"Although he took command of the Army of the Potomac only three days before the first shots were fired at Gettysburg, Union general George G. Meade guided his forces to victory in the Civil War's most pivotal battle. Commentators often dismiss Meade when discussing the great leaders of the Civil War. But in this long-anticipated book, Kent Masterson Brown draws on an expansive archive to reappraise Meade's leadership during the Battle of Gettysburg"--...

Nearly two-thirds of the Civil War's approximately 750,000 fatalities were caused by disease-- a staggering fact for which the American medical profession was profoundly unprepared. In the years before the war, training for physicians in the United States was mostly unregulated, and medical schools' access to cadavers for teaching purposes was highly restricted. Shauna Devine argues that in spite of the limitations, Union army physicians rose to the...

"Radical Sacrifice chronicles the life and military career of Union general Fitz John Porter, commander of the Army of the Potomac's Fifth Corps under George McClellan. A highly ranked graduate of the United States Military Academy, Porter rose steadily through the ranks during the Mexican-American War and subsequent military action in the West. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Porter became a favorite of McClellan, distinguishing himself in several...