DOC The Colonial Era: A Documentary Reader by From Paul G E Clemens in History

Description

Lew Wallace was first an Indiana lawyer whose leadership and talent for action won him fame in the Civil War. Brash; handsome and charismatic; he quickly rose from colonel of a volunteer regiment to major-general of a division. A popular hero in western Virginia and the capture of Fort Donelson; he later saw his military career nearly ruined at Shiloh; where a series of disastrous miscommunications delayed his division's arrival on the field. Embroiled in controversy; determined to return to the field; Wallace helped turn aside Confederate invasions of Kentucky and Ohio and was hailed as the savior of Cincinnati. In 1864; Abraham Lincoln made him a military governor in Maryland; where he seized an opportunity for redemption. Assembling a small Union force at an obscure railway point called Monocacy Junction; Wallace blocked Confederate General Jubal Early's path to Washington. Fighting desperately against long odds; he lost the battle but delayed Early's rebel army long enough to prevent it from seizing the capital-a sacrifice unparalleled in the history of the republic. Adapted from Lew Wallace: An Autobiography; published in 1906; this book offers the sights and sounds of the Civil War filtered through the memory of a keen-eyed romantic.