Online Confederate Book Discussion Tomorrow

(Monday: March 23, 2020) Tomorrow I’ll have an online discussion about my book, The Confederacy at Flood Tide. I will be at the Civil War Talk chat room at 11:00 AM eastern daylight time. We will chat from our keyboards and not user voice or video.

The Confederacy at Flood Tide covers the period from June to December 1862 when the Confederacy came closest to winning independence. In addition to examining military developments from all three theaters, the book discusses diplomatic, political, economic and espionage factors. Copies are available through most bookstores. Signed copies are available from me at phil_leigh(at)me.com.

Online Book Discussion: The Confederacy at Flood Tide
Date: Tuesday: March 24, 2020
Time: 11:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Location: Civil War Talk Chat Room
Free Membership Required:* Get it here.

*After getting a free membership you can log into the Civil War Talk chat room. If you are not yet a member, register ASAP because all memberships must be approved as a way to avoid spam.

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Buy and sample my books at my Amazon Author Page

The Confederacy at Flood Tide by Philip Leigh
Trading With the Enemy by Philip Leigh
Lee’s Lost Dispatch & Other Civil War Controversies by Philip Leigh
Southern Reconstruction by Philip Leigh
U. S. Grant’s Failed Presidency by Philip Leigh
The Devil’s Town: Hot Springs During the Gangster Era by Philip Leigh

Book Update

(June 5, 2019) Thenceforth my best selling book, Southern Reconstruction, will be available in trade paperback and e-book versions only. It went through two hardback printings but is now sold out. (I have a few that I can sell personally if you contact me.)

Some readers may be unaware that I’ve authored six other books on the Civil War and Reconstruction. A synopsis for each, together with links to reviews of them, are available at the My Books page of this website. Two of the most original are The Confederacy at Flood Tide and U. S. Grant’s Failed Presidency. 

And I’m Modest Too. 😉

The Confederacy at Flood Tide distinguishes the book from the popular notion of the Confederacy at High Tide, which is generally associated with Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. But the story of the Confederacy’s most opportune time for winning independence during 1862 involved developments in Europe, Virginia, Washington, Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi and even Missouri and Arkansas.

Moreover, the Confederacy’s flood tide was not limited to military factors. It also swelled within the sectors of diplomacy, politics, and espionage. For example, the Confederacy never came closer to diplomatic recognition than in the autumn of 1862. After learning of the Union rout at Second Bull Run, in mid-September British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston was considering British mediation for a peace settlement that would recognize the Confederacy as an independent state. You can read the first chapter of The Confederacy at Flood Tide for free here. 

U. S. Grant’s Failed Presidency was released earlier this year and is my newest book. It examines the eighteenth president free from the hagiographic bias that has dominated Grant biographies during the past thirty years.

Given his acclaim for having won the Civil War, no leader was better positioned to reunite the country “with malice toward none and charity for all” as the earlier martyred wartime President Abraham Lincoln intended. Unfortunately, Grant put his own and Republican Party interests ahead of the country’s needs. Although he benefitted personally from eight years in the White House, his Administration was rife with corruption while his Reconstruction policies left the South impoverished and burdened with racial unrest for more than a century. A free online copy of the book’s Preface is available here.

[To learn more and support this blog visit My Amazon Author Page]

Presentation to Sarasota Civil War Roundtable

Tomorrow night I will be making a presentation on my Confederacy at Flood Tide book to the Sarasota, Florida Civil War Roundtable as detailed below

Presentation: The Confederacy at Flood Tide
Audience:        Civil War Roundtable
Date:                 December 13, 2016
Time:                7:00 PM
Location:         Adult Education Building
Grace Church
8000 Bee Ridge Road
Sarasota, Florida 34241

The first six months of 1862 provided a string of Federal victories in the West at Mill Springs, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Number 10 and Shiloh. In May, New Orleans fell, and Union General George McClellan’s army was so close to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, that the troops could set their watches by the city’s church bells. Washington anticipated an imminent Confederate collapse. But then the unexpected happened.

In June, Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia pushed McClellan’s larger army back to the James River. In Europe, Confederate diplomats sought international recognition for the Confederate States of America, which was became increasingly attractive as a growing shortage of cotton made the powerful textile interests anxious to end the war. Further tipping the balance, in July, the Confederacy secretly ordered two of the latest ironclad ships from England’s famous Laird Shipyard—the same yard that built the commerce raider Alabama. These steam-powered ironclads would be superior to anything in the Federal navy.

While the “high tide” of the Confederacy is often identified as Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the most opportune time for the Confederacy vanished seven months earlier, coinciding with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 and the failure of the secessionist states to be recognized as a sovereign nation.

On every battlefront and in the governmental halls of Europe, the Confederate effort reached its furthest extent during the second half of 1862. But with the president’s proclamation, battlefield reverses, Europe’s decision to reject Confederate diplomatic overtures and Britain’s decision to halt the sale of the ironclads, the opportunity for Confederate success ended. The Confederacy would recede, and the great battles of 1863 and 1864 only marked the Southerners’ tenacity and stubborn belief in a lost cause.

My Amazon Author Page

LSU Libraries Reviews My Latest Book

(November 1, 2016) Today’s Fall 2016 issue of LSU’s Civil War Book Review included this review of The Confederacy at Flood Tide.

The title is my fourth since 2013 and will be followed by a fifth next May. The preceding books are Lee’s Lost Dispatch and Other Civil War Controversies, Trading With the Enemy, and an illustrated and annotated version of Confederate Private Sam Watkins’s memoirs, Co. Aytch, which is Rebel vernacular for “Company H.”

Readers may learn more about each title at My Author Page at Amazon.