Gary Dennis Gallagher

Historical images of Robert E. Lee and his lieutenants have been shaped to a remarkable degree by former Confederates, who in reminiscences and other writings constructed the Lost Cause interpretation of the conflict. They portrayed Lee as a perfect Christian warrior, Stonewall Jackson as his peerle...

The Battle of Gettysburg exerts a unique hold on the national imagination. Many writers have argued that it represented the turning point of the Civil War, after which Confederate fortunes moved inexorably toward defeat. Successive generations of historians have not exhausted the topic of leadership...

No Civil War military campaign has inspired as much controversy about leadership as has Gettysburg. Because it was a defining event for both the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia, the debates began almost immediately after the battle, and they continue today.Three Days at Gettysb...

The Maryland campaign of September 1862 ranks among the most important military operations of the American Civil War. Crucial political, diplomatic, and military issues were at stake as Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan maneuvered and fought in the western part of the state. The climactic clash ...

More than 60,000 books have been published on the Civil War. Most Americans, though, get their ideas about the war—why it was fought, what was won, what was lost—not from books but from movies, television, and other popular media. In an engaging and accessible survey, renowned Civil War hist...

Was the Confederacy doomed from the start in its struggle against the superior might of the Union? Did its forces fight heroically against all odds for the cause of states’ rights? In reality, these suggestions are an elaborate and intentional effort on the part of Southerners to rationalize the sec...

Even one hundred and fifty years later, we are haunted by the Civil War—by its division, its bloodshed, and perhaps, above all, by its origins. Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary Gallagher shows in this brill...