Recounts the Confederacy's last desperate stand and offers a vivid reconstruction of the Tennessee campaign and the devasting consequences of the South's failure

Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville

History

Sword, Wiley

Americas

Harpercollins

A dramatic recreation of the 1863 siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee, details the events of the pivotal battle, the personalities of soldiers and officers on both sides, and the impact of the battle on the Civil War.

Mountains Touched With Fire: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863

St Martins Pr

An Award-Winning Historian Dramatically Re-Creates a Turning Point of the Civil War
It was one of the most startling events of the civil war, the "hour of destiny" for the Union. Faced with the prospect of catastrophic defeat, the North's greatest generals--Ulysses Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George Thomas, and Phil Sheridan--were commanding a battle for the besieged city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Suddenly, as an aghast Grant and Thomas watched, the beleaguered federal troops began a headlong, climactic, seemingly suicidal charge up the face of a six-hundred-foot-high mountain ridge overlooking the city, under ferocious fire from the Confederate infantry that held the ridge.
The siege of Chattanooga and its stuffing turnabout form the core of Wiley Sword's lively narrative. Dozens of previously unpublished photographs, maps, and excepts from private journals, and letters enhance this vivid account. Written with novelistic flair and a historian's authority, Mountains Touched with Fire captures every side of this crucial Civil War battle whose aftermath sealed the fate of the South.

Mountains Touched with Fire: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863

St. Martin's: Griffin

Southern Invincibility: A History of the Confederate Heart

An exploration of the traditions and nature of Southern pride, a belief that Southerners have a different character from the rest of the nation, examines the impact of this thinking on the conduct and results of the Civil War.

Southern pride-the notion that the South's character distinguishes it from the rest of the country-had a profound impact on how and why Confederates fought the Civil War, and continued to mold their psyche after they had been defeated. In Southern Invincibility, award-winning historian Wiley Sword traces the roots of the South's belief in its own superiority and examines the ways in which that conviction contributed to the war effort, even when it became clear that the South would not win. Informed by thorough research, Southern Invincibility is the historical investigation of a psychology that continues to define the South.

Through diaries and letter written on the battlefield, in camps, and on the deathbeds of soldiers from north and south, Wiley Sword, writes about more than the Civil War. He writes of the complex working of a soldier's mind coming to grips with life and death in a time when his country was at war with itself. On Aug. 3, 1864, Illinois Lieutenant Frank Curtiss was ordered by his commander to take the 127th Illinois Infantry into a charge of the fortified Rebel lines. He knew certain death was in store for him and his men. He also knew little tactical superiority would be gained for lives lost and refused to do it. Confederate Brigadier General Patrick Cleburne, one of the South's greatest military tacticians, left diaries showing he was striving to refine his methods to save lives while winning battles. And then there is the Rhode Island Regiment's Major Sullivan Ballou who, in 1861 on the eve of the battle of Bull Run who wrote of courage and dedication to his cause. Wiley Sword constructs a picture of the military mind that still resonates in today's wars.

Courage Under Fire: Profiles in Bravery from the Battlefields of the Civil War

St.Martin's Press

"If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for . . . my courage does not halt or falter" – Major Sullivan Ballou, 1861, prior to the Battle of Bull Run
In Courage Under Fire, award-winning historian Wiley Sword captures the fervor of a nation at war with itself; a war that pitted brother against brother. Through the immediacy of diaries and letters written not only on the battlefields and in camps but also on the deathbeds of soldiers from both the North and South, Sword lays bare the complexities and depth of a soldier's mind in coming to grips with life and death – even while his country, and often his family, is mercilessly ripped apart. 
From wives and mothers to the highest military figures, all strived toward often worthy but difficult objectives, while seeking to suffer as little as possible. Featured in this compelling study of men and women facing the severest stress of their lives are fascinating stories such as that of Union Lieutenant Colonel Frank Curtiss. He was ordered to take his regiment, the 127th Illinois, in a hopeless charge against the enemy's fortified lines at Atlanta, Ga. on August 3, 1864. Aware that many of his men would die needlessly and for minimal tactical gain, he refused to obey these orders. The moral courage to fight meant also to appropriately assess the risks and weigh the loss in lives of one's soldiers. Confederate General John Bell Hood's decision to sacrifice much of his army at Franklin, Tennessee on November 30th 1864, ranks as one of the saddest events of the war. His aggressive behavior is assessed in terms of both moral and physical courage, providing a revealing insight into the character of one of the war's key commanders. The prospect of death in battle was a fearsome prospect for Lucy Morse, who kept desperate hope her husband, William H. Morse, would survive the fighting. She wrote to him,"I was almost crazy before I heard from you for fear that you had shared the fate of many a brave soldier." Her story and that of the fateful events in their lives provides graphic evidence of the fiber of America's soldiers and their worthy families.
In a revealing portrait of courage and its often bloody consequences, Wiley Sword conveys a vivid picture of bravery under extreme stress, which is fully appropriate in today's world.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Shiloh: bloody April

William Morrow

Following the fall of Atlanta, rebel commander John Bell Hood rallied his demoralized troops and marched them off the Tennessee, desperately hoping to draw Sherman after him and forestall the Confederacy's defeat. But Sherman refused to be lured and began his infamous "March to the Sea," while Hood charged headlong into catastrophe. In this compelling dramatic account of a final and fatal invasion by the Confederate Army of Tennessee, Wile Sword illuminates the missed opportunities, senseless bloody assaults, poor command decisions, and stubborn pride that resulted in 23,500 Confederate losses—including 7,00 casualties in one battle—and the pulverization of the South's second largest army. Sword follows Hood and his army as they let an early advantage and possible victory slip away at Spring Hill, then engage in a reckless and ill-fated frontal attack on Franklin, often called the "Gettysburg of the West." Despite that disaster, Hood refuses to yield and presses on the Nashville and a two-day bloodbath that unhinges what is left of his battered troops—the worst defeat suffered by any army during the war. Telling the story from both the Confederate and the Union perspectives, Sword pursues personalities as well as battles and troop strategy. He portrays Hood as a gutsy yet irresponsible leader—"a fool with a license to kill his own men"—whose valiant but rapidly dwindling troops were no match for the methodical General George G. Thomas and his better prepared—and entrenched—Union army. Hood, however, was not entirely to blame for Confederate failures, says Sword, who shows how decision making and actions—both good and bad, logical and chaotic—by key players on both sides helped determine the battles' outcomes.

The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville (Modern War Studies)

University Press of Kansas

The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795

President Washington's Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795

University of Oklahoma Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sword, Wiley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sword, Wiley

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sword, Wiley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville

Mountains Touched With Fire: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863

Mountains Touched with Fire: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863

Southern Invincibility: A History of the Confederate Heart

Southern Invincibility: A History of the Confederate Heart

Courage Under Fire: Profiles in Bravery from the Battlefields of the Civil War

Courage Under Fire: Profiles in Bravery from the Battlefields of the Civil War

Shiloh: bloody April

The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville (Modern War Studies)

President Washington's Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795