Unforgettables: Winners, Losers, Strong Women, and Eccentric Men of the Civil War Era
Aug 2025 · Savas Beatie
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240
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About this ebook
"Culled from the author's three decades of researching and writing about the Civil War, this book provides vibrant accounts of many prominent people of the era. Readers interested in an introduction to a variety of Civil War personalities and American history will enjoy." — Library Journal Personalities. Characters. History. John C. Waugh, author of the award-winning The Class of 1846, presents forty of the most memorable and impactful people he has come across during his decades of writing about the Civil War—or as he calls them, his "Unforgettables." Waugh's unique pen and spritely style bring to life a mix of the famous and the infamous, the little-known, and the unremembered. He reintroduces us to Abraham Lincoln the writer, Jefferson Davis the losing president, and their fascinating and influential wives, Mary and Varina. Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster ("three for the ages") are juxtaposed with Presidents Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan—four chief executives who failed to avert the coming war. Military personalities include U. S. Grant and R. E. Lee, with a nod to their mentor, the nearly forgotten Winfield Scott. Waugh cast a wide net to include "the seekers of equality," African Americans Sojourner Truth and Lincoln's friend Frederick Douglass, a half dozen women like Maria Mayo, Kate Chase, and Anna Dickinson who helped shape our understanding of cultural issues, and media maven Horace Greeley and full-time Washington critic and pest, Count Adam Gurowski. Poet and political activist Muriel Rukeyser once wrote, "The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." She might have added that these stories are driven by the passions of their characters and are what history is all about. "My hope," explains the author, "is that these sketches and word portraits rekindle that passion and hook a few non-believers on the undeniable drama that is history."
About the author
John C. Waugh spent decades as a journalist and in Washington, D.C. on the staff of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and as press secretary for Senator Jeff Bingaman. He is the author of many books, including The Class of 1846: From West Point to Appomattox. Jack is the father of two children, the grandfather of four, and the great-grandfather of one. He and his wife Kathleen D. Lively live in Pantego, Texas.
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