About this item
Highlights
- At the very end of the War Between the States, seventeen commanders delivered farewell addresses to the men they had led through four years of hell during which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed.
- Author(s): Michael R Bradley
- 364 Pages
- Biography + Autobiography, General
Description
About the Book
At the very end of the Civil War, seventeen commanders delivered farewell addresses to their men. Those addresses are IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS because they show clearly what each side was fighting for.
Book Synopsis
At the very end of the War Between the States, seventeen commanders delivered farewell addresses to the men they had led through four years of hell during which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed. The seventeen include General Robert E. Lee, General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General William T. Sherman, Lieutenant-General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Major General George Gordon Meade, Colonel John Singleton Mosby, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles T. Trowbridge (U.S. Colored Troops), General Joseph E. Johnston, Major General Joseph Wheeler and Major General Robert F. Hoke.
Those eight Confederate and nine Union addresses are important documents in American history because they show clearly what each side was fighting for.
Historian Michael R. Bradley has given us exciting narrative history researched in minute detail on the seventeen commanders, their units, battles and last words to their men. If you love history, it does not get better than this.
--------- from the Prologue by Gene Kizer, Jr.
The Prologue alone is worth the cost of the book, as is the Introduction, in which Dr. Bradley conclusively punctures the Single Cause Myth. Confederate and Union commanders speak from their hearts after four years of bloody struggle. Bradley's mini-biographies, of each commander, add a huge amount of depth to the work. The Last Words is worthy of a historian of the first rank, which Dr. Bradley clearly is. It should be on the bookshelf of every serious student of the Civil War. I give it my highest recommendation without qualification or reservation.
--------- Dr. Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., author of The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals: The Definitive Guide to the 426 Leaders of the South's War Effort, and over 40 other books including Bust Hell Wide Open: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Review Quotes
Michael Bradley's The Last Words is a compelling accomplishment in the endless task of saving our history from academic "cultural cleansing."
Those "Last Words" are the catalyst for a deeply reasoned and truly eloquent attack by Mr. Bradley on the practice of "Presentism" by the politicized crusaders of radical academia and their bedfellows in the "mainstream" media.
Any sane American knows at this point that we are "up against it." As always, there are no better weapons in this struggle than the clear, hard facts of history as it actually happened. This precise and wise book from Dr. Bradley and Charleston Athenaeum Press may be one of our generation's most timely calls to action.
----- Ben Jones is an actor, author, playwright, comedian, musician, and former United States Congressman from Georgia. He played the beloved "Cooter" in The Dukes of Hazzard.
Michael Bradley's book, The Last Words, is an important contribution to understanding the truth concerning the North's War to Prevent Confederate Independence. As Gene Kizer states in the Prologue, it is important to understand the viewpoints of those who were living at the time and who experienced the events. Anything else is "Presentism," or history twisted to conform to the politics of today. This collection of Farewell Addresses from men both North and South, will shed much light on the Truth, and dispel the Myth of American History concerning that tragic time.
----- H. V. Traywick, Jr. graduated from VMI in 1967. He is author of Starlight on the Rails: A Vietnam Veteran's Long Road Home, Empire of the Owls, Virginia Iliad, and several other books. He received a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam in the United States Army.
The United States' (previously!) most-revered academic institutions are leading a cultural insurrection whose goal is to completely overthrow the longstanding narrative of American history. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, for example, and even the U.S. Military Academy at West Point are working diligently to promote that goal. That sad fact is exactly why Michael Bradley's latest book, The Last Words (including Gene Kizer, Jr.'s brilliant Prologue, Setting the Stage), is so important. Bradley's seventeen "farewell" addresses by Confederate and Union commanders to their troops - their words reflecting their soldiers' service, sacrifice, motives and beliefs, spoken at the end of America's bloodiest war - represent a vitally important window into the past, a great start in exposing the lies and false assumptions promoted by today's academically-brainwashed legions of "identity politics." The only counter-weapon to the militant Left's culture-destroying attack on our history is to research, write and publish books like Michael Bradley's The Last Words.
----- Jerry D. Morelock, PhD, Colonel, U.S. Army, ret., Senior Historian/Senior Editor, Historynet.com