BLUE ACORN PRESS CATALOG OF CIVIL WAR BOOKS |
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8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry By Franklin Sawyer |
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On April 16, 1861, the Norwalk Light Guard, an independent militia company commanded by Captain Franklin Sawyer, was ordered to Camp Taylor at Cleveland, Ohio. Assigned to Company D of the three-month 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, these volunteers soon re-enlisted for three years and witnessed their captain quickly rise in rank to major and lieutenant colonel. From May 1862, Sawyer led the regiment during Colonel Samuel S. Carroll's absence at brigade command, taking it through the maelstrom at Antietam, where it lost 162 men -- more than half its number. Here General Edwin V. Sumner dubbed the 8th and its sister regiments the "Gibraltar Brigade," in recognition of their determined defense of the battlefield's Bloody Lane. Engaged at both Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the 8th's most important service came at Gettysburg, when it was ordered to clear and hold an exposed position just west of the Emmitsburg Road between the Bryan and Bliss farms. During the next 26 hours it staved off three attacks by superior numbers, the final assault coming from Pettigrew's troops in support of Pickett's division. Of 209 men present for duty, 102 fell as casualties, including Sawyer who received a scalp wound. Following Pettigrew's repulse, three Confederate flags were retrieved by members of the 8th as trophies. Later in the summer of 1863 Sawyer led his war-weary veterans to riot-torn New York City as part of the army's occupation force. The change of duty was short-lived, however, and the troops soon were back in Virginia for the fall campaign along Mine Run. During these operations, Sawyer was wounded a second time. General U.S. Grant's spring offensive of 1864 placed the 8th in the midst of continued heavy fighting. In the Wilderness on May 6, Sawyer observed a charging Confederate line "cheering and yelling like yahoos. It was the famous rebel yell. ... On came the columns of Longstreet, dashing furiously into the abatis, when our artillery and musketry opened upon them like a tornado. Forward swept our line when the boys saw the struggling rebels in the bush, the woods and the abatis, routing them in every direction." Over the next seven weeks the 8th experienced its final campaigning at Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and Petersburg before muster-out at Cleveland on July 13, 1864. In three years of active duty the regiment suffered nearly 500 casualties, including 132 who were killed or died of wounds. Franklin Sawyer's history of the 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was written at the urging of fellow regimental members, and a decade's preparation resulted in the final work, which provides a wealth of detail concerning the regiment's service with the Army of the Potomac. This enhanced Blue Acorn Press reprint is supplemented with several appendices not found in the very rare, original 1881 edition, as well as 30 photographs and portraits of 8th Ohio personnel and their leaders. Hardcover with dust jacket, 290 pages with 30 additional pages of photographs, four appendices, regimental rosters. ISBN 1-885033-31-1. (Press run limited to 500 copies). Price: $35.50 |
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Yankee Tigers II
Civil War Field Correspondence
from the Tiger Regiment of Ohio
Edited by
Richard A. Baumgartner
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An illustrated collection of letters covering the 1863-1865
service of the 125th Ohio
Volunteer Infantry.
Featuring excerpts from the
previously unpublished diary
of Colonel Emerson Opdycke.
The 125th Ohio was among the most celebrated fighting regiments
raised in the Buckeye State during the Civil War. It earned the nickname
"Ohio Tigers" in the bloody battle of Chickamauga, and solidified its
reputation in the war's western theater at Missionary Ridge, Dandridge,
Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain (where the 125th lost nearly a
quarter of its effective strength), Peachtree Creek, Jonesboro, Franklin
and Nashville.
On November 30, 1864 at
Franklin, Tenn., the "Ohio Tigers" and their brigade charged headlong from
a reserve position to plug a breach in the Union line. "I ... never felt
the effects of exertion in battle half as much as on that occasion,"
confided Colonel Opdycke, but his regiment and brigade were credited by
many with saving the day. One of Opdycke's aides wrote: "The motto of
the 125th is 'A glorious victory or an honorable grave,' and it is a
common saying here in the 4th Corps that where 'Opdycke's Tigers' cannot
go, no other troops need try."
A compilation of letters
written by nine different regimental members, Yankee Tigers II
is illustrated with 57 photographs (many never before published) and ably
edited by historian Richard A. Baumgartner, author of Buckeye Blood:
Ohio at Gettysburg. It is a companion piece to Yankee Tigers:
Through the Civil War with the 125th Ohio, published by Blue Acorn
Press in 1992.
Softcover, 295 pages, 57 wartime
photographs, notes, appendix, bibliography & index.
ISBN 1-885033-32-X
$20.95
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Echoes of Battle
The Atlanta Campaign
By L.M. Strayer & Richard A.
Baumgartner
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An illustrated compilation of Union and Confederate
narratives
by combatants who participated in one
of the
most important campaigns of the Civil War.
Winner
of the Richard B. Harwell Award
Rocky
Face Ridge, Resaca and New Hope Church. Pickett's Mill, Kennesaw
Mountain, Peachtree Creek, Ezra Church, Jonesboro: battles on Georgia soil
in which thousands were killed, wounded or captured, and overshadowed for
decades by attention paid to the Civil War in the East. But the Western
Theater was equally important, perhaps more so strategically.
Using
hundreds of diaries, letters, journals, memoirs, official reports and
wartime photographs, Larry M. Strayer and Richard A. Baumgartner offer a
unique, realistic portrayal of Gen. William T. Sherman's 1864 offensive to
defeat the Confederate Army of Tennessee and capture the manufacturing,
supply and rail center of Atlanta. Echoes of Battle: The
Atlanta Campaign is a timeless tribute to the common
soldiers and their commanding officers who struggled four arduous months
for the city's possession.
First-person accounts from 285 different combatants bring this riveting
story into focus, and are further brought to life with more than 300
photographs, many never before published. The resulting presentation
provides a clear understanding of what it was like to carry a musket, live
in mud-filled ditches, scrounge for food and lose comrades in battle
during the war's final year. It is a companion piece to Blue Acorn Press'
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for
Chattanooga
REVIEWS
" Strayer and Baumgartner have put
together an outstanding collection of accounts, anecdotes and
photographs.... It will delight any Civil War buff. " - Small Press
Reviews
"This handsome folio-sized volume
makes for absorbing reading.... Echoes of Battle
is a very significant contribution to the history of the Civil War's
western theater. " - Georgia Historical Quarterly
" The journals, letters and written
accounts, supplemented with hundreds of vintage war photos, make for
lively coverage ... and are edited and organized for maximum impact. "
- The Midwest Book Review
" ... an excellent collection
[containing] much valuable material about the soldiers' food, sleeping
conditions, the vermin that plagued the men, the fatigue, the weather, and
other details about the soldiers' lot that helps to humanize the campaign
and makes it more meaningful to the modern reader. This well-edited book
is a highly commendable attempt to ensure that those who fought and
suffered will not be forgotten. " - Journal of Southern History
Softcover, 8-1/2" x 11" format, 361
pages, 301 wartime photographs, 9 maps, notes, bibliography & index. ISBN
1-885033-30-3.
Price: $33.50
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