Civil War Regiments was created in 1988.

Just $2.99 each (reg. $12.95). One low flat rate shipping price regardless of how many you order.

We ask that you NOT use any coupons or points

for these because they belong to a separate company, and it is an accounting nightmare.

Click HERE to read all about how this got started, and what it is, and get copies while they last.**

** Covers may vary from the website.

-- 6 x 9 paperbacks, acid-free paper, laminated covers;

-- 96 to 192 pages each;

-- Long footnoted original articles, original maps, photos, book reviews, and each 4-issue volume is indexed.

-- Most are very low in stock (100 or fewer). Share the news. Thank you.

It's that time of the year when we redirect the 

NCAA March Madness hype into . . .

The 5th Annual Savas Beatie

Sweet Sixteen Tournament of Books!

Where authors square off head-to-head! Stay tuned for the following important dates:

Selection Sunday: March 19, 2023

(Competing books will be announced on Savas Beatie's FB page!)

The Sweet 16 Round: March 23, 2023

The Championship Round: April 3, 2023

This fun and exciting Sweet Sixteen event will take place on Facebook.

Like last year, we have a dedicated page for the 2023 Tournament. This page will be where you can find all tournament updates, polls, and SAVINGS!

Please click HERE to join!

The Maps of Spotsylvania through Cold Harbor IS HERE!

Brad Gottfried will SIGN your copy if you order by Tuesday, March 7, 2023. Limited supply. Hurry.

The Maps of Spotsylvania through Cold Harbor continues Bradley M. Gottfried’s efforts to study and illustrate the major campaigns of the Civil War’s Eastern Theater. This is the ninth book in the ongoing Savas Beatie Military Atlas Series.

The Second GETTYSBURG IN COLOR Volume

Has Been Approved and Arrives Here in May!

The Civil Wars of General Joseph E. Johnston, Confederate States Army

A tasty passage quoted from Dr. McMurry's new book. . .

"THE Confederates’ real problem in Mississippi in mid-May 1863 was not the defense of Jackson and Vicksburg or even the difficulties of communicating between Johnston and Pemberton.

The real problem was the mutually exclusive ideas held by President Davis and each of the two top Rebel generals in Mississippi: the Chief Executive’s refusal to give his commanders positive orders or even adequate guidance, combined with Pemberton’s absolute refusal—reinforced by his interpretation of Davis’s May 7 telegram (“To hold Vicksburg and Port Hudson is necessary to a connection with [the] Trans-Mississippi”)—to let go of Vicksburg, and Johnston’s desire to form a strong mobile field army, but his refusal to issue a peremptory order to do so.

This was the same problem that in a different form had surfaced at the Grenada conference in late December, and one Davis, Johnston, and Pemberton had left unresolved ever since."

--End of Chapter 7

Classic Reprints Right Around the Corner!

Note: We are your sole source provider. Our Classic Reprints will never be available on Amazon, or at a discount price through a wholesaler. No payment is needed to reserve a set. Cancel any time. No commitment. Email us if you have a SERIOUS interest. See the specific web pages for details.

This month, our Five Things column features Gene Thorp and Alex Rossino co-authors of The Tale Untwisted. This book was released last month. Here, Gene and Alex share not only FIVE facts, but a few additional bonus nuggets they discovered while working on this book.

Take it away, gentleman...

From Gene:

1.) Historians have often repeated as fact the following account of the moment McClellan received Lee’s Lost Order, “It was about 11:30 a.m., and McClellan was meeting with a group of local citizens regarding the Federal occupation of Frederick when his adjutant Seth Williams interrupted to hand him what proved to be the intelligence coup of the war.”

This statement, originally penned by Stephen Sears, author of Landscape Turned Red, is entirely baseless and is not supported by any primary sources or accounts. Our research shows that McClellan was either finishing up a consultation with Burnside in the eastern suburbs of Frederick or riding to the southern entrance of the town.

2.) Most students of the Antietam Campaign have heard that when McClellan was handed the Lost Order he either “threw up his hands and exclaimed ‘now I know what to do’ ” or “openly expressed his delight”, but do they know the source for both of those quotes? Neither are from Union men or Frederick residents.

The quotes or paraphrases come from Confederate General Robert E. Lee. After the war, when Lee was acting as the president of Washington College in Virginia, he became disturbed by an article written by D.H. Hill claiming that the loss of Special Order 191 resulted in a positive turn for the Confederate army. Lee channeled his outrage through two co-workers, clerk Rev. E. C. Gordon and professor William Allan, soon to be a literary champion in promoting the Lost Cause ideology.

Separately, but on the same day, Feb. 15, 1868, each man had a conversation with Lee about D.H. Hill’s article. Afterward, both men wrote down their recollection of what Lee said resulting in the two similar quotes above. Strangely, for such a dramatic moment so often highlighted by historians, there are no other accounts of this supposedly very public display of emotion.

