1863: The Rebirth of a Nation [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Stevens, Joseph E.

Verlag: Bantam Books, New York, 1999

Beschreibung

Fine condition beige boards with gold spine lettering contained in a fine condition photographic dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication; Preliminary Page Quotes by Abraham Lincoln, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman; Prologue; Source Notes; Index and About the Author. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs and maps. "American history has never seen a more tumultuous or more significant year than 1863. It was a year unparalleled in our national experience: twelve months of searing brutality and ennobling sacrifice as the tide of the Civil War turned inexorably from the Confederacy to the Union; 365 stirring, dramatic days that forever changed our country, forever defined what it means to be an America. 1863. The year began with the Union Army demoralized, the Northern public weary of war and scornful of its president. The Confederacy seemed but a battle away from victory. On the bloody fields of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga, two nations struggled to define the American experiment. Yet by year's end, Lincoln had triumphed at the ballot box; Grant and Sherman had smashed the rebels on the battlefield. A nation that had months before been on the brink of dissolution was reborn and an astonishing political, economic, and social transformation unlike any in history had been accomplished. 1863 captures a watershed moment peopled by a remarkable cast of characters, brilliantly depicted by Joseph E. Stevens using personal letters, official documents, and rare photographs: larger-than-life leaders Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis; charismatic and controversial military commanders Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet, Joseph Hooker, Stonewall Jackson, George Armstrong Custer, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Avaricious young capitalists like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan ruled Wall Street, reinventing the economic landscape. In Boston, Ralph Waldo Emerson was emerging as one of the towering intellectuals of American literature. While amidst the terrible suffering and death of the war hospitals, Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott would become the moral conscience of their time. But here, too, are the stories of lesser-known but equally fascinating personalities: soldiers and civilians, slaves and slave owners, farmers and city dwellers, politicians, and profiteers, aristocrats and refugees. Their stories - humorous and harrowing, inspiring and appalling - make 1863 not just a sweeping re-ceation of events, but an unforgettable human tale. 1863 is popular history at its best - vivid, vibrant, immensely readable. Written with dramatic intensity and impassioned humanity, it captures what it was like to be alive in this remarkable time. Here are the battles that changed the course of the war. Here are the commanders whose choices shaped those conflicts and the foot soldiers who fought them. And here is the thrilling portrait of a nation which in its darkest hour nursed a spark of light that would guide us into the future. 1863 is the unique account of the pivotal year of the war that remains the central historical event in the life of our nation." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 008293

Bibliografische Details

Titel: 1863: The Rebirth of a Nation [FIRST EDITION...

Verlag: Bantam Books, New York

Erscheinungsdatum: 1999

Einband: Hardcover

Illustrator: Daddio, Jennifer Ann (book design); Brodsky, Bette (maps)

Zustand: Fine

Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Fine

Auflage: 1st Edition