The definitive oral history of the battle that turned the tide of the Civil War that combines vivid first-hand accounts with rich historical narrative.

In late June of 1863, one month after his victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, head of the Army of Northern Virginia, invaded the North. He would cross the Potomac River and head towards Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with the goal of seizing the trains which would then take his army into Philadelphia and perhaps even New York City. He hoped that these victories would force U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to surrender.

As he pushed north, Lee was operating without his cavalry leader, J.E.B. Stuart, whom he had allowed to go on a useless scouting mission. At the same time, the Union army, now led by little known commander George Meade was tracking Lee and his men.

Both sides clashed at Gettysburg, a tiny Pennsylvania farm village on July 1 in what would be a three-day battle that would change the course of the war.

The battle would reveal the mettle of the unheralded Meade and would also call into question General Lee's reputation as a legendary commander when he unleashed the ill planned and ill prepared Pickett's Charge. The battle proved costly to both sides. Some 50,000 men were killed across the battlefield and the defeated Lee's army would never again invade the North.

After so much bloodshed, President Lincoln's history-making and eloquent Gettysburg Address came to embody the essence of the war. The address, not even three minutes long, is considered the finest speech ever delivered buy an American President and has been memorized by generations ever since.

Using letters, diaries, journals, newspaper articles, and other written sources, Bruce Chadwick has crafted another masterful oral history. Skillfully combining traditional historic narrative with the in-the-moment ethos of an oral history, Gettysburg: The Tide Turns brings this iconic battle to fresh and vivid life.

A good story, well told, of a sliver of life in Richmond, a small, elite-driven capital city in the young nation's most influential state. --Publishers Weekly

George Wythe clung to the mahogany banister as he inched down the staircase of his comfortable Richmond, Virginia, home. Doubled over in agony, he stumbled to the kitchen in search of help. There he found his maid, Lydia Broadnax, and his young protegé, Michael Brown, who were also writhing in distress. Hours later, when help arrived, Wythe was quick to tell anyone who would listen, I am murdered. Over the next two weeks, as Wythe suffered a long and painful death, insults would be added to his mortal injury.

I Am Murdered tells the bizarre true story of Wythe's death and the subsequent trial of his grandnephew and namesake, George Wythe Sweeney, for the crime--unquestionably the most sensational and talked-about court case of the era. Hinging on hit-and-miss forensics, the unreliability of medical autopsies, the prevalence of poisoning, race relations, slavery, and the law, Sweeney's trial serves as a window into early nineteenth- century America. Its particular focus is on Richmond, part elegant state capital and part chaotic boomtown riddled with vice, opportunism, and crime.

As Wythe lay dying, his doctors insisted that he had not been poisoned, and Sweeney had the nerve to beg him for bail money. In I Am Murdered, this signer of the Declaration of Independence, mentor to Thomas Jefferson, and Father of American Jurisprudence finally gets the justice he deserved.

The Creole Rebellion tells the suspenseful story of the bloody mutiny on board the slave ship Creole. Bound out of Richmond, Virginia, the Creole was seized in a violent takeover by its captives in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in November 1841. Sailing en route to a New Orleans slave-auction block, nineteen of the captives mutinied. Led by enslaved bondsman Madison Washington, the mutineers killed one man and injured several others. After taking control of the vessel, Washington forced the crewmen to redirect their course to Nassau in the Bahamas, then a colony of Great Britain, which had abolished slave trading eight years earlier. Despite much local hysteria upon their arrival, all of the 135 slaves aboard the ship eventually won their freedom.

The harrowing mutiny triggered a political firestorm that was unprecedented in American history. The United States and Great Britain rushed to the brink of war over the slave ship seizure, President John Tyler's presidency was nearly ruined over it, Congressional rules were overturned by it, and numerous public figures were wrecked while others were glorified. The revolt significantly fueled and amplified the slave debate within a divided nation that was already hurtling toward a Civil War.

Part history, part adventure, and part legal drama, historian Bruce Chadwick's The Creole Rebellion chronicles the most successful slave revolt in the pages of American history.

The Creole Rebellion tells the suspenseful story of a successful mutiny on board the slave ship Creole. En route for a New Orleans slave-auction block in November 1841, nineteen captives mutinied, killing one man and injuring several others. After taking control of the vessel, mutineer Madison Washington forced the crewmen to sail to the Bahamas. Despite much local hysteria upon their arrival, all of the 135 slaves aboard the ship won their freedom there.