3.) Maps for The Tale Untwisted were meticulously created with an eye toward obtaining the most accurate geography and troop locations possible. Base maps were constructed by utilizing modern geographic data such as roads, rivers, and towns. These features were then rolled back to follow historical 1862 routes, locations, and names. Next, diaries, regimentals, letters, telegrams, and Official Records were consulted to catalog troop locations, dates, and movements.

Finally, troop locations were plotted on the base maps to produce the most accurate and detailed maps of the Antietam campaign ever published.

SEE BELOW FOR AN ENLARGED SECTION OF ONE MAP:

Interview (continued)

4.) When McClellan was placed in control of the defenses of Washington on Sept. 2, he was practically blind to Confederate movements due to an extreme lack of cavalry. Pope’s horsemen had rendered combat ineffective after hard fighting during the Second Manassas campaign. Due to the prioritization of moving infantry from the Peninsula to reinforce Pope’s army, elements of only four Army of the Potomac cavalry regiments had arrived from the Peninsula. McClellan would not have enough cavalry to effectively challenge the Confederate horsemen on the field until after September 8—almost halfway through the Antietam campaign—when the remaining nine cavalry regiments finally landed in Washington.

5.) Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck’s accusation that McClellan’s army marched only six miles per day on average when pursuing the invading enemy is false and does not take into account any of the long and exhausting marches of his army from the end of the Second Manassas Campaign to September 5, 1862. Units like the Second, Fourth, and Twelfth corps marched 41 miles with little food, water, supplies, or rest in the time from the Battle of Chantilly to when they took up defensive positions in Maryland to block the northern approaches to the capital. One veteran surgeon of the Second Corps echoed the hardships of many when he recounted that his men “were without rations, and had had nothing to eat for three or four days.” Most campaign histories discount or ignore this challenging period when McClellan began the reorganization of the army while they were on the march. 

From Alex:

6) The first person Gene had to convince concerning the falsehoods spread about George McClellan's performance in Maryland was . . . me. We compared notes while I was writing The Guns of September, which is the Union sequel to my novel Six Days in September. This gave Gene the chance to explain to me where history as we've known it to this point is wrong. Once I saw the evidence the validity of his argument became obvious. McClellan had indeed moved faster and with more purpose than I'd thought. I knew then that we had to write this book.

7) Researching the historiography behind McClellan had "the slows" thesis proved to be almost as interesting as the history of the events themselves. I found that the condemnation of McClellan's performance started soon after he declared his candidacy for president in the 1864 election. Prior to this, criticism of McClellan had been largely limited to political and military circles in Washington, D.C.

The military commission investigating the surrender of the Harpers Ferry garrison to Stonewall Jackson then condemned McClellan for the defeat, giving Henry Halleck - the man truly responsible for the Harpers Ferry debacle - the opportunity to slander McClellan for marching only six miles per day. Several months later a muckraking journalist with deep Radical Republican connections named William Swinton then unleashed a series of printed broadsides that berated McClellan for all sorts of flaws.

These writings are where the myth arose that McClellan did not use the information in Special Orders No. 191 to his advantage. Swinton admitted in print that his purpose was outright character assassination, not objective criticism. Jacob Cox, a veteran of the Maryland Campaign, added the final piece of the story in 1900 when he published his memoirs using the Official Records. These volumes contain the "12M" version of Little Mac's "Trophies Telegram," which Cox interpreted as meaning that McClellan had wasted 18 hours before getting the army after Lee. Every critique of McClellan since then has simply rehashed these earlier condemnations.

Click here to preview this book. 

The Civil Wars of General Joseph E. Johnston, Confederate States Army: Volume 1: Virginia and Mississippi, 1861-1863, by author Richard M. Murry

The Tale Untwisted: General George B. McClellan, the Maryland Campaign, and the Discovery of Lee’s Lost Orders, by co-authors Gene Thorp and Alex Rossino

A Look Inside a Library . . . 

One of our most popular features: A Look Inside a Library continues with loyal Savas Beatie customer John Roos sharing his library photos and answering a few of our questions.

1.) How old were you when you got the Civil War "bug" and when did you begin collecting Civil War books?  I got the Civil War bug when I was 10 years old. My family and I visited Gettysburg on the advice of family friends. We entered the town and the first monument we saw on the way to the hotel was a small one of President Lincoln at the front door of the Wills House, on York Street. This monument has since been removed. While walking down Steinwehr Avenue, I stopped to read the monument to the 55th Ohio and it all started from there. It grew into a love and passion that brought my Dad and me on miles of expeditions to various Civil War battlefields.  Book collecting is a different story, I was not much of a reader in my younger days. Even with this growing bug in me for the Civil War, I just could not bring myself to read. This need to collect history books started when I was listening to a podcast called "The Civil War: 1861-1865, A History Podcast." They would recommend a book after each episode, and it would peak my interest. One book recommendation at a time snowballed into a full-fledged obsession.

