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Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga

Edited by Matt Spruill

xv, 312 pages, 19 maps, 9 photographs, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles
Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-0596-5, $14.95 (t)

Book Cover ImageNot far from Chattanooga in northern Georgia, the Confederacy won one of its most decisive battles. This guide uses first-hand accounts to illustrate how this skirmish, only two days long, turned into one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War with 34,000--plus Union and Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, or captured.

Eyewitness accounts by battle participants make these guides an invaluable resource for travelers and nontravelers who want a greater understanding of five of the most devastating yet influential years in our nation's history. Explicit directions to points of interest and maps--illustrating the action and showing the detail of troop position, roads, rivers, elevations, and tree lines as they were 130 years ago--help bring the battles to life. In the field, these guides can be used to recreate each battle's setting and proportions, giving the reader a sense of the tension and fear each soldier must have felt as he faced his enemy.

"These guides are the most thorough, detailed, and accurate books of their kind. Indeed, they are unique. I have used them to lead guided tours of several battlefields, with great success."--James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Era of the Civil War

"I most highly recommend this important and valuable series of guidebooks."--Herman Hattaway, coauthor of How the North Won the Civil War and Why the South Lost the Civil War

"These guides bridge the gap between sound military history and battlefield touring literature. They can be enjoyed without ever leaving the easy chair or they can become indispensable companions on tramps over the scenes of the greatest engagements of the Civil War."--William C. Davis, author of Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour and former editor of Civil War Times Illustrated