True Stories of the Civil War. Joseph J. Millard

Аннотация:

TRUE STORIES OF THE CIVIL WAR collects true tales of the Civil War, meticulously researched by Civil War authority Joseph J. Millard. These classic works, all originally published in TRUE Magazine, are great reading for any Civil War buff! <P> "The Spy Who Saved the Union" – The tale of the amateur spy who single-handed wrecked the greatest treason conspiracy this country has ever known! <P> "Lincoln’s Shootin’ Fools" – The modern Pentagon wasn’t even a gleam in its parent’s eye when one of the world’s leading engineering firms figured out how simple it really was to win the Civil War. Then Commander-in-Chief, General Winfield Scott, issued his pronunciamento: “The muttle-loader is, has been, and always will be the American soldier’s prime weapon. Breech-loaders are not practical for military usage. They would spoil our troops by allowing them to fire too fast, thus wasting ammunition.” What that stupid statement did to an angry man by the name of Hiram Berdan is history, but not quite the kind of history they print in textbooks for juniors....” <P> "Heller on Horseback" – The chances are very good that Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest never said anything as stupid as “the fustest with the mostest.” What he actually did was win battles against impossible odds…and how he managed to win those battles is a thing we don’t usually talk about in polite Southern society. <P> "The Devil’s Errand Boy" – Lafayette Baker had every opportunity to become the most popular General on the Union side of the war. Then he created the U.S. Secret Service as a tool of spite and blackmail, and turned the assassination of Abraham Lincoln into a pointless mystery that will probably never be solved. Was he or wasn’t he paid for his sins by the same sinister clique that employed John Wilkes Booth?