national pastime is bound up with the country's defining event.

The Overland Campaign has traditionally been viewed as a brutal slugfest between the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Although Grant did not command the Potomac Army, he traveled with it and so micromanaged its commander, Meade, that, then and now, it is commonly known as “Grant's Army” when referring to the 1864 and 1865 campaigns. The Overland Campaign is the origin of Grant's reputation as a butcher who undertook one unimaginative frontal assault after another, only to be thwarted by a masterful defensive effort by Lee. Recent scholarship has challenged this myth, instead emphasizing the sophistication of Grant's operational vision and the limitations of Lee's generalship. However, the Overland Campaign's reputation as perhaps the Civil War's most brutal military campaign remains intact.

Continuing the study of field fortifications he began inField Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War, Earl J. Hess turns to the 1864 Overland campaign to cover battles from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor. A grueling form of trench warfare became a key feature of tactical operations during this phase of the war in Virginia.Drawing on meticulous research in primary sources and careful examination of trench remnants at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor, and Bermuda Hundred, Hess describes Union and Confederate earthworks and how Grant and Lee used them in this new era of field entrenchments. According to Hess, the heavy reliance on earthworks by both armies in the Overland campaign was driven by Grant's relentless attacks against Lee, not by the widespread use of rifle muskets, as historians have previously argued. Entrenchments kept the armies within striking distance and compelled soldiers to dig in for protection. Despite suffering massive casualties, Grant seized control of the strategic initiative and retained it for the rest of the war in the eastern theater.Illustrated by rare, historic photographs and new detailed maps of the trench remnants, this book constitutes the second installment of a three-volume study of field fortifications in the eastern campaigns.