2.) How many books do you have and how do you organize your library? That is a great segway into this question. Between my wife Sarah and I counting, the estimation is at 1200 books for now. However, this goes up weekly! There is still plenty of room on the shelves, my wife does remind me that we don't have any more room for new bookcases though! I am extremely picky and particular about my books. I am also very particular about protecting my books and how they are handled. 

I feel I organize my shelves in a unique manner. The majority of my collection is arranged in chronological order, although this is not an exact science. The first book on my shelves is 1491 by Charles Mann. From there it follows a timeline from Columbus, colonization, revolution, new nation, Jacksonian politics, expansion, Texas independence, growing tensions, then into the Civil War. The Civil War then continues the chronological order. Now when events happen simultaneously, or one small event happens within the timeline of a larger event, that gets tricky. A great example is when the ECW books split major campaigns into two books, like the Atlanta Campaign. I may have other books, about other topics, in between the two ECW books on Atlanta because they happen to fall during the same period. Another example is I put Vicksburg before Gettysburg because the siege of Vicksburg started first, yet I put Chickasaw Bayou in the 1862 section because that is when Chickasaw Bayou occurred, even though it is part of the Vicksburg story. It truly is a labor of love. Beyond the chronological order, I have biographies together, primary sources together, regional histories together like state and town histories during the Civil War, secondary unit histories together like Pula's 11th Corps two-volume set and The Bloody Fifth by Schmutz, then I have general histories like Noe's Howling Storm and Life in Civil War America by Varhola. I also have overall histories put together that run from Battle Cry of Freedom by McPherson to Life of Johnny Reb and Billy Yank by Bell Wiley. 

3. I have the most books on ________ , and the count is up to __about____.  It would probably come as no surprise that I have the most books on the Gettysburg Campaign. I have a total of 72 books on the Gettysburg Campaign. I am not sure any single moment in American history is even close to having the same shelf space Gettysburg does.

4.) If you had to pick a special favorite collectible/rare/special book in your collection, what is it and how did you come to acquire it? Before this past New Year's Day, this might have been hard to answer. My favorite special books are the entire 128 volume set of the Official Records. I was in contact with a widow on a Facebook Civil War book group, she was selling the set for $500. I debated it left and right and my wife could not figure out why because a few months earlier, I was willing to spend $2000 on the set, when my wife told me, "not yet!" Her husband had cherished this and she really wanted it to go to a home where they would get used. I still cannot believe I have the full physical set of the Official Records.

5.) I collect Civil War books because... I collect Civil War books for several reasons. The first reason is I just love having that information at my fingertips. I am not a digital type of person, I need a hard copy. Having all this info, even if I do not agree with the author, has been invaluable in my education journey, and for personal enjoyment. Another reason I collect these books, as well as a lot of pre-Civil War history, is because I always wanted to write a definitive study on American history. I would argue that every single step taken from 1492 to April 12, 1861, led to the Civil War. Finally, and this is a new one, my Dad would never want me to stop growing my studies. I found it hard to read after he passed away a few weeks ago. I promised him I would not stop reading and I won't break that promise to him.

It was another busy month of events for Savas Beatie authors, the hardest-working writers in the industry! Check out where they signed and presented their books.

Did you know you can bookmark our author event calendar?

Click HERE. 

On the road again, author Chris Bryan gave a presentation on his book Cedar Mountain to Antietam to the folks at the Frederick County Civil War Round Table.

Author Steve Cowie settled right in at the Cumberland Mountain Civil War Round Table last month. His book When Hell Came to Sharpsburg was well received among the room of nearly 150 members.

While in Illinois presenting From Arlingotn to Appomattox, author Charlie Knight was joined by Chicago Civil War President Kurt Carlson and Savas Beatie authors John Horn and David Powell.

Another Savas Beatie author visited Illinois last month for an event. The Lincoln Davis Civil War Round Table hosted Harold Knudsen and heard him speak on his book James Longstreet and the American Civil War. Pictured with the author is customer Larry De Maar.

This dashing duo Frank Scaturro (above) and Chris Mackowkski (below) are credited for co-editing a series of compelling essays compiled brilliantly in their recently released book Grant at 200.

Did you know we have excerpts posted on our website? Here are a few, and from now on we will have a list right here for you to view. Happy previewing!

Click here to read an excerpt from "No One Wants to be the Last to Die."

Click here to read an excerpt from General Grant and the Verdict of History.

Click here to read an excerpt from Gettysburg In Color: Volume 2.

Click here to read an excerpt from The Tale Untwisted.

Click here to read an excerpt from The Maps of Spotsylvania through Cold Harbor.

Click here to read an excerpt from Grant at 200.

The Battle of Seven Pines/Fair Oaks by author Victor Vignola

Gettysburg Reunion 1913 by author John Hopkins