The revolt significantly fueled and amplified the slave debate within a divided nation that was already hurtling toward a Civil War. While this is a book about the United States confronting the ugly and tumultuous issue of slavery, it is also about the 135 enslaved men and women who were unwilling to take their oppression any longer and rose up to free themselves in a bloody fight. Part history, part adventure, and part legal drama, Bruce Chadwick chronicles the most successful slave revolt in the pages of American history.

During the late nineteenth century, magazines, newspapers, novelists, and even historians presented a revised version of the Civil War that, intending to reconcile the former foes, downplayed the issues of slavery and racial injustice, and often promoted and reinforced the worst racial stereotypes. The Reel Civil War tells the history of how these misrepresentations of history made their way into movies.

More than 800 films have been made about the Civil War. Citing such classics as Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind as well as many other films, Bruce Chadwick shows how most of them have, until recently, projected an image of gallant soldiers, beautiful belles, sprawling plantations, and docile or dangerous slaves. He demonstrates how the movies aided and abetted racism and an inaccurate view of American history, providing a revealing and important account of the power of cinema to shape our understanding of historical truth.

A good story, well told, of a sliver of life in Richmond, a small, elite-driven capital city in the young nation's most influential state.

--Publishers Weekly

George Wythe clung to the mahogany banister as he inched down the staircase of his comfortable Richmond, Virginia, home. Doubled over in agony, he stumbled to the kitchen in search of help. There he found his maid, Lydia Broadnax, and his young protegé, Michael Brown, who were also writhing in distress. Hours later, when help arrived, Wythe was quick to tell anyone who would listen, I am murdered. Over the next two weeks, as Wythe suffered a long and painful death, insults would be added to his mortal injury.

I Am Murdered tells the bizarre true story of Wythe's death and the subsequent trial of his grandnephew and namesake, George Wythe Sweeney, for the crime--unquestionably the most sensational and talked-about court case of the era. Hinging on hit-and-miss forensics, the unreliability of medical autopsies, the prevalence of poisoning, race relations, slavery, and the law, Sweeney's trial serves as a window into early nineteenth- century America. Its particular focus is on Richmond, part elegant state capital and part chaotic boomtown riddled with vice, opportunism, and crime.

As Wythe lay dying, his doctors insisted that he had not been poisoned, and Sweeney had the nerve to beg him for bail money. In I Am Murdered, this signer of the Declaration of Independence, mentor to Thomas Jefferson, and Father of American Jurisprudence finally gets the justice he deserved.

Offers the story of the Dodgers, true originals of the game of baseball, with the sort of crowd appeal commanded by no other American team. Among the players and memorabilia covered in the book are Jackie Robinson, Leo the Lip Durocher, an usher's cap, a snuff box and Sandy Koufax's bat.

Here is the story of the fateful marriage of the richest woman in Virginia and the man who could have been king. In telling their story, Chadwick explains not only their remarkable devotion to each other, but why the wealthiest couple in Virginia became revolutionaries who risked the loss of their vast estates and their very lives.

One of George Washington's secret weapons in his rise to power and immortality was the extraordinary woman he married. The story of the half-century-long married love affair of George and Martha Washington is truly inspiring. --Willard Sterne Randall, author of George Washington, A Life

Chadwick puts a more human face on Washington by creating a very detailed portrait of how he and the outgoing Martha lived: their food, their slaves and servants, their health, their furniture, their daily life together.--USA Today

PRAISE FOR 1858

Highly recommended--a gripping narrative of the critical year of 1858 and the nation's slide toward disunion and war...Readers seeking to understand how individuals are agents of historical change will find Chadwick's account of the failed leadership of President James Buchanan especially compelling.

--G. Kurt Piehler, author of Remembering War the American Way

Chadwick's excellent history shows how the issue of slavery came crashing into the professional, public, and private lives of many Americans...Chadwick offers a fascinating premise: that James Buchanan, far from being a passive spectator, played a major role in the drama of his time. 1858 is a welcome addition to scholarship of the most volatile period of American history.

--Frank Cucurullo, Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial

As 1858 dawned, the men who would become the iconic figures of the Civil War had no idea it was about to occur: Jefferson Davis was dying, Robert E. Lee was on the verge of resigning from the military, and William Tecumseh Sherman had been reduced to running a roadside food stand. By the end of 1858, the lives of these men would be forever changed, and the North and South were set on a collision course that would end with the deaths of 630,000 young men.

This is the story of seven men on the brink of a war that would transform them into American legends, and the events of the year that set our union on fire.

