Coming Soon from the Emerging Civil War Series: Calamity in Carolina!
The Emerging Civil War Series is getting ready to roll out its next wave of releases. We have a slew of titles nearing the final stages of development, and we’ll be offering previews over the next few days.
First up: The dynamic duo of Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt return with their latest, Calamity in Carolina: The Battles of Averasboro and Bentonville.
“As always, one of the most enjoyable aspects of writing the book was the opportunity to work again with Phill,” Dan says. “Beyond that, I enjoyed telling the story. Averasboro and Bentonville are often overshadowed by the fall of Petersburg and Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, both of which took place less than a month after these battles.”
Phill agrees. “The campaign that culminates with the battles of Averasboro and Bentonville is always overshadowed by the events happening in Virginia,” he says. “I loved being able to tell the story of these last engagements. There was a real desperation on the part of the Confederates to stop the Union advance, and on the Union side, there was real perseverance to strike that last major blow.”
Besides teaming up with “my great friend, Dan Davis,” Phill says a highlight of the book for him was “to get visitors to these battlefields.”
From the back cover of the book:
Robert E. Lee gave Joseph E. Johnston an impossible task.
Federal armies under Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman had rampaged through Georgia on their “March to the Sea,” and now were cutting a swath of destruction as they marched north from Savannah through the Carolinas. Locked in a desperate defense of Richmond and Petersburg, there was little Lee could do to stem Sherman’s tide—so he turned to Johnston.
The one-time hero of Manassas had squabbled for years with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, eventually leading to his removal during the Atlanta Campaign. The disgraced Johnston had fallen far.
Yet Lee saw his old friend and professional rival as the only man who could stop Sherman—the only man who could achieve the impossible. “J.E. Johnston is the only officer whom I know who has the confidence of the army,” Lee told Davis.
Back in command, Johnston would have to assemble a makeshift army—including the shattered remnants of the once vaunted Army of Tennessee—then somehow stop the Federal juggernaut. He would thus set out to achieve something that even had ever eluded Lee: deal a devastating blow to an isolated Union force. Success could potentially prolong the most tragic chapter in American history, adding thousands more to a list of casualties that were already unbearable to read.
Historians Daniel T. Davis and Philip S. Greenwalt, co-authors of Bloody Autumn: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 and Hurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor, now turn their considered gaze toward the long-forgotten battles of Averasboro and Bentonville. Written in the accessible style that has become the hallmark of the Emerging Civil War Series, Calamity in Carolina: The Battles of Averasboro and Bentonville includes more than a hundred illustrations, new maps, and thought-provoking analysis to tell the story of last great battles of the war in the West—which had shifted alarmingly far east.