Savas Beatie

The name Point Lookout conjures images of suffering and despair, a notorious Federal prison camp where thousands of Confederate captives endured unimaginable hardships. As the exchange cartel collapsed and relentless campaigns swelled Northern prisons beyond capacity, Point Lookout emerged in July 1863 as a grim solution. Officially dubbed “Camp Hoffman,” this sprawling 45-acre compound on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay opened in the shadow of Gettysburg and soon became the largest prison of the Civil War. By August 1865, more than 52,000 prisoners had crossed its gates, marking it as a cornerstone of the “second wave” of Union prison camps. In this meticulous and groundbreaking study Point Lookout, Maryland: The Largest Civil War Prison, author Robert Crickenberger reexamines Point Lookout with fresh eyes, peeling back layers of myth to reveal a more nuanced truth. While prison camps often fade into the background of Civil War narratives, overshadowed by the battles that filled them, Crickenberger brings Point Lookout into sharp focus. Challenging the traditional portrayal of guards as uniformly brutal and prisoners as mere victims, he draws on extensive, previously unpublished research to explore the complex experiences of both. Postwar accounts, steeped in survivor bias and “Lost Cause” rhetoric, have long dominated the story—until now. This thought-provoking work dismantles accepted assumptions, offering a balanced perspective that questions the validity of memoirs taken as gospel by earlier scholars. From the camp’s daily realities to its broader impact on the prisoner-of-war system, Crickenberger’s scholarship, based on extensive primary accounts, illuminates Point Lookout’s critical role in shaping not only the Civil War but also the future of American incarceration. A vital resource for historians and casual readers alike, this book uncovers an overlooked chapter of history with clarity, depth, and unflinching honesty.

The final days of the Confederacy saw a kaleidoscope of action in the Eastern Theater, with most Civil War historians focusing on the imminent demise of the Army of Northern Virginia. However, to both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, it was the inexorable advance of the Union armies up through the Carolinas in the spring of 1865 that dictated their final moves.William Tecumseh Sherman’s Carolinas campaign has long been overshadowed by the events in Virginia, even as the Confederates recognized it as the crucial, war-winning blow, and pitted a luminous array of their best generals—Johnston, Hardee, Hampton, A. P. Stewart, D. H. Hill, and others—against it. In this work, career military officers Mark A. Smith and Wade Sokolosky rectify the oversight with “No Such Army Since the Days of Julius Caesar,” a careful and impartial examination of Sherman’s advance up the seaboard now in paperback.After his largely unopposed “March to the Sea,” in March 1865 Sherman struck off again north, aiming to unite with Grant and crush Lee between them. The Confederacy in the Carolinas, however, was not yet finished. While Sherman rampaged through South Carolina, Confederate authorities gathered forces to resist him in its northern neighboring state.In North Carolina, the Rebels conceded their vast arsenal at Fayetteville, which the Federals destroyed, but under General Hardee prepared to receive Sherman’s host in the narrow corridor between the Black and Cape Fear rivers at Averasboro. With a number of untried units (former coastal battalions) plus a scattering of veterans in Lafayette McLaws’ division and Joe Wheeler’s cavalry, Hardee created a defense-in-depth reminiscent of four-score years earlier at the battle of Cowpens.At Averasboro, described here in intimate detail, Hardee arrayed his disparate forces into three lines that nearly fought Sherman’s veterans to a standstill until a flank attack won the day for the Union.Strategically, along with Braxton Bragg’s command fighting off a Union thrust from the coast, the battle of Averasboro provided time for Joe Johnston to assemble his forces and contest Sherman’s advance at Bentonville. Without Averasboro, there would have been no Bentonville.Meticulously researched and gracefully written, “No Such Army” explores a long-overlooked clash that had consequences beyond the gallant sacrifices of the men, who by then on both sides knew that the war was approaching its culmination.