This revealing new portrait of James and Dolley Madison introduces the reader to America's first power couple. Using recently uncovered troves of letters at the University of Virginia, among other sources, historian Bruce Chadwickhas been able to reconstruct the details of the Madisons' personal and political lives.Chadwick argues that Madison was not a boring, average president, as other historians have characterized him, but a vibrant, tough leader-and a very successful commander in chief in the War of 1812.He contends that Madison, the architect of the Constitution, owed much of his success to the political savvy of his charismatic, much younger wife, whose parties and backdoor politicking make for remarkable stories. And Dolley, through her many social skills, created the dynamic role of First Lady that we know today.Despite their glamorous lifestyle, behind the scenes, the Madisons struggled with family drama: James and Dolley's constant funding of their charming but sociopathic son's misadventures ultimately led to their own financial ruin.Blending the personal and the political, this is a fascinating profile of a couple whose life together contributed so much to the future course of our nation.

How a young general shaped a nation -- a fascinating account of George Washington as he faced a war and came out as America's first president

The American Revolution was won not on the battlefields, but through the mind of George Washington. One of America's founding fathers, Washington's story is one that influenced how our entire nation was built. A compulsively readable narrative and extensive history, George Washington's War illuminates how during the war's winter months the young general created a new model of leadership that became the model for the American presidency.

Through hardships, loss, and the brutal conditions of war, Washington led his men with cunning and grace, demonstrating the strong and endearing qualities that led him to become America's most beloved patriot.

The untold story of the drama, controversy, and incredible political genius of Lincoln's first presidential campaign

In May of 1860, Republican delegates gathered in Chicago for their second-ever convention, with the full expectation of electing William Seward their next presidential candidate. But waiting in the wings was a dark horse no one suspected, putting the final touches on a plan that would not only result in a most unexpected candidacy, but the most brilliant, innovative, and daring presidential campaign in American history. He went by the name of Lincoln.

Lincoln for President is the incredible story of how Lincoln overcame overwhelming odds to not only capture his party's nomination but win the presidency. His amazingly modern strategy included the first media campaign blitz, convention tactics that originated the concept of Chicago politics, and a deft manipulation of the electoral college. His bold tactics changed forever the way presidential campaigns are won...not to mention the course of American history.

PRAISE FOR BRUCE CHADWICK

Triumvirate:

Dr. Chadwick tells an exciting story... His analysis will provoke further debate about this momentous period in American history.

Dr. Paul Clemens, Chairman of the Rutgers University Department of History

In this remarkable new book, Bruce Chadwick reminds us of the three extraordinary men who worked state by state, individual by individual, to ensure passage of the Constitution. It's a fascinating tale, well told.

Terry Golway, author of Washington's General and Ronald Reagan's America

1858:

This book is a gem.

Curled Up With a Good Book

A gripping narrative.

Kurt Piehler, author of Remembering War the American Way

The First American Army:

To understand the Revolutionary War, really understand it, read this book.

Dave R. Palmer, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (Ret); author of The Way of the Fox

George Washington's War:

Chadwick pierces the fog of myth that has always surrounded our nation's father.

Michael Aaron Rockland, professor, Rutgers University

This is the first book that offers a you-are-there look at the American Revolution through the eyes of the enlisted men. Through searing portraits of individual soldiers, Bruce Chadwick, author of George Washington's War, brings alive what it was like to serve then in the American army.

With interlocking stories of ordinary Americans, he evokes what it meant to face brutal winters, starvation, terrible homesickness and to go into battle against the much-vaunted British regulars and their deadly Hessian mercenaries.

The reader lives through the experiences of those terrible and heroic times when a fifteen-year-old fifer survived the Battle of Bunker Hill, when Private Josiah Atkins escaped unscathed from the bloody battles in New York and when a doctor and a minister shared the misery of the wounded and dying. These intertwining stories are drawn from their letters and never-before-quoted journals found in the libraries belonging to the camps where Washington quartered his troops during those desperate years.

This bestselling title has been extensively revised and updated to provide an accurate statistical portrait of the American family as it exists today. Data collected from federal and state government agencies, Gallup polls, professional journals, and research are presented in a single, easily accessible format. Nearly 350 graphs, charts, and figures are provided. The second edition reflects the changing demographics of the American family. Among the issues receiving new or expanded coverage are the amount of time husbands spend doing household tasks, the concept of equal pay for equal work, parents' interaction with children, child abuse, household income, and fathers' participation in child care.