Books for the Civil War Buff in Your Life

Navigate the often-overlooked history of the resolute defense of the Texas coast during the Civil War. With volumes written on the Civil War, little attention has been given to the defense of the Texas coast. Most military-aged Texans had been dispatched across the Mississippi, but those left behind resolutely weathered naval bombardments and repulsed invasion attempts. It was only at the end of the conflict that Federal troops were able to make their way into South Texas, as the Confederacy prepared its last stand at Caney Creek and the Brazos River. From famous battles to obscure skirmishes, William Nelson Fox provides an account of the Lone Star State’s defensive strategies during the Civil War.

The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad has operated for more than three decades as a tourist ride over the breathtaking Cumbres Pass, ten thousand feet above sea level in the Rocky Mountains. The sixty-four miles of the former San Juan Extension of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway were saved twice by volunteers from the railroad graveyard. In 1970, the States of Colorado and New Mexico bought the railroad, which runs from Chama, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, to Antonito, Conejos County, Colorado. New Mexico historian and C&TSRR commissioner and spokesman Spencer Wilson offers an insider's account of this triumphant tale of historical preservationists succeeding on an impressive scale.

On the eve of the Civil War, Galveston was a jewel of the Gulf Coast--a booming city with a fine natural harbor and all the commerce, culture and improvements that attended it. Galveston was also home to the largest slave market west of New Orleans and a hotbed of secessionist sentiment. Once the war started, Galveston became the focus of Union efforts to take Texas and Confederate efforts to defend it. Through the voice of its people, this lively book relates the interesting and important role the Island City played during the war, including the story of the Union naval blockade, the dramatic Battle of Galveston, Unionists, dreadful epidemics of yellow fever, the surrender of Galveston as the last major port still in Confederate hands and the bondage and liberation of the island's enslaved African Americans.

Although the New Mexico Territory was far distant from the main theaters of war, it was engulfed in the same violence and bloodshed as the rest of the nation. The Civil War in New Mexico was fought in the deserts and mountains of the huge territory, which was mostly wilderness, amid the continuing ancient wars against the wild Indian tribes waged by both sides. The armies were small, but the stakes were high: control of the Southwest. Retired lieutenant colonel and Civil War historian Dr. Walter Earl Pittman presents this concise history of New Mexico during the Civil War years from the Confederate invasion of 1861 to the Battles of Valverde and Glorieta to the end of the war.

Galveston was the birthplace of Juneteenth.

Issued in Galveston on June 19, 1865, General Orders, No. 3 announced to the people of Texas that all slaves were free. It is one of the Island's most important historical moments. Although Juneteenth has now become the basis for a national holiday, many Americans wonder how and why this date emerged as the basis for the oldest continually celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery. To even begin to answer these questions, it is necessary to return to the historic roots of the event itself. The Galveston Historical Foundation's African American Heritage Committee tracks Emancipation Day observances through previously unknown images and untold stories which are also part of an interactive exhibit experience at Ashton Villa, the site of Galveston's city-wide Juneteenth celebration.

In the last months of the American Civil War, the upper Texas coast became a hive of blockade running. Though Texas was often considered an isolated backwater in the conflict, the Union's pervasive and systematic seizure of Southern ports left Galveston as one of the only strongholds of foreign imports in the anemic supply chain to embattled Confederate forces. Long, fast steamships ran in and out of the city's port almost every week, bound to and from Cuba. Join author Andrew W. Hall as he explores the story of Texas's Civil War blockade runners--a story of daring, of desperation and, in many cases, of patriotism turning coat to profiteering.