Bell Irvin Wiley

"For countless readers, the books of Bell Irvin Wiley (1906-1980) remain a high-water mark in historical writing on the American Civil War. The Life of Billy Yank, The Life of Johnny Reb, The Road to Appomattox, Southern Negroes, 1861-1865, all are classics in the field, and Wiley's influence on contemporary Civil War scholarship has been immeasurable. The Bell Irvin Wiley Reader offers for the first time many lesser known and unpublished writings of this eminent historian and provides an intimate portrait of the man Life magazine once hailed as "the nation's foremost authority of soldier life during the Civil War."". "With previously unpublished family photographs and a complete bibliography of Wiley's books and articles, The Bell Irvin Wiley Reader will fascinate all Civil War enthusiasts, introduction new readers to and reacquaint old friends with the life and works of this unsurpassed scholar."--BOOK JACKET.

"Between 1820 and 1861 more than 12,000 American blacks made the long voyage to Liberia. Many were members of families that had been brought to America in the 1600s. In the jungles of West Africa these new settlers battled virulent tropical diseases, marauding wild beasts, and fierce native tribesmen; with only basic hand tools (draft animals could hardly survive the climate) they faced the challenge of carving out fields from one of the world's densest forests. To former masters and to their own people the new Liberians wrote letters about physical deprivations, often asking for help; they also reported proudly on the political progress of their adopted country, which became a republic in 1847. Despite the discouragement and disappointment reflected in many of the letters, the settlers demonstrated a remarkable capacity to overcome the hostility of nature and to endure with courage and dignity. Bell I. Wiley has collected and annotated 273 letters written from Liberia by former slaves... To read the letters is to reach a new understanding of the meaning of slavery and of freedom; one senses the strength of the black family that distance did not splinter; one wonders at the religious faith that endured through the unimagined hardships and disasters"--

Southern women of the 1860's, as here revealed with the help of their own letters and diaries, were decidedly not the clinging vines described in romantic writings of later years. In a very real sense, the tragic Civil War was, for the Confederates, a women's war. Women were ardent in advocating secession. Women were indefatigable in running farms and families and infirmaries while their men fought. Throughout the hopeless war, the women conducted themselves in ways that earned the solid respect of their men, and in ways that won for women the first measured gains toward equality.

"Wiley sketches the course of the Confederacy's decline and reappraises the influences leading to its defeat." -- book jacket

This book explores the daily lives of the men in blue who fought to save the Union. With the help of many soldiers' letters and diaries, the author explains who these men were and why they fought, how they reacted to combat and the strain of prolonged conflict, and what they thought about the land and the people of Dixie. This social history reveals that while the Yanks and the Rebs fought for very different causes, the men on both sides were very much the same.

"Widely hailed for his realistic portrayals of the common soldier of the Civil War, Bell Irvin Wiley upset carefully cultivated, deeply held southern myths about the Lost Cause with the 1944 publication of The Plain People of the Confederacy. His look at the Confederate experience of soldiers, African Americans, and women also sparked a debate about the reasons for southern defeat that continues among historians to this day. Republished here with Paul D. Escott's new introduction and fresh appraisal of the book's influence, this classic work reveals a far more complex, conflicted, and intriguing society than the unified and idealized version created and perpetuated in the wake of surrender.". "Wiley broke new ground by challenging southern myths about a contented and loyal slave population, a self-sacrificing citizenry united in support of states' rights, and a military unmarred by cowardice and vice. Unearthing a wealth of correspondence, government documents, and other firsthand accounts, Wiley brought to center stage the question of popular morale and insisted on its importance in shaping the fate of the Confederacy. He showed that the Confederacy was racked by dissension and that the heart of the South's problems lay in class resentments and poor governmental policy rather than in military reverses."--BOOK JACKET.

This book is regarded as one of the best available accounts of the ordinary citizens who made up the Confederate army. The Life of Johnny Reb is not about the battles and skirmishes fought by the Confederate foot soldier. Rather, it is an intimate history of the soldier's daily life--the songs he sang, the foods he ate, the hopes and fears he experienced, the reasons he fought. The author has examined countless letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and official records in constructing this frequently poignant, sometimes humorous account.

Contemporary photographs record the events of the Civil War during 1864 and early 1865 as the war approaches its final hours. 1861-1865, vol. 5.

These images have been assembled from hundreds of sources, and illuminated with essays by the nation's finest Civil War historians. Nearly 4,000 rare and unusual photographs. Originally published 1981-1984 in six separate volumes as the series The Image of War, 1861-1865.

1861-1865, vol. 4.