Secret Lives of the Civil War What Your Teachers Never Told You about the War Between the States

Legendary Heroes of U.S. History—As You’ve Never Seen Them Before!

 

Secret Lives of the Civil War features irreverent and uncensored profiles of men and women from the Union and the Confederacy—complete with hundreds of little-known and downright bizarre facts. You’ll discover that:

 

     •  Mary Todd Lincoln claimed to receive valuable military strategies from ghosts in the spirit

        world.

     •  Jefferson Davis once imported camels for soldiers stationed in the American southwest.

     •  Ulysses S. Grant spent much of the Vicksburg campaign on a horse named “Kangaroo.”

     •  James Longstreet fought the Battle of Antietam wearing carpet slippers.

     •  William T. Sherman was the victim of two shipwrecks on the same day.

     •  Harriet Tubman experienced frequent and bizarre hallucinations.

     •  Stonewall Jackson was a notorious hypochondriac (he always sat up straight, fearing that

        slouching would compress his vital organs).

 

With chapters on everyone from William Quantrill (a guerilla leader whose skull later ended up in the basement of a fraternity house) to Rose O’Neal Greenhow (perhaps the South’s most glamorous spy), Secret Lives of the Civil War features a mix of famous faces and unsung heroes. American history was never this much fun in school!

The author of Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents (100,000 in print) and Secret Lives of the First Ladies (30,000 in print) is back with another bizarre look at history's most celebrated personalities. With Secret Lives of the Civil War, Cormac O'Brien unearths a host of strange, little-known facts about Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, and Harriet Tubman. He also introduces lesser-known people who changed the fate of our country people like:

Sarah Edmonds, who disguised herself as a man so she could fight in the Battle of Bull Run (the Civil War had a surprising number of women soldiers).

William Clarke Quantrill, a sociopath who fought in both armies, mostly for the pleasure of shedding blood.

And of course, Officer Ambrose Burnside, whose unique sideburns would later influence generations of Elvis Presley fans.

Complete with 30 dazzling portraits and illustrated maps, Secret Lives of the Civil War is a new look at one of the most fascinating chapters in American history.

Cormac O’Brien is the author of Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents and Secret Lives of the First Ladies. He lives in New Jersey.