Military

A fascinating documentation of the Battle of Fisher's Hill, explaining this pivotal Civil War battle and its implications for nearby civilians.

The Battle of Fisher's Hill created a greater opportunity to destroy harvests from the ""Breadbasket of the Confederacy"" than any other Union victory in the hotly contested Shenandoah Valley. Union major general Philip Sheridan's men forced Confederate lieutenant general Jubal A. Early's smaller force to retreat, leading to the burning of barns and mills across the region. In this first-ever book focused on this engagement, Civil War historian Jonathan A. Noyalas explains the battle, its effect on area civilians and its meaning to both sides, as well as the battlefield's important role in postwar reunion and reconciliation.

Following this historic battle, the United States Colored Troops (USCT) had proven their valor and taken their rightful place amongst heroes in America's history.

In the predawn darkness of September 29, 1864, black Union soldiers attacked a heavily fortified position on the outskirts of the Confederate capital of Richmond.

In a few hours of desperate fighting, these African-American soldiers struck a blow against Robert E. Lee's vaunted Army of Northern Virginiaand proved to detractors that they could fight for freedom and citizenship for themselves and their enslaved brethren. For fourteen of the black soldiers who stormed New Market Heightsthat day, their bravery would be awarded with the nation's highest honor: The Congressional Medal of Honor.

With vivid firsthand accounts and meticulous tactical detail, James S. Price brings the Battle of New Market Heightsinto brilliant focus with maps by master cartographer Steven Stanley.

Nestled between the Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia's Shenandoah Valley enjoyed tremendous prosperity before the Civil War.

This valuable stretch of land--called the Breadbasket of the Confederacy due to its rich soil and ample harvests--became the source of many conflicts between the Confederate and Union armies. Of the thirteen major battles fought here, none was more influential than the Battle of Cedar Creek. On October 19, 1864, General Philip Sheridan's Union troops finally gained control of the valley, which eliminated the Shenandoah as a supply source for Confederate forces in Virginia, ended the valley's role as a diversionary theater of war and stopped its use as an avenue of invasion into the North.

Civil War historian, preservationist, and author Jonathan A. Noyalas explains the battle and how it aided Abraham Lincoln's reelection campaign and defined Sheridan's enduring legacy.

After months of reverses, the Union army was going on the offensive in the spring of 1862 as General McClellan prepared for his Peninsula Campaign.

In Tennessee, General Grant had just captured Ft. Henry and Ft. Donelson; and in southwestern Missouri, Gen. Samuel R. Curtis had driven Sterling Price and his Missouri State Guard out of the state and into the arms of General Ben McCulloch's Confederate army in northwestern Arkansas. Using the united armies of Price and McCulloch, the new Confederate department commander, Earl Van Dorn, struck back at Curtis' Federal army which was now outnumbered and two hundred miles from its supply base. For two days in early March 1862, the armies of Van Dorn and Curtis fought in the wilds of the Ozark Mountains at a place called Pea Ridge. Control of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri for the rest of the war hung on the outcome.

The United States Naval Construction Force, known as the Seabees, have and are still an integral part of the Naval base located in Gulfport, Mississippi.

In June 1942, the U.S. Navy established an advance base depot in Gulfport because of its uncrowded deepwater port, rail access, open land, and a tepid climate that permitted training and open port facilities year-round. The base became the southern home for the Seabees and was ideal for shipping construction material and men to the Caribbean or the Pacific via the Panama Canal. Since the base reopened in March 1966, Seabees have deployed from Gulfport to serve during major conflicts as well as in peacetime. Seabees from Gulfport played an integral part in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm and more recently deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq to assist in local construction efforts to rebuild both countries. Seabees assist thousands each year in international humanitarian projects while still calling Gulfport home.

Camp Forrest is a microcosm of the immensity that was World War II, all inside the small community of Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Originally named Camp Peay and built in 1926 as a National Guard Camp, Camp Forrest was renamed for Confederate General and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and became a World War II induction, training and prisoner of war facility in Tullahoma. The self-sustained city was home to seventy thousand soldiers and about twelve thousand civilian employees, including German and Italian prisoners of war as well as Japanese, German and Italian American citizens who were forcibly incarcerated. After the war ended, the base was decommissioned and dismantled, but the memories of those who lived, worked, trained and grew up during this time of sacrifice and war recount a time the world has not seen since. Author Elizabeth Taylor uses numerous personal interviews, newspaper articles, diaries and biographies to tell the stories of those who lived through the era.