William Marvel: 11 books

Ambrose Burnside, the Union general, was a major player on the Civil War stage from the first clash at Bull Run until the final summer of the war. He led a corps or army during most of this time and played important roles in various theaters of the war. But until now, he has been remembered mostly...

Edwin M. Stanton (1814-1869), one of the nineteenth century's most impressive legal and political minds, wielded enormous influence and power as Lincoln's secretary of war during most of the Civil War and under Johnson during the early years of Reconstruction. In the first full biography of Stanton...

A portrait of a pivotal chapter in the Civil War, “featuring scheming politicians, bumbling generals, and an increasingly disheartened Northern public” (Brooks Simpson, author of Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822–1865).   In Mr. Lincoln Goes to War, award-winning historian William...

Focusing on the dramatic events of 1863, this is “a well-researched and well-written study that will be a fine addition to Civil War collections” (Booklist).   The Great Task Remaining is a striking, often poignant portrait of people in conflict—not only in battles between North and South,...

Few events in Civil War history have generated such deliberate mythmaking as the retreat that ended at Appomattox. William Marvel offers the first history of the Appomattox campaign written primarily from contemporary source material, with a skeptical eye toward memoirs published well after the events...

Although Appomattox Court House is one of the most symbolically charged places in America, it was an ordinary tobacco-growing village both before and after an accident of fate brought the armies of Lee and Grant together there. It is that Appomattox--the typical small Confederate community--that William...

A “full and insightful” account of the Civil War’s final year from the award-winning author of Lee’s Last Retreat (Publishers Weekly). Beginning with the Virginia and Atlanta campaigns of May 1864 and closing with the final surrender of Confederate forces in June 1865, Tarnished Victory...

Between February 1864 and April 1865, 41,000 Union prisoners of war were taken to the stockade at Anderson Station, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 of them died. Most contemporary accounts placed the blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of the Confederates who administered the prison or on...

On June 19, 1864, the Confederate cruiser Alabama and the USS Kearsarge faced off in the English Channel outside the French port of Cherbourg. About an hour after the Alabama fired the first shot, it began to sink, and its crew was forced to wave the white flag of surrender. Working with personal...

An account of how America’s greatest crisis began, by “the Civil War’s master historical detective” (Stephen W. Sears, author of Chancellorsville). This groundbreaking book investigates the mystery of how the Civil War began, reconsidering the big question: Was it inevitable? The...

Much has changed in US politics since the historic 2008 election. While the press covers the actions and agendas of the new administration, other impacts of this political shift have not received as much attention. These changes have forced the nation to rethink the necessary role of government, the...